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Every so often I get the urge to play with Nik Efex. I can’t help myself, it’s such a fantastic artistic resource for photographers. The above image, not to everyone’s liking I’ll agree, is a simply me throwing a straight image from a photoshoot back in 2019 (which seems an age ago now) and playing with options in Nik Efex. The app I used for this was Nik Analog Efex, a smorgasbord of effects such as film type, lightleaks, motion blur, frames, camera types e.g. toy, classic, vintage etc and a whole lot more. You can simply choose a set of presets e.g. Classic Camera or you can make your own camera kit. If you love to experiment with your images, you’ll get where I am coming from.
The image above uses just a couple of effects built using the Build Your Own Camera option, these being a classic camera, film type and light leaks. No need to over-egg the pudding, I liked the base image and just wanted to add a little interest. Besides, it’s good to keep your hand in with apps like Nik Efex or you forget you have them and more importantly, how to use them.
As I mentioned, this type of experimentation is like marmite, some will love it, some will hate it. It doesn’t much matter which camp you fall into as you’ve read this far so you must be interested! So, if you want to download and play with Nik Efex, you can. It can be had free from the DxO website by visiting https://nikcollection.dxo.com/nik-collection-2012/. Go get it!
