Released in 2020, Optics is marketed as "visual effects for photographers."

The product is a rebranded version of DFT by Digital Film Tools, which Boris FX acquired in 2019, complemented with filters from Sapphire. Boris FX ceased the release of DFT in 2021. It is available as a standalone application as well as a plugin for Photoshop and Lightroom. The update is built on one of the new features from the 2022 release, which is the integration of the Particle Illusion particle generation tool from Boris FX. In Optics 2042, the ability to control the visibility of animated particles using Optics masks has been added.

Boris FX has also incorporated filters from their other products into Optics. New filters such as S_PrismLens and S_UltraGrain from Sapphire, the Magic Sharp sharpening filter, and five stylistic filters from Continuum have been added to Optix. There are over 100 presets available for existing Optics filters.

Optics 2024 is available as a plugin for Photoshop CC and newer, Photoshop Elements 2018 and newer, and Lightroom Classic. It's also available as a standalone application for Windows 10 and macOS 10.14 and above.
The cost of a new perpetual license is $149, and a subscription is available for $9 per month or $99 per year. One license provides access to both the plugins and standalone versions.