Modern digital photographers have plenty of options for Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom plugins, including longtime personal favorite Tiffen Dfx. Following the release of version 4.0 in 2014, the future looked uncertain after the software was sold to Digital Film Tools, who were in turn acquired by leading visual effects publisher Boris FX last year. Despite changing hands, the heart and soul of Dfx thankfully remains intact under a new moniker.
Billed as “visual effects for photographers,” Optics 2021 retains everything that was great about Tiffen Dfx (including the intuitive user interface), infusing it with a liberal amount of the Hollywood magic Boris FX is known for. A standalone application that doubles as an Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom plugin, Optics offers 160 filter types across nine categories, each with a ton of one-click presets for thousands of potential creative possibilities.
