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Just had this flagged up by a mate.
https://plus.google.com/+NikCollection/posts/AFGsG2Di7EK
Photo enthusiasts all over the world use the Nik Collection to get the best out of their images every day. As we continue to focus our long-term investments in building incredible photo editing tools for mobile, including Google Photos and Snapseed, we’ve decided to make the Nik Collection desktop suite available for free, so that now anyone can use it.The Nik Collection is comprised of seven desktop plug-ins that provide a powerful range of photo editing capabilities -- from filter applications that improve color correction, to retouching and creative effects, to image sharpening that brings out all the hidden details, to the ability to make adjustments to the color and tonality of images.
Starting March 24, 2016, the latest Nik Collection will be freely available to download: Analog Efex Pro, Color Efex Pro, Silver Efex Pro, Viveza, HDR Efex Pro, Sharpener Pro and Dfine. If you purchased the Nik Collection in 2016, you will receive a full refund, which we’ll automatically issue back to you in the coming days.
We’re excited to bring the powerful photo editing tools once only used by professionals to even more people now. ?
I've no idea it the tools are any good but, hey, free so worth checking out.
Download links here:
https://www.google.com/nikcollection/
Nice, cheers for the heads-up.
The Nik Collection is very good! Especially Silver Efex Pro. Used to be quite pricey software.
Thank you Cougar.
Thanks Cougar
Thanks from me too.
I bought this a while ago on a good discount - glad I didn't pay full price! Nice stuff though.
Nice
Ive heard their software is very good, especially the Silver Effex. There must be a catch though right?
I use Nik software all the time, particularly Color and Silver Efex. I much prefer it to LR.
If this offer is genuine, then go for it, its great software.
Good spot cougar thanks for sharing. I seem to recall someone on here commenting that much as they liked the idea of Capture One its lack of compatibility with Nik Silver Effects meant it wasn't for him. Guess that rules me using it out also as it does appear to be a plug in for Adobe RAW converters and photo editing products.
Nice one - would not have wanted to pay full price for this, so free is ace.
Cheers Cougar - just downloaded!
The power of their tools is the U Point stuff, as featured in Nikon's Capture software until Google bought Nik and Nikon dropped the U Point feature from the new versions of Capture amongst many other useful things. I still use the older version.
Silver Efex is sublime. I paid top dollar for it back in the day before Google took it over and it was worth the money.
For free? No brainer - get downloading!!
Thanks!
Thanks for the psa op
I've just been having a quick play with Silver Efex, is every preset supposed to be black and white?
Great PSA. My mate paid good money for Silver Efex Pro a few years ago and swear by it for B&W conversions (yes Silver Efex is just B&W).
Nice one Cougar - oddly, I'd been toying with buying SilverEfx a while ago!
Cheers! Downloaded and installed... 😀
Anyone tried the sharpener program in this?
I can't see a way to open my pics with it 😕
Is it a standalone program or do you have to have Lightroom/photoshop?????
They're plug ins to go with programs, anyone know of a cheap way into getting something like photoshop?
If they're PS plugins, will GIMP recognise them?
pepper
Buy Lightroom because if you in a Windows environment and not using Lightroom you need slapping with a wet fish. 😀
And the plugins work with Lightroom.
I'm about to start editing 1346 image taken at Oulton Park in Lightroom I'll be done in an 1 - 1 1/2 hours Photoshop it would take days! Just saying 🙂
I just bought my first DSLR last month
I'm not really up on these programs at all
These free Nik Collection programs are just plug in to be used with something else?
If so what is a good program to learn editing on that will work with them?
Thanks
These free Nik Collection programs are just plug in to be used with something else?
Yes they are. You need one of the Adobe library programmes to run the plug ins.
Of those, probably the most obvious choice is Lightroom, which is ostensibly a RAW converter, i.e. a piece of software that will allow you to convert/process and edit RAW files.
Lightroom only really makes sense if you're shooting RAW. If you're not and you don't want to, then you can get other programmes as standalone entities that will do the same thing with a JPEG file as Silver Efex will do within Lightroom.
The one I have used and can recommend is DxO Film Pack. This is ostensibly the same as Silver Efex et al in that it adds default adjustments to images based on tonal/colour/grain responses of historic film stocks like Fuji Velvia of Kodak Portra. It does exactly the same thing as Nik/Silver Efex without the need to buy Lightroom.
Film Pack will also provide very basic adjustments and it will also do RAW conversion/processing but is just no where near as capable as LR.
Lightroom for Mac or something else?
Lightroom only really makes sense if you're shooting RAW
I use it with jpeg and haven't died yet
Works with Aperture on a Mac if you have a copy lying around.
It is possible to run the Nik software on its own, without Photoshop/Lightroom. Just find where it is installed, probably in C:\Program Files\Google\Nik Collection
Then there is a folder for each program, with an exe file for each. Some of them have a menu for File, Open, so you can load your photos. Others don't have a menu, but you can drag and drop your photo onto the exe.
Note the save button will overwrite your original photo, so probably best to make a copy beforehand.
Seems you can use the Shellout plugin for GIMP, which lets you load your images into the Nik software.
Good spot thank you!
I use it with jpeg and haven't died yet
Well tell me where you live and let's see if we can fix that.
The point is that if you're only shooting in JPEG then you've already done your raw conversion in camera and dispensed with most of the adjustment data making a RAW converter a bit pointless. If you're processing JPEGS in LR why not process RAW files and have much more control over the end result.