Car manufacturers are reporting that the chip crisis is easing (Source Autonews and Bloomberg). But those manufacturers are also premium buyers that are first in line to get new stock of chips. The truth is that US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo warned that the Global semiconductor shortage likely to last through 2023. Companies with smaller margins will only feel the end of the crisis in 2024.
I’m happy to see that DxO continues to develop and improve the Nik Collection. For years, I held onto the free version Google released, stashing the installer on various drives and laptops, lest I ever lost track of it and access to my beloved Silver Efex Pro. With Collection 5, the welcome interface refresh from last year comes to more apps in the suite. Now, all four creative arms—Analog Efex, Color Efex, Silver Efex, and Viveza—offer a consistent user experience. They also all include the ability to rename U-Points and add them to presets, making up for the somewhat inconsistent experience from Collection 4. We’re also glad to see some level of nondestructive editing in the suite. It’s not quite as convenient as Raw processing and this feature certainly requires a lot of space on your hard drive, but you may find the option to go back and make edits to an image worthwhile. The addition of batch processing can help speed up certain workflows, too. The suite continues to be a good pick for photographers who enjoy creative editing, and longtime users should appreciate that updates keep it going on newer systems. We’d love to see the developers pay attention to Apple Silicon for the next update, though I admit there were no hiccups with Rosetta 2 emulation when I tested the software on a Mac Studio. Support for Apple chips obviously doesn’t matter if you prefer working in Windows. We’re also glad to see some level of nondestructive editing in the suite. It’s not quite as convenient as Raw processing and this feature certainly requires a lot of space on your hard drive, but you may find the option to go back and make edits to an image worthwhile. The addition of batch processing can help speed up certain workflows, too.
