Nik Collection: Guide to Color Efex Pro 4

In this video, your trainer welcomes you and gives you an overview of what you can expect in this training session.

You can find out which settings you can change to work effectively with the program in this video.

Create your most frequently used filters as favorites to work as quickly and effectively as possible with Color Efex Pro 4.

View your work in detail using the magnifying glass and zoom in Color Efex Pro 4.

What have you changed so far? You don't need to leave Color Efex Pro 4 to compare your edit with the original image. And change the background color to see how your edited image looks on a white or darker background.

You can use the log to undo some of your editing steps. You can find out what is important here.

Combine multiple filters within Color Efex Pro 4 and save the combinations, adjust them and import new ones.

Would you like to know how to interpret the histogram in Color Efex Pro 4? And you didn't know that you can also display the brightness of the individual channels? Then take a closer look here.

Learn how to control brightness and color with the gradation curve. A simple, effective and incredibly versatile tool.

Let Color Efex Pro 4 show you what you can do with each individual effect. You can use these suggestions for inspiration.

The most exciting and valuable function in Color Efex Pro 4 is the control points. You can use them to apply the effects to individual areas of the image. And the type of "masking" is unbeatable in my opinion.

A targeted but very subtle change in color temperature and saturation is quick and easy with Brilliance and Warmth.

Remove color casts from your images and correct the contrasts. Fine-tuning colors and contrasts is very important, and with this filter it's totally easy and clean.

Enhance the color contrasts in the image. The filter can create washed-out areas. In this video, you will learn how to avoid this and why you should use the filter discreetly.

You have many setting options to convert your image to black and white. The slider for the filter color is one of your trainer's favorites. Let us show you and get to know the cool black and white conversion here.

Remove the color cast of an image with very, very few clicks or - if you are an artist - add color casts to the image.

Color the highlights with a different color than the shadows. This so-called partial toning is a super exciting way to create a color look.

A very subtle way of emphasizing structures and optimizing color tones (for example in a blue sky).

High key means that your image is very bright and sometimes even appears overexposed. This video also includes a photographic tip on high key.

In contrast to High Key, in this video you will learn what is important when editing a low-key image. This is extremely dark and looks very special.

Pictures taken in moonlight often have a soft glow. However, you don't have to shoot like this to create this effect on your images, you can also do it with Color Efex Pro 4.

Create a foggy effect. Unlike a simple white colored area, you will get a blurred effect on your contours.

As with the fog effect, you can also blur the contours, with the difference that the "white color area" is not added to the image.

In this video, you will learn about the many sliders that you can use to control the contrasts in the image. Among other things, Contrast Only has a slider that changes the brightness contrasts without changing the colors.

With the Detail Extractor, you can give your images an HDR-like (HDR = High Dynamic Range) look. You should not necessarily overdo the effects with the filter. Bring out the micro-contrasts and use the filter for really cool effects.

With Tonal Contrast, you can control the contrasts using the controls for highlights, midtones and shadows. An enormously effective filter that you should definitely try out.

The Dark Contrasts filter is perfect for dark images or character portraits. Bring out the dark details in your image and inspire the viewers of your pictures.

Another contrast filter for very strong contrasts. This filter is intended for rougher images.

Apply color gradients to your image to give your pictures a special color look. You can either use the templates or use your own colors - both options are explained in detail here.

You can use the filter to create a black and white gradient in the image to control the brightness.

Add noise to your images. This filter ages your image. Noise is very, very exciting, especially with black and white images.

With Polaroid Transfer, you can create blatant image defects. Use tonal breaks, textures and borders to make your images very special.

You can use this filter to trim your image to "old". There are also very good templates here that you can use to give your pictures a "Polaroid effect".

In this video you will learn how to add a border to your pictures. You have many different borders to choose from. The video also includes a special tip on how to lose hardly any image information despite the frame.

Vignettes are always a good design tool to draw the viewer's eye. You can remove existing vignettes or create black or colored vignettes and also place the focal point of your vignette in a targeted manner.

Thank you for watching the training. You can discuss Nik filters with other Nik Filter users and your trainer on Facebook. Search for "Nik Filter tips and tricks".