Every Plugin From the Nik Collection Is Now Free

Every Plugin From the Nik Collection Is Now Free

Nik software is one of the heavy hitters in the Lightroom and Photoshop plugin world.  They are so big that in 2012, the company was bought up by Google. After Google's acquisition, they lowered the price for all the desktop plugins and made their mobile app (Snapseed) free of charge. Now, four years later, Google has decided to bring their desktop plugins into line with their mobile application by making all of them free.

Today we’re making the Nik Collection available to everyone, for free.

Photo enthusiasts all over the world use the Nik Collection to get the best out of their images every day. As we continue to focus our long-term investments in building incredible photo editing tools for mobile, including Google Photos and Snapseed, we’ve decided to make the Nik Collection desktop suite available for free, so that now anyone can use it.

The Nik Collection is comprised of seven desktop plug-ins that provide a powerful range of photo editing capabilities -- from filter applications that improve color correction, to retouching and creative effects, to image sharpening that brings out all the hidden details, to the ability to make adjustments to the color and tonality of images.

Starting March 24, 2016, the latest Nik Collection will be freely available to download: Analog Efex Pro, Color Efex Pro, Silver Efex Pro, Viveza, HDR Efex Pro, Sharpener Pro and Dfine. If you purchased the Nik Collection in 2016, you will receive a full refund, which we’ll automatically issue back to you in the coming days.

We’re excited to bring the powerful photo editing tools once only used by professionals to even more people now. 

This is great news for everyone that recently purchased the suite of plugins, and even greater news for everyone that has been wanting the plugins but never pulled the trigger on buying them. This does leave us all with a question, though: Will Google continue to develop these plugins? Or, when they say “focus our long-term investments in building incredible photo editing tools for mobile,” do they mean they will no longer develop the desktop applications? Either way, the entire set of plugins is already fantastic, so hit the link and get your copy up and running.

Jason Vinson's picture

Jason Vinson is a wedding and portrait photographer for Vinson Images based out of Bentonville, Arkansas. Ranked one of the Top 100 Wedding photographers in the World, he has a passion for educating and sharing his craft.

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52 Comments

This is a very interesting play on Google's part. Though I don't use these plugins on every image, I've been using Nik Soft for years, and have been happy with the results. When Google bough Nik, since I had purchased Nik Software in the past, Google was cool enough to give me the free update to all the apps when they acquired Nik, which I thought was pretty awesome.

I sure hope they don't stop developing the desktop apps. I know everything is going mobile, but I think at least for working professionals, we are not at a point yet where we have a solid workflow solely on portable devices. The time will come I'm sure

Now it's 150$ cheaper to follow along in your Photographing the world tutorial :D

This is exactly what came to mind for other people, but I already had it prior to this.

Just my Opinion: Since google did not promote the Nik Tools since they bought them and did not develop them any further till today, I don't think that they will develop them any further. They bought the technology for mobile, not to create a Business for Photographers. The Nik Tools are dead for years, they only maintained compatibility for newer OS. But it's nice to get them for free.

I'm curious about your ideas on developing the toolset further. They already feel so complete as is, so it's hard to imagine what could be added.

I agreee and personally don't know what they could do. But if the Nik Tools would be Part of a Business they would continually work on it. New UI, new Presets, new Ideas, it would be a must to attract new customers and get current customers to buy updates. But in my opinion we can clearly see that there is no intension to have a healthy business with the Nik Tools. I think they just wanted the Technology for their mobile strategy.

Dfine noise reduction now lags substantially behind more modern NR tools. DxO Optics Pro 10 is currently the king of NR, and it outperforms Dfine by a large margin.

It would be great to see a current noise reduction software shootout article. (hint for staff writers) Do you have a reference or just personal experience?

This is my personal experience. I used Dfine for 2-3 years before moving from Aperture to LR + DxO. Dfine is a nice streamlined tool that works with little intervention, and you can generate custom profiles for it that auto-apply according to EXIF. I found Topaz DeNoise even more effective, but requiring a great deal of intervention, so not suitable for high-volume work. DxO is zero-click simple (custom default profile) and magically effective. For a high-volume low-light Micro Four Thirds event shooter like me, it's a game-changer.

It's still a bit buggy for me, there are those kinds of updates I would welcome.

Cringing for everyone who bought it for Christmas..

they get a refund, so thats nice.

Nope only 2016. Christmas would be 2015

Years ago I loved it and used it for 85% of my pictures. Actually I create my own presets but for everyone who didn`t used it before I can recommend it, you can`t go wrong, it`s free.

Oh boy.
I gave them $300 before they bought Google... Or was it the other way around? I don't remember.
Anyway... Big Aperture fan here. When Aperture died, Nik died with it. VERY happily living with Affinity and MacFun since then.
AT

Hi, all.
I just wanted to know what the experience is like for the people who downloaded the 'free' software? Are there adverts or other hidden goodies Google is not necessarily telling us about?
Thanks.

Probably loaded with data mining hooks...

I've used programs like onOne and NIK in the past when i was beginning photography, and its a good way to play around and see what you like...

But as a professional i never use this anymore, photoshop can do everything these programs do and even better. Focus training your skills in photoshop is what my advice to all photographers is..

These plugin programs often make people create disgusting HDR-like images that just make me wanne puke..

There certainly is a place in the pro's toolbox for these plugins. AFAIK, Photoshop has no comparable noise reduction tools, and its UIs for making B&W conversions and merging to HDR are much more basic. In addition, while you might be able to replicate an effect with PS' built-in tools, plugins can get you where you're going quicker. With 2,000 event photos to deliver at the end of a week of shooting, plugins give me effects I wouldn't have time for otherwise. Also, the lousy results you dislike so much are the result of bad user choices, not the tools. I get very natural results from HDR Efex Pro 2.

You must think Elia Locardi isn't a pro then? His work flow is centered around this program. Ridiculous purest talk again.

i didn't say that when you use NIK you're not a pro.. I just said i don't use it anymore because i feel like it doesn't get me any further than photoshop does.

True... I have never seen a disgusting HDR image produced in Photoshop....

you have a point there, in the end it is about the user not the program like Jaques also said..

My issue is when I clicked the link... it did not say free... but 15 day free trial. Did I miss something?

I'm going to download it anyway and see if they want us to buy it in 15 days.

I experienced the same thing

Have there been really any updates to these recently? I use them at times, but can't recall they last time there were any noticeable updates.

Nope, I believe it's been 2 yrs since the last one

Downloading now....we'll see what they are good for.

It's pretty darn powerful. It'll take some time playing around time to get out what you will benefit from then.

Well as my current ultrabook only has a Celeron CPU I can't run PS, LR or any Adobe suite program. I process RAW files in Rawtherapee which is a simple RAW processing program. This July I should be getting a decent computer again so I have to wait till then to try these plugins out :(

I am a little annoyed that they are doing this, but i do use it all the time, does anyone have some thing just as good that they can recommend

Yes, if you use a Mac. It's the Creative Suite and Aurora HDR from Macphun. This software is written just for Mac's.

and if I dont use MAC, sorry i am a PC man, I know I know the shame, but i love my PC

Wait! Just because its free now. You're not going to use it anymore? WTF?

I didnt say that, i use it all the time, i am just annoyed that i spent money on it and now its free, and i am wondering if there is anything else out there just as good or better. Since i have ONLY used Nik all this time since it came out, and now its free, some one thinks the updates are going to stop or something along those lines and i would like to have my options open if this is true, since the things will be moving forward and Nik might not keep up. You work for them?? it seems you got a little heated about my comment, sorry if i upset you Kyle Medina, I am just trying to keep up with the tech. But i still love Nik

no didnt say that, i just want to know if there is something just as good or better if google decides not to up date or support it any longer. I been using it for the longest and i love it. You work for them? you sound a little upset i said that , I am just trying to keep up

My Lord! Have photographers gotten so jaded that free software is released and all we do is doubt if it's still good or relevant next year? Free software people! Who cares if Google will support this in the future.
It is worth it even if it helps you in one step of your workflow.

When Apple made OSX revisions free, people cried that Apple no longer took their investment seriously.

Who cares about updates as long as something is free?

What a story! Did you know about Win 10? It does`t work together!

No one takes Win10 seriously. Win7 FTW.

I'll give up 7 when they pry it from my cold dead hands.

I'm gonna buy a new laptop in June and I think that if it comes with Win10 I'll get a copy of 7 for it.

Strange, I've been running it on W10 since the summer and it does everything I ask of it..

Windows 10 crashed my whole thing i had to redo everything from scratch.

It's still practically unusable in Photoshop with a 4k monitor though. The ui doesn't scale up the way PS does, or the way it does in LR. The fact that it's now free suggests that Google aren't going to bother doing much with it anymore.. :-(

This is a great software toolkit for post processing. Too many fabulous things you can do with it, and it’s easy and intuitive to use.

Hope the development doesn’t stop now it’s free and Google is focussing on Google photos instead…

The refund for 2016 works, I already received my money back within a day. Great service but continue updating Google!

See some examples of my pictures post processed with the Nik collection:
https://www.instagram.com/verolme
http://www.anthonyverolme.com

Hopefully, the next stage is to make it open source so users can "update" it themselves.

I'm surprised that only one person has mentioned the fact that it's a 15 day free trial, and not free. What happens after 15 days?

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