DXO Labs have just announced version 8 of the NIK Collection, the 30 year-old set of programs that make up one of my favourite Photoshop add-ins.
There are a number of changes to the collection, but this article concentrates on one major change that I think makes the upgrade price worth it on its own. That is, the ability to share masks with Photoshop. This is two-way sharing – you can send masks you have created in Photoshop into the NIK Collection programs, and you can send masks created using the various NIK local adjustment features (control points, control lines, control polygons, luminosity masks and the new colour masks) back to Photoshop as well.
This introduces a lot more flexibility and work-flow options, such as using masks created with Photoshops advanced mask creation tools (Select Sky, Object Selection etc) in the NIK programs.
It must be noted that this new feature currently is only available for Photoshop, and not other host-applications, and for this new feature to be available in Photoshop the NIK programs must be invoked as Photoshop plugins rather than from the Filter menu.
This ability to run the NIK Collection as Photoshop plugins is also a new feature in version 8, and adds a separate dockable panel for each application that adds further ease of use.
Figure 1 shows the Photoshop Plugins menu, what the docked icons look like and shows an example of a couple of the dockable panels. In addition to the nine NIK applications, a dockable panel is also available for the NIK Preferences (shown in Figure 1).
Fig 1 - NIK Collection 8 Plugins
It is in the NIK Preferences panel that you turn on or off the ability to transfer masks from Photoshop to NIK. If the Send masks to plugin option is set to All masks then all masks in your PSD file will be made available in NIK, if it is set to Selected masks you will be presented with a dialog box (see figure 2a) where you can select the masks you wish to send to NIK. Please note that the masks are labelled using the layer names in your PSD file, so this is another good reason to name your Photoshop layers well.
Fig 2 - Sending Photoshop Masks to NIK
After applying any of the NIK presets or filters, in the local adjustments section you will now see a new icon that looks like a rounded rectangle with a downward pointing arrow. This is the Import Masks button (see Figure 2b), pressing this will present the Import Masks dialog where you can select the mask you want from those sent to NIK. Press the + icon next to a mask name to use that mask.
When you’ve selected a mask, it will be shown just like a mask you may have created with one of the NIK masking tools (see figure 2c).
To send masks you have created using the NIK local adjustment tools, use the Apply Options button that makes up the right hand side of the Apply button that is used to save your changes back to Photoshop (see Figure 3).
Clicking the right-hand side of this button shows an options menu, from this menu choose Include Plugin Masks to reveal the masks menu (see Figure 3). From this menu choose the masks you wish to send back to Photoshop or choose to send back a merged mask.
When you are returned to Photoshop you will find your masks created in NIK in the Channels panel (see Figure 3).
Fig 3 - Sending NIK Masks to Photoshop
I have found one “bug” in this new functionality, or at least one occasion where it is not working as I think it should. This is when you modify a Photoshop mask with the Density and/or Feather sliders. These modifications are not honoured, that is the mask is passed to NIK as if the Density = 100% and the Feather = 0. I have reported this to DXO via a support request, hopefully this will be fixed in a future release.
This article was first published in the June 2025 issue of Artists Down Under magazine.