Google Nik Collection is Now Free

[Canon Rumors Guy]

From Google:</p>
<p><em>Today we’re making the Nik Collection available to everyone, for free.</em></p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>We’re excited to bring the powerful photo editing tools once only used by professionals to even more people now.</p>
<p><strong><a href="https://www.google.com/nikcollection/" target="_blank">Download Google Nik Collection for free</a></strong></p>
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[Maui5150]

Thankfully I had bought a few years ago, and at an Education Discount... Still slightly perturbed that something I paid for is now free

 

[mackguyver]

You're Welcome!
-signed me and all of the others who paid for it

This is certainly an interesting development and is the exact reverse of Google's normal business model, but it certainly confirms that they bought Nik for their Snapseed mobile app, not the PC/Mac tools.

 

[Tahoejr]

Topaz Labs and many other filter companies are scrambling just a bit right now . . .

 

[jebrady03]

Sweet! DL'ing now

 

[neuroanatomist]

[quote author=Google]
The Nik Collection is comprised of seven desktop plug-ins...
[/quote]

Picking a nit, but it's rather sad when the communications department of a major corporation – especially one geared around knowledge access – fails to use proper grammar.

 

[bereninga]

I've never used them before. Do you have to use the different apps to do different things? It would so much easier to understand if it was all-in-one. I guess I'll just play around w/ it to see the strengths vs weaknesses of each app. Kind of annoying to have to open and close different apps to figure out what it does though.

 

[Maui5150]

[quote author=Google]
The Nik Collection is comprised of seven desktop plug-ins...

Picking a nit, but it's rather sad when the communications department of a major corporation – especially one geared around knowledge access – fails to use proper grammar.
[/quote]

Nice catch indeed. I is now far more edumacated then I has before. I does frequently missed used that darn fragment

 

[ooF Fighters]

Any reason to grab this in addition to my existing LR & PS programs?

 

[CapturingLight]

Having not used this software, I would like to know what features people find themselves going to the trouble to leave lightroom for. I have read many people singing the praises of this software over time.

As an aside I tried to search the form for "nik" but a lot of nikon posts come up instead. Not sure how to tell the search to look for complete words only.

 

[hkenneth]

How does this compared to VSCO?

 

[Canon Rumors Guy]

Silver EFEX Pro is worth the price of admission.

There is no HiDPI version of this software for Windows based computers with high resolution screens, these don't look right on my XPS 13 QHD+.

 

[searsie]

Wondering about compatibility with Mac El Capitan. Know there were issues.

 

[sdsr]

[quote author=Google]
The Nik Collection is comprised of seven desktop plug-ins...

Picking a nit, but it's rather sad when the communications department of a major corporation – especially one geared around knowledge access – fails to use proper grammar.
[/quote]

The OED disagrees:

"Comprise primarily means ‘consist of’, as in the country comprises twenty states. It can also mean ‘constitute or make up a whole’, as in this single breed comprises 50 per cent of the Swiss cattle population. When this sense is used in the passive (as in the country is comprised of twenty states), it is more or less synonymous with the first sense ( the country comprises twenty states). This usage is part of standard English, but the construction comprise of, as in the property comprises of bedroom, bathroom, and kitchen, is regarded as incorrect."

Note the distinction, and compare with what Google wrote.

This is worth a glance:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/feb/05/why-wikipedias-grammar-vigilante-is-wrong

 

[avbmenon]

it was always free for google employees! always loved it. now a large audience can use it for free! i always loved the hdr efex pro

 

[j-nord]

Thats cool this software is now free, I kind of figured it would happen eventually. I'm wondering what people use in the nik collection that they cannot do in Lightroom? I bought the nik collection about 2 years ago and put in several hours going through the software but couldn't find much that I couldn't recreate fairly easily in Lightroom. This announcement reminded me that I should give it another try.

 

[Tiderace]

Nik was developed by the most creative innovative and expert engineers and professional photographers who knew the science and art of photography. They were incredibly committed
and industrious and I for one am terribly saddened that this amazing group of people sold their
company to Google and then Google deserted them and this collection.

Even so, we as 25 years in the business of professional portrait, wedding, and landscape photography
find their collection THE most useful, brilliant and easily used programs to this day.

Google Please listen get these folks involved again and further this collection. It has huge potential, huge.

 

[darrellrhodesmiller]

its still an amazing set of plugins.. Define (noise reduction) is VERY good.. ColorFX is definately still in my workflow too. I just hope this means they havent given up on development and are just giving it away at this point.

 

[Pebbles]

This is a sure sign that they are sunsetting it. Will miss Contrast Pro when they finally kill it.

 

[Orangutan]

[quote author=Google]
The Nik Collection is comprised of seven desktop plug-ins...

Picking a nit, but it's rather sad when the communications department of a major corporation – especially one geared around knowledge access – fails to use proper grammar.

The OED disagrees:

"Comprise primarily means ‘consist of’, as in the country comprises twenty states. It can also mean ‘constitute or make up a whole’, as in this single breed comprises 50 per cent of the Swiss cattle population. When this sense is used in the passive (as in the country is comprised of twenty states), it is more or less synonymous with the first sense ( the country comprises twenty states). This usage is part of standard English, but the construction comprise of, as in the property comprises of bedroom, bathroom, and kitchen, is regarded as incorrect."

Note the distinction, and compare with what Google wrote.

This is worth a glance:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/feb/05/why-wikipedias-grammar-vigilante-is-wrong
[/quote]

+1

I was just about to post when I noticed yours.