I am very disappointed with Dxo since they have not been able to integrate the Nikon collection with DxO photolab elite version. Something the Nikon software engineers already achieved in Capture NX2 over 10 years ago.
The anticipated integration was the main reason to buy DxO Photolab.But I am still using Capture NX2 with the older version of the Nikcollection, since it offers more functionality and supports saving the picture with the edits, so you can revisit them later.
Regards
Hugo
This is the reason, why I don’t consider the Nik Collection. To many separate applications. It’s a mess. Maybe PL3 will change this?
No more votes left for me but you have mine
It is highly unlikely it will be integrated in PL3, or even in the near to medium term. Maybe by PL 5 or 6, if ever.
Mark
Yet, it would be so easy to do so.
Think about Topaz and many more awesome solutions integrating nearly flawlessly with Adobe.
Viveza plus is already integrated into DXO-PL 2 with local control points.
I think we may differ on what integrated means. For it to be integrated, it would have to work on raw files directly from within Photolab like FilmPack does. FilmPack, which can also be run as a separate application, is also fully integrated into Photolab. For many of us, FilmPack’s integration is really a test case of what we eventually hope the Nik Collection might become when used with PhotoLab.
For any Nik applications to be fully integrated into Photolab there would have to be Nik related pallets available in Photolab with the ability to apply edits from those pallets directly to raw files. There would be no need to first convert raw files to tiffs or jpegs and export them to a separate application. Passing a converted raw file with edits applied from one application to another in a different format is not really integration.
You can also send a processed image from within Lightroom to Photoshop as a tiff file for futher processing and return that updated tiff back to Lightroom, but that type of handoff is not really integration.
From Wikipedia: “System integration is defined in engineering as the process of bringing together the component sub-systems into one system and ensuring that the subsystems function together as a system.” Perhaps that definition has changed somewhat over the years but, before I retired, when we integrated the functionality of multiple software applications together the intended result was seamless functionality that at least gave the impression to end users that they were running a single application.
Mark
As I said, Viveza functionality is already integrated into DXO-PL 2 in local control points which is probably why Viveza didn’t get upgraded to 4K compatibility. Is there anything that you can do in Viveza that can’t be done with local adjustments and it all works on raw?
I couldn’t agree more with you. This “full integration” claimed at the release of Nikcollection v2 was almost misleading. What DXO has done was basically replace the right click + “export to an app” with a button on the bottom of DPL. Seriously… Luckily for me, I didn’t bought it, I just used the trial version and noted that it still worked in the same old way…
I’m a wedding photographer, so after culling my images, I post process hundreds of shots in DXO. I can’t convert them in Tiff to apply a preset, it’s a waste of time in the workflow. For me, Nikcollection will remain an amusing but cumbersome plug in until it’s fully integrated to DXO and we can apply it to raw files.
It wont matter how hard DXO wants to sell Nikcollection to US by offering bundles with Nik + DPL. If their main goal is to create an instant cash machine with Nik, maybe it’s a success, I don’t know. But if they want Nik to become a real reference for post processing --> no way.
My 2 cents advice to DXO would be : don’t spend your money in creating new presets “in collaboration” with I don’t know who from an “Institute of Technology”. Instead, work on a real proper integration into DPL. You won’t suffering the comparison anymore with LR and C1 which can use thousands of third party presets (RNI, VSCO and others)
Unfortunately, fully integrating the Nik Collection would not only be a massive undertaking, but would probably make PhotoLab very cumbersome to use, and have a negative effect on performance. As an alternative, if the individual Nik apps could be modified to process directly against raw files using side files to save the edits, and the sidecar files could be shared by both Photolab and Nik apps, that might be a viable compromise. The big issue though would be the ability of the Nik apps to read and interpret the PhotoLab raw edits and for PhotoLab to be able to do the same for raw edits made in the Nik Collection.
Mark
I just downloaded and installed the trial of NikCollection.
The NikCollection button in PhotoLab Elite became active and I was able to use all the plugins.
Why is this a feature request?
From my perspective integration of the Nik Collection would be very different from exporting a raw file as a tiff to a separate application and then returning the updated tiff to PhotoLab. See my other posts above regarding what real integration would mean. I don’t consider exporting s file in a different format to another application as integration.
Mark
At the moment, when you hit the Nik icon, the RAW file is converted and a breakout window will appear (which is basically the NIK solution). This is no real (seamless) integration. 
That is correct. It will be a long time, if ever, before there will be true integration similar to FilmPack 5.
Mark
This integration is something I’ve had in mind since DxO bought NikCollection back from Google. But today’s DPReview test of PL4 made me look for a thread like this one before creating a new one.
In their review:
ViewPoint and FilmPack integrate into PhotoLab’s own interface, while the Nik Collection suite is accessed via a popup menu. On choosing a Nik plugin, PhotoLab exports your image as a TIFF file, and this is then opened in your chosen plugin. Since this takes you out of the Raw workflow and bakes in your prior PhotoLab edits, it makes sense to do it as a last step before final export.
How great would that be to have Nik Collection working as ViewPoint and FilmPack, i.e. remaining in the RAW workflow. I may be wrong, but maybe not so many people have bought the Nik Collection and that’s why this thread has not more upvotes?
Integrating the Nik Collection into PhotoLab like ViewPoint ot FilmPack is not likely to ever happen. Viewpoint and Filmpack together have a tiny feature set compared to all the Nik modules. What we could end up with would be a slow and cumbersome integration which would require a overall redesign of both PhotoLab and the Nik Collection apps to accommodate it…
My preference would be for DXO to modify the Nik Collection to support DNG files and allow PhotoLab to export DNG files to the Nik Collection. It would go along way towards end to end raw processing between the two apps.
I get your point about the DNG, if it can also save the history for later re-editing that could be a good workaround. But the neatest way to do it would still be a complete integration a la ViewPoint and FilmPack.
Have you considered how a complete integration would look or how it would work? They would still have to be discrete modules running within PhotoLab.
Mark
Yes, the same way there are discrete modules for VP and FP. It’s perfectly fine even if they are longer (in height).