Google Nik Collection

[4wd]

Couldn't find anything mentioning it here so for those that like their image processing software, (eg. Curt ), Google Nik Collection has been available free for awhile.

Today we’re making the Nik Collection available to everyone, for free.

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.

Nik Collection



Requirements:

Mac:

Mac® OS X 10.7.5 through 10.10
Adobe Photoshop CS4 (CS5 for HDR Efex Pro 2) through CC 2015
Adobe Photoshop Elements 9 through 13 (apart from HDR Efex Pro 2, which is not compatible with Photoshop Elements)
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 through 6/CC
Apple® Aperture® 3.1 or later

Windows:

Windows Vista®, Windows 7, Windows 8
Adobe Photoshop CS4 through CC 2015
Adobe Photoshop Elements 9 through 13 (apart from HDR Efex Pro 2, which is not compatible with Photoshop Elements)
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 through 6/CC

[tomos]

For over 10 years, I happily used Photoshop 5.5 and a Nik plugin called sharpen edges.
It was very good, and avoided sharpening noise etc.

Have downloaded these but not tried out yet.

[Curt]

https://photo.stackexchange.com/questions/75907/can-the-nik-collection-be-used-without-photoshop-or-lightroom

Q:
So the Nik Collection is now available to download free of charge from Google. But can it be used standalone?

-----------------------

A:
Yes they can, but there are some significant caveats. Although they can be run alone, the plugins were not designed to be used as a standalone application.

If you have the folder with the executable file (NOT the plugin file) for a specific Nik suite plugin open on your desktop and drag a jpeg or tiff file and drop it onto the executable file (NOT into a window where you have opened the executable file) a window with the plugin will open with the photo loaded. Note that none of the Nik plugins support raw files. When you use Nik as a plugin the host application must convert the raw files to either jpeg or tiff before sending them to the Nik plugin.

If you installed the Nik plugins to the default location in Windows the executable (.exe) files for each module should be at the following location where each module's executable will be nested within the folder for that module. The executable for Color Efex Pro 4 will be found at "...Program Files--> Google --> Nik Collection --> Color Efex Pro 4 --> Color Efex Pro 4 (64-bit) --> Color Efex 4.exe"

You can drag multiple files and drop them on the Nik executable file and it will open with all of them loaded but only one visible. You can navigate from one to the next using the forward and back arrows but there is no way to view all of them in thumbnails.

Other than HDR Efex Pro 2 there are no menus in the top left corner! Proceed With Caution! Anytime you hit the Save button near the bottom of the window your original files that you dragged and dropped into the Nik module's executable file will be overwritten!!! It's a very good idea to make backup copies of your originals and use them instead!

Anytime you hit Save the changes will be written to the original file and then the window will close. To work on another file you will need to drag another file and drop it on the executable file. If you loaded multiple images you can work on each of them and then press the Save All button at the bottom and all of the files will be overwritten with the changes and then the window will close. Once again, if you have loaded multiple files and made any adjustments to them, when the Save All button is pressed all of them will be overwritten, not just the one currently displayed in the window.

The HDR Efex Pro Module does have a few menu options and you can open it in a stand alone window and load images using the "File --> Open Exposure series" command. You can also "Save As" (create a new file with the changes) or "Save" (overwrite the original file) in the HDR Efex Pro module.

With Nikon's Capture NX-D application you can also use the "Open with" option to have Capture NX-D generate a Tiff file with your current edits to an .nef file and send it to the Nik apps.

For more please see:
http://edknepleyphoto.com/2013/06/15/using-the-nik-collection-in-a-stand-alone-mode/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJzK-bOCRhM
http://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/3454174

[tomos]

Requirments:

"Adobe Photoshop CS4 (CS5 for HDR Efex Pro 2) through CC 2015"

I read in the comments on this dpreview page: Affinity Photo for Windows...,
that the google NIK Collection will work with Serif's Affinity Photo

https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/photo/

[4wd]

If you look in the Plugins folder before adding, you'll see a JSON file with two of the Nik plugins defined, the ones marked as working above.

[tomos]

If you look in the Plugins folder before adding, you'll see a JSON file with two of the Nik plugins defined, the ones marked as working above.

so do the others not work at all?

[4wd]

If you look in the Plugins folder before adding, you'll see a JSON file with two of the Nik plugins defined, the ones marked as working above.

so do the others not work at all?

They appear to work OK.

[tomos]

Presumed, but only nrecently made official:

We have no plans to update the Collection or add new features over time. Learn more about Nik.

https://www.google.com/nikcollection/

via Google officially takes Nik Collection off life support and announces it will no longer update the software
(imaging-resource.com)