Messing around with Googles free NIK Collection

[Bytemrk]

As a general rule, I try not to over edit my images, but as I shoot in raw, everything goes through at least Lightroom and occasionally Photoshop, NIK or Topaz Denoise.

After I spent some time today at a steam rally - I thought it might be fun to see what I could do to a few images with some of the NIK tools... These things are crazy, free and even I can use them, which makes them easy to use too...

I started with this original image:

https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2017/03/531.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/SBq3Fq)
Workhorse of the past


I decided to see how easily I could make it look like an old original...

https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2017/03/532.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/SBq57S)
Workhorse of the past wet plate edit

What do you think?.... took at least 2 minutes! [bighmmm]


I'm not a huge fan of HDR... but thought i'd see where that took me too....

https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2017/03/533.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/SRa4B2)
Workhorse of the past HDR Edit


If you haven't already... download Googles free NIK collection and have a play..... very easy very powerful and at a perfect price [biggrin]

Google Nik Collection (https://www.google.com/nikcollection/)

[VladTepes]

Worth resurrecting, as its a good thing.

Google bought the NIK software back in I think 2012 and reduced the price from $500 to $149.
In 2016 they made it free.
it's no longer officially supported , but who cares.
It's great and works both as a stand alone and as a photoshop plugin.

SilverEfexPro is great .. :)

A great way to get impressive results and pay nothing !!!!

Analog Efex Pro: Applies film-era camera, lens, and film simulation to digital images.
Color Efex Pro: Package of filters that comes with many effects e.g. HDR effect
Dfine: Noise reduction
HDR Efex Pro: Specialized program for processing HDR pictures
Sharpener Pro: Image sharpening
Silver Efex Pro: Black & White conversion
Viveza: Color control with advanced functions to change contrast and saturation

[lebanon]

my favorite set of filters. I started working on my old digital photos and the results are far superior.

[Bytemrk]

I still love NIK... but sadly, Google has discontinued development and support for these great tools.....

Ultimately that means going forward they are unlikely to support proprietary raw files from new cameras.

How well it will interact with future operating systems and versions of Photoshop etc is a bit unknown too..[bigsad]

Google Abandons Its Nik Collection of Popular Photo Editing Software (https://petapixel.com/2017/05/30/google-abandons-nik-collection-popular-photo-editing-software/)


However It's not dead yet!.... so I'll keep using it...