Bit of a bargain

One of the pleasures of digital photography can be playing with the images once you have them on the computer, or it can be a pain the arse. Most of the time, my photos are subject to a few minutes of abuse in Lightroom before being spat out for display on the wide wide world of web. This is either because they are wonderful to start with; or because I have very little creativity, eyes incapable of discerning between more than three colours, and a fundamentally lazy disposition. I suspect it is the latter.

When I do want a fiddle, I tend to send photos into a Topaz plug-in. This is because they were cheap to buy and they are reasonably easy to use for a man of limited intellectual capacity. However, I have always had a hankering to try Nik’s Silver Efex Pro, reckoned to be the best Black & White converter on the market. Trouble is, at almost $200, it was more than I wanted to pay for a plug-in given that I am not processing photos professionally and would only use it occasionally. Nik have some other interesting plug-ins too, but at similar pricing; so I have stayed with Topaz.

Last year, Google acquired Nik. The main target was probably Snapseed; but they also acquired all the lovely plug-ins. There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth on photography forums at the prospect that the plug-ins would disappear; but they haven’t. Instead they have re-appeared under the Google brand at a MUCH reduced price. All six Nik plug-ins for $149, a lot more palatable than the previous price of $499. Plus, if you use the code DZISER when you order, the price drops to $127. Damn fine, and the plug-ins will run with Lightroom, Photoshop and Aperture. Extra plus, if you have already bought a plug-in, you will get the rest for free and a refund if you paid more than $149.

You can buy the Nik collection here.

Comments 🔗

2013-03-28 | David says

You are in Thailand, yet you pay for software? I bet tukcom is cheaper ;-)

2013-03-28 | Spike says

Yes, I pay for my software.

2013-03-29 | The Heavyweight says

I thought about whether I would really use these tools. So far (which of course has not been very long and is not very ‘far’), I was happy with the filters in LR, and the things I miss in LR, those Nik filters also don’t offer.

But then I thought, I can’t really go wrong for that price. If they make my pics nicer (or nice more easily) than LR could, then they are a good purchase, and if not, then not much is lost.

So I purchased them. Thanks for pointing us to them!

2013-03-29 | Spike says

Looks like there is a bit of a learning curve, so you can spend some time learning them while waiting for the weather to improve!

2013-03-30 | The Heavyweight says

There’s apparently more of a learning curve than I thought. Installed them with the option to install them for LR4, but the only plugin I can see is the HDR one. Where do I access the others? Under ‘Edit In’ I can always only have one plugin at a time, not all of them? I can’t see how to access those plugins from within LR.

2013-03-30 | Spike says

Have sent you a mail with a screen grab; they should all be displayed. Something not quite right with the install.

Get a Mac.

2013-03-30 | The Heavyweight says

Thanks a bunch! It was my own fault - after restarting the computer it worked. I just hadn’t thought that a restart was required… ok, it’s 4am over here right now, I hope that makes my mistake forgivable :-)