Donald's Dancing Ears

[JohnC]

He's loving it... I think he may want to stay with you, Donald.

My neighbour was round for a coffee and photo chat this afternoon and was telling me about his interest in this NIK software programme telling me it wasn't necessary to buy the whole programme but just this part of it. .I'll get him round to look at this one and the others - also the ones in France I assume.

[Donald]

He's loving it... I think he may want to stay with you, Donald.

My neighbour was round for a coffee and photo chat this afternoon and was telling me about his interest in this NIK software programme telling me it wasn't necessary to buy the whole programme but just this part of it. .I'll get him round to look at this one and the others - also the ones in France I assume.

John

Your neighbour is right. Nik does offer all its packages as a bundle and do keep telling you how wonderful it is that you can start with one and work right through them all as part of your workflow. Well, they would, wouldn't they. However, you can buy them all separately and Silver Efex Pro (the B & W converter) is the only one I have.

I started with the original Silver Efex Pro (and that is what all the ones from Beaujolais were done with). I qualified for the free update to Silver Efex Pro 2 (SEP2) when it was launched at the beginning of the year. But, as my post above indicates, I have never been able to get it to work. The NIK forums site has about half the world furious that they can't get it to work and arguing strongly that NIK has really scored an own goal by publishing the new software without it having been fully tested. And the other half saying what an absolutely brilliant piece of kit it is. But there are a lot of disgruntled people out there. And a lot of us felt that NIK was in some sort of denial - knowing there was a big problem but not admitting it. To be balanced, Nik of course disagrees that this is the case. But I understand its engineers are working on it 'around-the-clock'.

With the benefit of hindsight, I'd always recommend people download the trial version to check that it will run on their computer, before deciding to buy.

I had my computer supplier here last week for a couple of hours really trying to work out quite a few problems I seemed to be having. Well, to cut a long story short and for reasons that I do not understand or can explain, I now have SEP2 working. It won't work via my copy of Elements, but I have it running as a stand alone, by right-clicking on the file and telling it to 'Open With' SEP2. And so far so good.

There is no doubt in my mind that it is a magnificent tool. The original SEP was hailed as the leader in the field. SEP2 is most definitely several steps up the ladder from that.

EDIT - Should also have added - Nik does very good webinars, some of which are saved and available as 'video on demand', on all its software packages. Its got very good tutorial staff and they also bring in external pros . I took part in a live webinar earlier today on getting the best out of SEP2. You just register to join, via here, and away you go.

[JohnC]

Thank you very much,Donald for taking all that trouble - I'll pass this information to my neighbour-he's from Glasgow and was an RSM in one of the Scottish regiments so I'm in good company. lol. He's retired now and when we have a cuppa on the patio, when we have a sunny day, I listen to his army days tales.

I have Viveza 2 (one of Nik's too as you'll know) and it's very good.

[Donald]

Thank you very much,Donald for taking all that trouble - I'll pass this information to my neighbour-he's from Glasgow

Hey - I've just spent the day in Glasgow. Tell him the sun was shining and Buchanan Street was going great with all the buskers

[JohnC]

I've passed that on,Donald.

[PhotoByTrace]

Such gorgeous ears! And the tongue says a lot for Donald's personality LOL. A great action shot... I especially like the burning in on either side of the path to draw the eye up along the path to the dog. Looks great.
I still have SEP, played with 2 and would like to upgrade but it will have to wait. Especially as I still struggle "seeing" the world in black and white... I love colour and find that there are very few photos that I've converted that I prefer the monochrome versions of, even when that has been my goal when taking the photo
Anyway.... a wonderful photo and glad to hear you got your software working (mostly).