Google Nik Collection

[TomD_Arch]

Anyone else planning to make Google Nik Collection part of their workflow? Why? Why not?

[TomasEsperanza]

Honestly, I'm not familiar with the product, but just Googled it. My initial thoughts are:

 

1) Is there any need?

2) Appending the name of any product with "Pro", just makes the integrity of the product more dubious.

 

However, if there is a really good reason to use a specific tool, I'm sure we all want to know about it.

 

I guess if people are not getting what they're looking for from their software, and they find that this is too good to ignore, they will be telling each other about it before long. Nothing I read so far, jumped out and said "this is what you need!". So if anyone here has used it, and it's not to be missed, do let us know

[Francisco Penaloza]

I use it from time to time, I started to using it when I felt that Photoshop didn't have a good HDRI tools, before they got bough by Google.

But with the latest releases of camera RAW, I been using it less for that purpose.

The good things that fitted my workflow, are:

Opportunity to adjust HDRI, then create a combo of adjustments and save them as preset, then is about one click and I get several images with the same look.

Also while working with brute force renderings on VRay and also Corona the de-noiser come very handy.

Contrast and detail extractor tools feel very robust. Of course someone may come and say you can do the same with curves. but I think some options give you more flexibility than curves and levels.

 

Personally when working on Lightroom I also have a few presets that can be apply very quick, that is a big plus when you have several photos to adjust.

 

At the end is other tool to make your life easier is some way. it is free now, you should try it and decide yourself, I bought it time ago kind of sad now to see it free. but oh well it's been useful to me.

My two cents.

[stefanostrika]

I've downloaded the Nik Collection a few hours ago and I've played with it on a few images. As far as I can tell the latest Camera Raw seems to be at least as good as this collection and probably better and more integrated. I don't think I'll be using it, maybe the denoising function is a bit better than what is available in PS.

Anyway, it's free so give it a try.

[John Dollus]

Anyone else planning to make Google Nik Collection part of their workflow? Why? Why not?

 

Nope. making an orphaned product part of your workflow is not the best business practice

[Jon Berntsen]

I use it and have been doing so for several years now. I only use a few of the templates there, but there are some that works pretty well, like the vignette, glamour glow, sunlight, color contrast, pro contrast and a few more. It's about trying different things quick, and ultimately achieving fast results. I like it and wouldn't feel good without. Sometimes it works by just showing me that my thought didn't work, so they I spent 10 seconds on it instead of 5 minutes with any manual techniques. Time is money.

[rogue3d]

Used it since 2010 before google acquired it for photography. Just started using it the past 6 months for renders. "Color Effects" (one of the tools) is great for managing subtle color changes. treating the composite render as a RAW file and editing in Color Effects, it's much easier to get contrast, adjust lights and darks, and color correct whites.

[Scott Schroeder]

Why would I want to mess with a plug-in that literally does what camera raw already can do? Why deal with a 3rd party that may or may not support this in the future? If Google decided that they stopped liking money, then you can bet that they do not see a future in this app.

[Jon Berntsen]

Why would I want to mess with a plug-in that literally does what camera raw already can do? Why deal with a 3rd party that may or may not support this in the future? If Google decided that they stopped liking money, then you can bet that they do not see a future in this app.

 

There's more to Color Efex Pro (NIK) what Camera Raw can provide, also throughout in the workflow. Camera Raw is something you preferably use before or after you do the "main work". Colof Efex Pro does it fast and simple, also without the need to "go to camera raw". Camera Raw means more steps, more tweaking. That is for me, when using somewhere about 100 layers with digital painting methods also in the workflow. Time is money. At least, there's my reason for using a plugin. People work different. But for me, it's like in AfterEffects. You don't "mess around" with it's native functions to make fire.

Edited April 6, 2016 by chroma

[rogue3d]

Why would I want to mess with a plug-in that literally does what camera raw already can do? Why deal with a 3rd party that may or may not support this in the future? If Google decided that they stopped liking money, then you can bet that they do not see a future in this app.

 

It's way more than Camera Raw. But Yes, I agree now that google has it and is giving it away, I'm concerned. This was an essential part of my photography workflow; especially for B&W work with silver effects pro. I paid $150 for this set of plugins in 2010.......upgraded later for additional money. Google has ADD and just fizzles out with way too many projects.

[Chris MacDonald]

Genuinely can't see anything there that can't be achieved within camera raw & photoshop.

[jasminepeterson]

I do not feel comfortable with Google’s approach to updating software without asking me first. Even if it takes an extra effort on my part, I check the Google/Nik site for updates and download them manually. If you have a Mac and want to prevent Google’s auto-updates, you can install a program called GoogleUpdaterUninstall which replaces the file that Google uses to check updates and starts them in the background.