The Nik Collection is Now Free

+Nik Collection by Google has announced that its entire suite of photo editing tools is now free. When I evaluated the suite in 2013 I found the tools to be interesting and useful, but I wasn't ready to pay the premium to augment my existing workflow. On the tests i performed from this Summer 2013 trip, I found Nik Color Efex particularly effective on the orange bark of giant sequoia trees. I'll definitely try it again to see if there have been further improvements since then!

#niksoftware #nikcollection #google #photography #landscapephotography

Originally shared by +Jeff Sullivan

Images from Sequoia National Park
"You cannot learn the message that these trees have for you in merely passing by. A day in their presence passes quickly, and with each moment you will be better able to appreciate their singular beauty and the miracle of their existence. To be in harmony with them, cast aside your worldly cares. In our battle for wealth we are prone to forget the real things of life, the things that cannot play us false."
– Herbert Earl Wilson, "The lore and the lure of the Yosemite" (1925)

I post-processed these in a trial copy of +Nik Software plug-ins for +Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. I used the Color Efex Pro 4 to further adjust a few images I had already take a pass at in Lightroom. So far it seems that the images can exhibit a little more color without taking on an over-saturated look. Some of the filters like Polarization can adjust complex areas of the photos much like dodging and burning in a darkroom, without a lot of tedious selection and masking work in Photoshop. So far, so good. I hope that I can find more time to play with this module and the others before my trial runs out in a couple of weeks!

In Album Nik Software Trial, April 2013