Last year Google announced that Nik Collection is totally FREE. For those of you who don’t know what Nik Collection is, it is now a free desktop photo editing software, which was and is an Plugin for Adobe Lightroom. To get introduced, you can see this video:

Earlier Nik Collection was originally valued at around $500, and later sold at the lowest price of $150 by Google. But now the big news is, this collection is completely free – no catch, no strings attached.

Google said, “Photo enthusiasts all over the world use the Nik Collection to get the best out of their images every day.” They further added, “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.” 

This collection has 7 desktop add-ons that you can use as a standalone or as an plugin with Adobe Lightroom. It provides a great variety of photo editing services such as copying the look of old cameras and films, image retouching and correction, darkroom retouching, color adjustment and tonality, HDR, noise reduction and photo sharpening.

Even though it’s free now, Nik Collection is a really a very powerful tool for your Post Photography Photo Editing needs. You can create stunning photos that are ready to use. A professional photographer knows that the utopia never exists, where you get the right photo at the right time and in the right tone. If an image has the best smile, another best tone, another light and highlight, then editing them to make the perfect photo is not only preferable, it is essential.

Using Nik Collection In Adobe Lightroom

If you are comfortable with Adobe Lightroom, you don’t need to use Nik Collection as standalone software. You can install Nik Collection as plugin for Lightroom. See the video below on how to install Nik Collection as a plugin for Adobe Lightroom:

What Can You Do Now?

So, now that it’s free. What can you do with it? Head over to the YouTube Channel of Nik Collection and find some great tutorials.

The Nik’s Collection

The Nik Collection, as the name suggests, is a collection of various tools, viz:

Analog Efex Pro 2

You will get a feel of classic cameras, films, and lenses in this add-on. It will bring you back to the vintage age of photo editing. You can have one of the 10 different tools to apply their effects. You will be capable of creating professionally stylized images, selecting a preset. You can get more precise control of your images with so many control points available in the Basic Adjustments, Dirt & Scratches, Light Leaks, and Photo Plate Tools. Now, you can add or remove an effect without any layers or masks.

You can find various tutorials on Analog Efex Pro 2 in this playlist:

Color Efex Pro 4

Here, you will get a comprehensive set of filters for color correction, retouching, and creative effects and the visual presets give a wide range of options to use as starting points for your photographic exploration. You can create a unique look and save favorite combinations. You will get a scope to use the same look for other images and you can shine your photo by applying different filters to the specific parts of your image.

Watch various tutorials on Color Efex Pro 4 in this playlist:

Dfine 2

Take an opportunity to improve your images with noise reduction tailored and adjust contrast. You will get a complete control over the noise and the control points let you remove noise selectively. You can create individual profiles for each image to ensure the noise reduction

Practise many tutorials on Dfine 2 in this playlist:

HDR Efex Pro 2

This software will give you many options for creating exceptional natural and artistic HDR images. You will get a powerful control to get back the lost highlights, open up shadows and adjust tonality for your expected natural and balanced image. There is a combination of one-click presets to have the image in your own style.

You can learn from the tutorials on HDR Efex Pro 2 in this playlist:

Sharpener Pro 3

Here, you will get a great variety of creative sharpening options like structure, local contrast, and focus tools to enhance the details and textures for creating images in distinctive style. The selective sharpening will help your viewers to focus on the right areas. With this software, you can create perfectly sharpened images for display.

Learn from the tutorials on Sharpener Pro 3 in this playlist:

Silver Efex Pro 2

In this add-on you can create stunning black and white images by the various tools like Dynamic Brightness, Soft Contrast, Amplify Whites, Amplify Blacks, and the advanced Grain Engine. You will get 20 popular film types and control over the entire process. This software will give you more freedom to edit images. It has built-in History Browser which helps you try different looks and adjustment at any time.

You can watch tutorials on Silver Efex Pro 2 in this playlist:

Viveza 2

You can edit images without any selections or layer mask and blend the changes with the image automatically and naturally. You will get easy sliders to adjust brightness, contrast, saturation, shadows, red, green, blue, hue, and warmth. It has unique structure control and by this, you can accentuate textures and details. It also includes levels and curves for more control.

Watch tutorials on Viveza 2 in this playlist:

DIY Photo Editing or Outsourcing?

Photography is your passion, and you like to spend more time on clicking the best image. But, post photography photo editing may not be your core service. If it is not a part of your core, you can free up some time by outsourcing photo editing service to other companies.

You might spend all day on shooting and almost all night on photo editing.  But, if your client wants it fast, you can’t do it fast. Perhaps, you might avoid clients that want final images overnight. But, if you outsource it at a fraction of the cost, you can easily take on such clients.

Color Experts International provides bulk Post Photography Photo Editing services. The price starts from as low as 49 cents per image and can deliver up to 5,000 images per day. And turnaround time is less than 24 hours. We often provide 12 hour service, if your urgency is even more. So, overnight delivery for your client is a snap.

We really don’t like to boast our service quality. Let the service boast for itself. Get our free trial service hitting the free trial button below

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