By: Erik Vlietinck
Thu, June 10, 2004 - 8:07:00

nik Multimedia, the German developer of Photoshop plug-ins, only recently released the second version of its filter collection Color Efex. nik Multimedia gave me the opportunity to review Color Efex 2.0 Complete edition, which contains all available filters in one package. New in Color Efex 2.0 are 16-bit capabilities, advanced control panels, selective capability enabling you to "paint" an area with filter properties, TrueLight technology, and a series of Reflector filters that control and add light similar to conventional photographic reflectors. There's more, as you will see from this review.

The first thing that immediately becomes apparent when opening Photoshop CS with nik Color Efex 2.0 installed for the first time, is the palette that floats on the screen.This palette is what nik calls its “Selective mode” of the filter set. It enables you to apply filters to selections of an image. You can still apply the filters to the entire image by selecting any Color Efex filter from the Filter menu. The palette can be closed altogether and when you need it, be activated from the File > Automation menu. Only through the palette can you apply filter effects selectively. This works quite differently from what Color Efex used to do in the previous version. If you select a filter from the Selective palette, you will see a new layer being created, then the filter dialogue being opened. After tweaking your filter settings, you will click the OK button. The next thing that happens is your cursor changing into a brush.

This brush will be loaded with the filter effect, and you will paint the image areas that you want to apply the filter to. This is an extremely easy to use and efficient interface. It also works best with a tablet, which most professional graphics artists have anyway. All the brush settings that are available in Photoshop’s brush engine apply as well, i.e. size, pressure-sensitivity, etc. Only after have clicked the Apply button in the Color Efex palette will the effects be applied to the image layer. Effects can be cleared as well, by clicking a Clear button in the palette. An Erase button allows you to change your mind after having painted an area; it will erase the filter effect where you brush.

But there is more. The filter dialogue windows themselves have become more informative and more of an interface as well. The Preview can be toggled on and off, Controls can be reset, zoom levels can be adjusted, multiple previews are possible, an image histogram before and after filter can be shown, image information can be shown, four single-click presets can be saved, and previews can be real-time. The latter means that, on a fast machine, the effects become visible as you drag the sliders, not only after you have released them.

An Advanced panel enables you to set highlight protection levels and shadow protection levels. nik Color Efex 2.0 works with almost any file: 8-bit and 16-bit RGB, CMYK, LAB, and grayscale. It has a new feature called True Light which is a dynamic colour treatment system to provide better colour and light enhancements. True Light is designed to preserve the relationships between colours, contrast, and details in an image and provide more film-like images.

In the Selective palette, applying a filter can be done so the image layer itself is changed, but you can also create a separate layer with the effect, efficiently protecting your original from any changes.

There are now well over 30 filters in nik Color Efex 2.0 Complete. About half of those are traditional filters, which are filters that mimic conventional photographic processes. The other filters stylize your image. With those you can achieve some very spectacular effects without much effort. A number of black and white conversion filters were already present in the previous version of Color Efex, but version 2 adds an infrared filter (a coloured one is available too). Bi-colour filters are available which allow to set opacity, blend, vertical placement, and rotation. Soft focus and focus filters enable you to mimic the photographic light “halo” effect that you can achieve using traditional photographic tricks.

A Contrast filter which provides control over the contrast between selected colours within an image can be used to isolate and identify specific colours and the relationships of these colours. Cross-processing filters mimic the effect of using the technique where film is processed in the opposite chemistry of the film type. The Duplex filter is really a sophisticated duotone filter effect with control over colour, saturation, contrast and blur. The Dynamic Skin Softener softens skin and applies some intelligence to the process by only softening skin tones. The softening algorithm used in this filter was designed to reduce unwanted detail structures and yet preserve the characteristics and important details in the areas it affects, according to the excellent PDF-manual.

There are many, many other filters in the Complete Edition that I had the pleasure to test-drive. All of these filters, without an exception, are capable of producing very sophisticated effects. The quality of the output is very high, and the granular control the user has over almost every aspect of the filter enables you to achieve the best possible results, exactly like you want them. Some filters do require you to read the manual before starting to work with them. For example, I found out that the Foliage filter, which enhances foliage in an image, does indeed only work when there is foliage present in your image. If there is not, the filter will not render any clearly visible result. This shows how accurate these filters work.

In short, if you are in the market for a set of excellent Photoshop CS filters, take a good look at nik Multimedia Color Efex 2.0. They are probably the best filters money can buy.