End of Nik?

[DanK]

I'm sure some of you have seen this banner at the top of Google's Nik page:

The Nik Collection is free and compatible with Mac OS X 10.7 through 10.10; Windows Vista, 7, 8; and Adobe Photoshop through CC 2015. We have no plans to update the Collection or add new features over time.

I read today that some users are already experiencing compatibility problems with current software.

One can always hope that Google will see fit to sell the code and rights to someone who is interested in keeping it current and selling it to users. However, I'm not confident that this will happen. Years ago, I used ECCO, which was (and still is) the best personal information management software I have seen. The developer sold it to another company that then decided not to continue developing it, and they wouldn't sell it to anyone else. Dedicated users struggled for years to find ways to keep using it.

Tim Grey, http://www.timgrey.com/, has posted that he plans to post explanations of other ways to duplicate some of what Nik offers.

[george013]

I'm sure some of you have seen this banner at the top of Google's Nik page:



I read today that some users are already experiencing compatibility problems with current software.

One can always hope that Google will see fit to sell the code and rights to someone who is interested in keeping it current and selling it to users. However, I'm not confident that this will happen. Years ago, I used ECCO, which was (and still is) the best personal information management software I have seen. The developer sold it to another company that then decided not to continue developing it, and they wouldn't sell it to anyone else. Dedicated users struggled for years to find ways to keep using it.

Tim Grey, http://www.timgrey.com/, has posted that he plans to post explanations of other ways to duplicate some of what Nik offers.

The moment Google gave it away free was the end of that Nik software.

George

[paintingwithlight]

That's too bad... Nik is my go-to for quick edits if I don't want to mask off areas by hand...

Michael

[DanK]

That's too bad... Nik is my go-to for quick edits if I don't want to mask off areas by hand...

Michael

That's one of the features that I can't see how to duplicate with other software. Some other features presumably can be duplicated, but some will be very difficult, I suspect.

[paintingwithlight]

That's one of the features that I can't see how to duplicate with other software. Some other features presumably can be duplicated, but some will be very difficult, I suspect.

Yeah it's great for generating "email-quality" or "FaceBook-quality" images where, say, your kids are wearing hoodies and their faces are too much in the shadows. Click, drag out the radius of the circle and bump up the exposure. No masking.

Michael

[DanK]

Yeah it's great for generating "email-quality" or "FaceBook-quality" images where, say, your kids are wearing hoodies and their faces are too much in the shadows. Click, drag out the radius of the circle and bump up the exposure. No masking.

Michael

Be that as it may, I am talking about serious edits, not Facebook. I don't post photos to social media. I have at least 3 large prints on my walls that I ended up editing in part in Nik because it gave me a ready way to obtain effects I couldn't obtain, or couldn't obtain easily, without it.

No need to go into details. Those who use Nik for serious editing will know what they are going to lose. From past postings, I expect that a few people here will miss it much more than I do. We can hope that Google will sell it, but they seem always to acquire, not divest.

[loosecanon]

Yes, they have no support for 4K screens - NIK appears very small on my screen.

Maybe Google need to be reminded of the "Do no evil" motto - they took over a company and then decided to not continue the product development. They could make it open source so someone else could develop it.

[Shadowman]

Chances are the program will still work somewhat in the future, currently it is only compatible up to Win8 but I've been using it on Win10 for quite sometime; granted the 10 engine is very similar to 8.

[Mike Buckley]

For a frame of reference, Nikon Capture NX2, which was developed primarily if not entirely by Nik, was essentially discontinued three years ago shortly before Windows 10 was released. It works on Windows 10 though that was never promised by Nikon. Many people who know a lot more about this stuff than I do tell me not to be surprised if it works on at least the next several Windows operating systems.

[Black Pearl]

Yes, they have no support for 4K screens - NIK appears very small on my screen.

Maybe Google need to be reminded of the "Do no evil" motto - they took over a company and then decided to not continue the product development. They could make it open source so someone else could develop it.

Funny that because on my 5k screen it looks fine.

[JohnRostron]

I use Affinity Photo and most, but not all, of the Nik collection work. There are problems with the interface, but the output is as expected.

There have been suggestions from the Affinity community that Serif (publishers of Affinity) buy Nik from Google but I suspect that, as Dan and others have suggested, Google seems happy to let Nik die.

I have a couple of books on Nik software, one Nik Software Captured by Corbel and Haftel, the other Plug in with Nik by Batdorf. I looked for these on Ebay recently and they were on offer at £100 each! There is clearly still a demand for Nik.

John

[John 2]

I had Windows 10/Nik interface problems, specifically Silver Efex Pro and Colour Efex Pro which would fail to load consistently. There are fixes available on the internet that work which involve adding a couple of lines of code. It's not too difficult to achieve but the downside is that the boot times for the two plugins affected are slowed down slightly. The end results are as required though.

[Donald]

Silver Efex Pro is still the 'go to' software for the significant majority of professionals doing B & W work. It would be unimaginable for it to be lost to the industry. However, I suspect Google may not be aware of this, seeing it as just another 'toy' with which to play with photos taken at last night's drunken party.

ps I run it with Windows 10 with no problems whatsoever.

[Manfred M]

I have heard issues from a number of Mac users on another (closed) photographic forum that I belong to. Generally uninstalling and reinstalling the software seems to have worked for some, but not all of these users. Other than John's comment, I haven't heard of any issues from Windows users, so at this point, I wonder if this is more of a Mac issue than anything else. That being said, I use the Nik software as a Photoshop plugin only, so perhaps it behaves itself better than in a standalone mode.

I run all of the Adobe software and the Nik collection on a 2.5K screen. Adobe seems to have re-written their software with a 2K or 4K screen in mind, which means all of the "intermediate" screen sizes suffer from the icons being a bit too small or a lot too large.

Some of the people I know seem to be thinking of migrating to some of the Topaz solutions for some of the specific filters found in Nik.

[Donald]

Just another interesting comment re this topic.

Michael Freeman's new book is out (here). As he did in 'The Complete Guide to Black & White Digital Photography', ILEX, 2009, which I have long considered my B & W bible, he devotes a short chapter to Silver Efex Pro. It's the only specific software that he does this for. So he obviously still considers it the 'go-to' software for anyone seriously into B & W conversion work.

[paintingwithlight]

Manfred,

I just tried to "prove you wrong" by using Silver FX to edit a photo on my MacBook Air. Out of LR6 I tried to select Photo > Edit In > Silver FX Pro 2 for one photo but could not. For another photo there was no problem. The failure occurs when trying to edit .CR2 photos (Canon RAW) out of LR6 into Silver FX. When trying to edit a .NEF photo (Nikon RAW) there is no problem - the export to TIF and import into NIK is seamless. In this case it seems to me that the problem might be with LR and not with NIK.

Michael

[Manfred M]

Manfred,

I just tried to "prove you wrong" by using Silver FX to edit a photo on my MacBook Air. Out of LR6 I tried to select Photo > Edit In > Silver FX Pro 2 for one photo but could not. For another photo there was no problem. The failure occurs when trying to edit .CR2 photos (Canon RAW) out of LR6 into Silver FX. When trying to edit a .NEF photo (Nikon RAW) there is no problem - the export to TIF and import into NIK is seamless. In this case it seems to me that the problem might be with LR and not with NIK.

Michael

Michael - the problem that the people I know have been having the issues have linked it to both updates to their operating system and / or updates to elements of Adobe Creative Suite. Only a few Apple people are reporting the issue. Some have resolved it by manually relinking the Nik software, others were successful after they uninstalled and then reinstalled it. Some could not get it to work at all, but I don't know how computer literate they are.

The issue is that the issues are not consistent from machine to machine. The problem is that the software is not being supported by Nik, so no one is working on ensuring that it continues to work with the Adobe products and we should expect to hear more of these issues as there are updates to the OS and to the Adobe software.

[DanK]

I think focusing on the extent of current problems misses the point. The bigger issue is what is down the road from here. Once a firm stops maintaining software, it's just a matter of time before it stops working well. In the case of NIK, which many of us use as a LR/PS plugin, the problem is worse than just the accretion of changes to the OS; the plug-in is also vulnerable to changes in Adobe's software.

Some things that NIK offers are easily replicated with other software, at least approximately. However, some things are difficult to do with other software, and there is one function it has--the control point technology--that to my knowledge can't be replicated precisely with any other software. This is going to be a big loss to the photographic community, unless Google decides to sell it or give it away.

[John 2]

.................................................. .....

The issue is that the issues are not consistent from machine to machine. The problem is that the software is not being supported by Nik, so no one is working on ensuring that it continues to work with the Adobe products and we should expect to hear more of these issues as there are updates to the OS and to the Adobe software.

That seems to be on the nail Manfred. I have just loaded all the Nik plugins on my wife's computer and they all work perfectly when opened from the .exe application. She doesn't have the LR or PS loaded. I built both of our machines and they are essentially to the same spec (mine has more HDs). Reading around the internet, it seems to affect both PCs and Mac machines BTW and there seem to be two significant problems. Post loading the software, on some machines, the plugins don't link with the host programme but this is fixed by manually copying the plugins across. The second issue is that the four EFEX plugins - Silver, colour HDR and Analogue - freeze after opening. I have the first in Lightroom but I don't use it anyway. I have the second problem in Photoshop CC.. The Plugin freezes when opened in PS CC and if I try to open up a plugin from its .exe file, PS CC crashes altogether. Google's solution is to add code that effectively makes each EFEX plug in boot up in safe mode. It works as a solution but slows the boot time down. If anyone wants to use the fix it can be found at:

https://support.google.com/nikcollec..._topic=3002203

One further fact might be useful. There is a U Tube video which claims that the problem can be fixed by selecting "UK English" as the language in the set up option of each of the EFEX plugins. I made sure of this in loading the software on my Wife's machine and that might be why it works. My machine shows US English as being the selected language but if I try to change it in the plugin setup option, PS CC crashes. All the other setup options work. I ought to reload making sure that I select UK English in the download process but at the moment, I'm in a "..if it aint broke......etc." frame of mind because although slightly slower, my plugins are at least doing the job.

Wholly agree with your fears Dan. It's beginning to look as if it is only worth while investing in stand alone add on to PS and LR.

[Mike Buckley]

there is one function it has--the control point technology--that to my knowledge can't be replicated precisely with any other software.

I wonder if you're aware of Lightroom's very similar capability. I've tested it just enough to come to the conclusion that I could relatively easily migrate to that capability if Nikon Capture NX2, which has control point technology, stops working on my computer. Lightroom's Adjustment Brush, when used in both positive and negative modes and with the Auto Mask enabled, works very much like the control point technology.

See this for an explanation. The first message in that thread provides a link to a video tutorial and the other messages are the follow-up discussion. Notice that the thread was begun when Lightroom 5.7 was the current version, so I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the capability in the current version of Lightroom is even better. There also might be better video tutorials available now, as I have never looked for them.

EDIT: I've often read that ACR and Lightroom have the same engine, so this technology may also be available using ACR.

It's really ironic when people literally laugh upon learning that I'm still using Nikon Capture NX2, which was discontinued a few years ago and had not been upgraded for at least a couple years before it was discontinued; in other words, the software is a dinosaur. (It was discontinued because Google bought Nik, which caused Nikon to lose their license to include Nik's control point technology in their software.) The primary reason I use Nikon Capture NX2 on 100% of my images is because of its control point technology.

Though I've had the Google/Nik suite of software on my computer ever since Google dramatically reduced the price of the license (this was before they made it available for free), I've rarely used it. I've never tried anything other than Silver Efex Pro, but I used it enough to learn that all of the post-processing capability built into that software is just as easily done using Nikon Capture NX2. The only exception is the tool in Silver Efex Pro that analyzes the distribution of tones in an image using the Zone System developed by Ansel Adams.

Once a firm stops maintaining software, it's just a matter of time before it stops working well.

So true! However, I'm the kind of guy that doesn't worry about crossing the bridge until I get to it. So, I'm not worrying about the issue you bring to light. Google never provided any upgrades to the Nik Suite and as far as I know only provided one update. Yet it still seems to work fine on most computers especially when used as a plug-in to Adobe products.