End of the road for the vestigial free Nik

[DanK]

I have never upgraded to the new, no longer free Nik filters because I make very little use of them. However, I do rely on a few of the filters for a specialized sort of image. Today I found that Nik had disappeared from Photoshop with the most recent update, so I reinstalled it.

First hint that something was amiss: the installer didn't find either photoshop or Lightroom. I had to add them manually. It installed over the old (identical) version.

I then tried using Color Efex on an image in Photoshop. It seemed to work, but when I clicked OK, the image wasn't saved; Nik just disappeared, putting me back where I was.

I searched online and found a posting saying that the old version of Nik will not work with the newest version of Photoshop--the behavior described was exactly what I experienced--but that it still works with Lightroom. So, I opened a random image in Lightroom, and indeed, it worked.

I'm not one of those who moan and groan about having to pay for software. The people who write it deserve to be paid. However, I use only 2 filters from the entire set (Tonal Contrast and Pro Contrast), and those only rarely.

Does anyone know of a good description of what those two filters actually do? If I can figure that out, I'll just emulate the adjustments. I suppose I could also do the Nik adjustments at the end separately in LR.

[xpatUSA]

<> However, I use only 2 [NIK] filters from the entire set (Tonal Contrast and Pro Contrast), and those only rarely.

Does anyone know of a good description of what those two filters actually do? <>

Found this, FWIW:

" ... The Tonal Contrast filter in Color Efex Pro lets you confine your adjustments to the Shadows, Midtones or Highlights only. ..."

https://www.lifeafterphotoshop.com/t...ntrast-filter/

Kind of like Luminosity Masking, not that I would dare suggest it. Presumably PS can do this:

https://patdavid.net/2011/10/getting...inosity-masks/

Also see:

https://digital-photography-school.c...olor-efex-pro/

I searched: "tonal contrast" NIK

[DanK]

Thanks. I had found the first of these. It definitely allows you to apply whatever adjustment it is to one of three tonal ranges. However, I think it's more than a simple contrast adjustment. maybe I'll create a test image for that purpose.

[xpatUSA]

Thanks. I had found the first of these. It definitely allows you to apply whatever adjustment it is to one of three tonal ranges. However, I think it's more than a simple contrast adjustment. maybe I'll create a test image for that purpose.

One link I saw also had a saturation slider.

Being retired with all the time in the world, I might be inclined to drop down from a does-everything-dialog to lower levels like masking, etc. ...

... but not as low as ImageMagick which is a command-line app with a kajillion options for each of it's many, many functions ...

[Manfred M]

Dan - My best guess is that the Nik Tonal Contrast and Pro Contrast seem to use Tone mapping algorithms, much like HDRI does. Some folks have complained that they don't particularly like Tonal Contrast because the images can take on an HDRI look,

I have tried a number of different techniques to try to emulate Pro Contrast, but have not come close enough yet. The Select Color functionality for highlights, mid-tones and shadow is a fairly good solution for Luminosity Mask, but really does not get me to the look Ted has suggested. I also use Detail Extractor (with a very light touch) occasionally as well.

Nik now automatically uninstalls any old versions of the plugins when updating to the latest version.

[DanK]

Yes, Ted, there is a saturation slider.

Leaving that aside, I think it's doing something more than straigtforward tonality adjustments. Manfred, you may be right that it's doing tone-mapping. I've read that it is also doing something related to local contrast, but I haven't tried to confirm that.

I'm away from my main computer now, but when I'm back, I may experiment some.

I never use Nik on images of most types. I use it only for images for which I want exaggerations of texture and saturation, which is very few images. For example, I find it's very helpful in adding texture to rusty surfaces. I'm not at the right computer to check, but I would be very surprised if I didn't use it on this one:

[billtils]

Dan

When I first used the original NIK it was as a stand alone as I didn't have a main editor that could run it as a plug-in. May be worth giving it a try - it would add a step or two to your workflow (export>edit>save and import) but you would have the functionality you require.

[DanK]

Bill,

Thanks. I hadn't thought to try that, so I just tried it with Color Efex. It opens as a stand-alone, but it seems it will now only open JPEGs, which I only use for posting.

Dan

[Manfred M]

it seems it will now only open JPEGs, which I only use for posting.

If it opens TIFF files, problem solved. Have you tried that?

Just as an aside, whenever NIK is updated, the old version is uninstalled. That is a relatively recent (past few years) addition to the installation software, if I remember correctly.

[DanK]

If it opens TIFF files, problem solved. Have you tried that?

Just as an aside, whenever NIK is updated, the old version is uninstalled. That is a relatively recent (past few years) addition to the installation software, if I remember correctly.

It only opens JPEGs.