Google announced on 3/14/2016 that you could get the full Nik plugin collection for free (at: https://www.google.com/nikcollection/)! It had been offered at $149 for the package so that made a pretty good deal! Note that a company named Nik created the software. Google purchased Nik on approximately 9/17/2012.
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| Superstition Mountains, Apache Junction, Arizona Processed with Adobe Photoshop and Nik Collection |
I have been mostly offline for a good number of weeks due to illness. Nothing horrible but it kept me inactive (I've had a sinus problem since December and had to have surgery to clear it up). In my down time - time that I haven't really shot any photographs - I have downloaded the Nik collection and have been learning it.
Prior to installing the Nik collection, I was pointed to a couple of photography web sites and YouTube videos that I really enjoy. They were great to watch while laid up taking care of my sinus. First, I started watching videos from "The Slanted Lens"(https://www.youtube.com/user/TheSlantedLens). I was searching for information on starting and running a photography business and found I enjoyed the sometimes quirky videos. They have a lot of information that seems to resonate with me and it's presented well in my opinion. I know that some people like different types of instructional videos but the ones I watched seemed like they were well thought out and presented by an adult.
Yep, I am a grumpy curmudgeon but I don't think it's for no reason. I am not fond of the current trends of not providing help or information about a product, the poor grammar, or the overall lack of professionalism. The Slanted Lens videos I watched did NOT have those problems.
Further, Jay P. Morgan pointed me to another web site that I also highly recommend, "F Stoppers". I especially enjoyed the videos with Elia Locardi who's landscape photography resonates with me and is the kind of photography I'd like to achieve. I suggest watching the "Critique the Community" with Elia as well as the "Behind the Scenes" of the making of the Landscape and Cityscape tutorials that they offer. I haven't purchased them myself (they're $300 each) but I'm tempted to.
I did find other videos offered by B&H Photography with Elia discussing post processing and that he, along with many others, like the Nik plugins for various editing functions over the standard Adobe functionality. I have heard about the plugins for some time and have been eyeing them but hadn't shelled out the money. When I heard they were free I couldn't wait to try them.
There are seven different plugins in the collection (you used to be able to purchase them separately):
- Analog Efex Pro - various effects to simulate film
- Color Efex Pro - many various effects ranging from subtle to over the top
- Dfine - noise reduction that many photographers prefer over Adobe
- HDR Efex Pro - HDR processing of multiple or a single image
- Sharpener Pro - actually two different processors - a "RAW" sharpener and an output (e.g. Display/Monitor or Print) sharpener
- Silver Efex Pro - one of the most popular black and white conversion processors
- Viveza - targeted tone and exposure control
The plugins all offer "control points" or "U Point" technology to allow you to control what part of an image is affected by a plugin. This is different than Adobe Photoshop where you control the affected area using masks which can be troublesome at times (like when selecting hair or trees). This same technology is in the Nikon Capture NX 2 software so I was already familiar with it and frankly, since I rarely use Capture NX 2 any longer, I've missed the "U Point" ease for controlling processing.
There are a lot of good videos on YouTube concerning using the collection, including videos put out by Nik itself (I'm not sure if they were done before Google bought them or after wards).
I find that they do offer a wider variety of processing than Lightroom. You might be able to do the same things in Photoshop but not as easily. I have used the plugins from both Adobe applications. I seem to prefer Photoshop because it seems more seamless, at least in operation. In Lightroom each time you open one of the plugins it generates a TIFF file to send to the plugin. When it does this you have options for the TIFF file, one of which is to set the resolution. I always set it to 300 DPI but it's not sticky so the next time I open a plugin I have to remember to set it back to 300 DPI. The Photoshop versions don't do this.
I too like the noise reduction on most of the images I've tried it on better than the Adobe version. It just seems better. And, you can target it if desired.
The HDR is great. I still wish you could do some things such as exclude an image from the stack without having to close the app and starting over. I use Photomatix too but I prefer the Nik tool. And you can use it to try to bring out detail in a single image (maybe Photomatix supports that but I've never tried it).
The Color Efex Pro is the biggie, though. You can modify your photograph in many different ways (there are 55 separate "filters") for simple correction and enhancement to very creative and distinctive processing.
I'm enjoying the presets and working with them to learn them. I'm not a huge Google fanboy but these plugins are great. The downside is that they're likely to not have any future updates or improvements but they do so much already that you can't easily do with the straight out of the box Adobe software that, for a while anyway, I'm very pleased and recommend getting them yourself!
The picture at the top of the page was processed using various Nik plugins.
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