Nik collection petition

The phrase relating to urinating into a breeze springs to mind. Sorry Jim, but I can't see Google doing anything other than what Google want.
This was always going to happen once Google had extracted the control point technology for their own purposes.
 
Im going to be slightly arsey here an quote one of the paragraphs from the petition.

"Today, with no real competitor, photographers depend on the Nik Collection and would have been willing to pay, to be able to keep it. Especially for their important black & white work"

I know Nik Silver Efex is good but at what point shoild you depend on it and is it become the only way to produce a black & white image?
Surely any photographer worth their salt can produce stunning black & white images from other software.
I find the reasoning within the petition a bit lame to be honest.
 
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stupar said:
Surely any photographer worth their salt can produce stunning black & white images from other software.
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Although I've been taking pictures for over 45 years I'm going to shy away from calling myself a photographer or claiming that I produce stunning anything. Those caveats duly stated...

I don't think that photography and post capture processing are necessarily the same thing or that it necessarily follows that everyone capable of taking stunning pictures has great or even good post capture processing skills when sat in front of a computer. I hate and detest learning new software as much as I hate and detest paying for it.

I'm off to take a look at the petition, pointless though it may be.
 
stupar said:
Im going to be slightly arsey here an quote one of the paragraphs from the petition.

"Today, with no real competitor, photographers depend on the Nik Collection and would have been willing to pay, to be able to keep it. Especially for their important black & white work"

I know Nik Silver Efex is good but at what point shoild you depend on it and is it become the only way to produce a black & white image?
Surely any photographer worth their salt can produce stunning black & white images from other software.
I find the reasoning within the petition a bit lame to be honest.
Click to expand...

That's not to say that some photographers haven't come to depend on it. If you have a tool and you learn how to use that tool well then you come to depend on it.

You could dig a hole with a teaspoon but a shovel is a lot quicker and easier.

I do agree though that these petitions don't work and Google won't pay the slightest bit of attention in it. Google are renowned for starting things, getting millions of people to signup and then dump them at the drop of a hat. Google have what they want, our data. We must remember that when it comes to Google, we are the product.

I must admit, I've been using Nik and other plugins less and less these days, spending my free time learning how to make the most out of Photoshop. A lot of what Nik does can be achieved using Luminosity masking and standard Photoshop tools.
 
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Am I missing something?

You will still be able to use it years after the end support.
 
odd jim said:
Am I missing something?

You will still be able to use it years after the end support.
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As long as you don't update your OS or LR and PS.

I already have issues with Define and PS where drone just sits analysing the image forever. Lots of other people having the same issue.
 
Why would updating LR stop it from working (genuine question, as I'm waiting for 7 before I upgrade)?

Though I'm using LR4 which Adobe stopped supporting ages ago! We live in such a disposable world. Its almost worth keeping old PCs just to keep old software builds on!
 
odd jim said:
Am I missing something?

You will still be able to use it years after the end support.
Click to expand...

I am still using Aperture 3 2 years after apple stopped supporting it. No issues. I use Colour FX and Silver FX but if I had too, I could use Lightroom and Capture 1 at a drop of a hat if required, but I choose not to.
 
Even if Google listed to this sort of thing, which they don't, the tone of the petition is a bit silly and over-dramatic ('their ability to continue the work and projects may be destroyed', 'now that rather seems to have been a move to ruin any competing software developer.', 'show some responsibility towards the photographic community, as photographs are a part of mankind's cultural heritage', etc.). A polite request to open-source it might go further, unless Google sees the code as some key proprietary component of their phone/tablet apps. Has anyone tried contacting one of the original developers to see if there's any chance of this happening?
 
This was always made clear when they started giving it away for free, that they would stop updating it.

That's all they're doing - no longer updating it. It won't suddenly stop working. There is potential for future updates to LR/PS etc. that could break it though, and one day that's fairly certain. But it's highly unlikely to happen any time soon.

If people are genuinely concerned about the loss, I would recommend having a standalone (non-CC version) on their machine.

I have the collection but have used it all of once to process an image. I'm sure it's handy for some but I think it's usefulness is overplayed, particularly SilverFX, as that doesn't seem to actually do anything more than what you can already do in PS/LR etc.
 
GlennW said:
but I think it's usefulness is overplayed, particularly SilverFX, as that doesn't seem to actually do anything more than what you can already do in PS/LR etc.
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+1

x100

And it's less easy to produce HDR levels of eyeball searing B+W conversions in LR

IMO
 
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Viveza is one of the most useful and underrated tools you'll find... The control points make it virtually irreplaceable for me. And I love Color efex just for the 'Pro Contrast'... what a great tool!
 
GlennW said:
This was always made clear when they started giving it away for free, that they would stop updating it.

That's all they're doing - no longer updating it. It won't suddenly stop working. There is potential for future updates to LR/PS etc. that could break it though, and one day that's fairly certain. But it's highly unlikely to happen any time soon.

If people are genuinely concerned about the loss, I would recommend having a standalone (non-CC version) on their machine.

I have the collection but have used it all of once to process an image. I'm sure it's handy for some but I think it's usefulness is overplayed, particularly SilverFX, as that doesn't seem to actually do anything more than what you can already do in PS/LR etc.
Click to expand...

I've only ever bought standalone versions of my software, don't like the idea of subs. My copy of LR has lasted me 5 years, and I could still use it for years to come. Saved a fortune with the one off outright fee!
 
Flashman said:
Viveza is one of the most useful and underrated tools you'll find... The control points make it virtually irreplaceable for me. And I love Color efex just for the 'Pro Contrast'... what a great tool!
Click to expand...

They are great. If LR updated so as Nic couldn't be used, I'd just keep a PC with LR 4 on it [emoji3]
 
Pointless excercise I think. Like others, the writing was on the wall months ago, lots of time to start a transition to another method. Petition wording is lame but that may be because author first langueage is not English.

I don't think Google will do anything to it other than they have stated. It won't be maintained, it won't be sold, it won't be open-sourced.

Maybe start looking at Topaz and Macphun if you can't do it with LR and PS?
 
momoka said:
Maybe start looking at Topaz and Macphun if you can't do it with LR and PS?
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I have Topaz and Macphun too... and OnOne... and DX0... and Totally Rad... None of them let me fine tune a couple of hundred client images with anything like the speed or flexibility of Nik. I can see me following odd jim and keeping an old Nik friendly iMac on hand for the next few years.
 
Flashman said:
I have Topaz and Macphun too... and OnOne... and DX0... and Totally Rad... None of them let me fine tune a couple of hundred client images with anything like the speed or flexibility of Nik. I can see me following odd jim and keeping an old Nik friendly iMac on hand for the next few years.
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That's a shame I guess. I'm glad we don't have to rely on it and don't need to worry about a couple of hundred images at a time.
 
I'm on LR6 and don't intend to upgrade for a long while. I moved from LR4 to LR5 and then to LR6, and with each upgrade the advances in versions became more & more minimal. I can't really envisage anything earth shattering coming along. Provided Microsoft don't do anything in Windows to break LR6 I don't see a compelling reason to upgrade LR or Nik for several years. Combined they both offer functionality way above my crummy skills as it is.

I'd imagine Pros might take a different stance if they have a CC subscription and rely on Nik of course, but I always thought the CC route was fraught with issues anyway.

I can't imagine Google open-sourcing Nik, as wouldn't that just instantly hand technology to Adobe.
 
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