google: nik software for sale $149.

[rayfoxlee]

Sad - I tend to use Viveza a lot, so my hope is that the version I already own will remain compatible with future versions of Ps and Lightroom, because I really have no expectations for its long-term survival in Google's hands.[/QUOTE]


The die is already cast on backward compatibility. I contacted Nik as the Collection was greyed out in CS3 and was told that this was because the file I was viewing was not in RGB - BUT THAT IF I DOWNLOADED THE LATEST UPDATE, I WOULD PROBABLY NEED CS4. So now we know!


Ray

 

[willie_901]

This is a glass half-full / glass half-empty situation.

Google made an effort to impress the photographic community they plan to develop, not abandon the NIK products used by advanced amateurs, semi-pros and pros. Naturally this reduced the skepticism of some and did not lessen the skepticism of others. Everyone benefited.

Because I can use the NIK plug ins in LR much more effectively to accomplish the same tasks in PS, I assume Google wants to capture PS market share from Adobe. It is possible Google wants even more of Adobe's market share and their gift to still photographers is the beginning of a strategy to launch a LR competitor. After all, Apple has not exactly provided robust development of Aperture.

Backward compatibility is not a good thing. It seems like a good thing to users who are happy with what they have. However in the long term backward compatibility really does more harm to consumers than good. Developing new capabilities is much more time consuming; the code becomes more complicated, less efficient and in the end... less secure. Of course there's nothing wrong with using old versions of software. At the same time it is unrealistic to think using old versions does not and should not have consequences.

 

[mani]

This is a glass half-full / glass half-empty situation.

Google made an effort to impress the photographic community they plan to develop, not abandon the NIK products used by advanced amateurs, semi-pros and pros. Naturally this reduced the skepticism of some and did not lessen the skepticism of others. Everyone benefited.

How does giving away software without any copy protection or serial number show serious commitment to future development, or to the entire ecosystem of photo-manipulation software? They effectively killed the entire post-processing plug-in market for these sorts of effects by this move: clearing the decks of any possible rivals, probably in advance of developing their own proprietary ChromeOS photo software.

The 'everyone benefited' part is obviously an element in their strategy: anyone questioning their motives right now looks like they're looking a gift horse in the mouth, or being pessimistic, spoil-sport 'glass half-empty'-type people.

All very smart of Google.

 

[bobbyrab]

Quick question for Nik/LR users. I occasionally use VSCO plugins which allow me to do batches of images, this is for wedding work primarily I should add.
I did download a trial version of Silver Efex pro, good as it was i couldn't see a way of batch processing multiple images, it seemed more for working on small numbers of images.
So my question is, are all the plugins across the suite designed in the same way, or can you do batches in some of them? Sorry if this is off track.