13 replies to this topic

[ljbarbeau]

Any one who has experience working with Google Nik Collection around? I'm more interested by the HDR capabilities. Wondering if it's worth the price? Comments and suggestions welcome...

 

I'm a beginner and currently working with a d7100 on an imac 27in lightroom 5.  can't afford photoshop so I have pixelmator for layers..  Also wondering if the rest of the collection might be good for me since I dont have photoshop.

 

Luigi

 

 

[Tony892]

Welcome to the Forum Luigi. I also ahve a D7100, 27 inch imac and lightroom 5. But I recently purchased the Nik Collection of plugins, but not yet found the time to move across from iphoto onto lightroom and use both it's tools as well as the Nik facilities. I received positive feedback from others on the Forum before purchasing it.

[Merco_61]

I started using them when they were still available for photoshop only. Color Efex pro is a suite of filters in it's own right and are used for colour correction and retouching. Siver Efex pro is used for B/W conversion. Viveza gives more precision when doing local adjustments than Lightroom's built-in controls. HDR Efex and Sharpener do what they say on the tin. Dfine is a very good noise reduction software. I use them quite a bit, and like what you can do creatively with them.

Read more: D7100 high ISO/noise questions - Beginner Questions - NikonForums.com

 

They were worth the price even before Google took over and lowered the prices significantly. The only reason I use Photomatix instead of HDR efex pro is the ease of tonemapping in Photomatix. You can get approximately the same results in the NIK software, but I used Photomatix before NIK HDR existed.

[RossCumming]

I use Nikon D200 and D610 with iMAC 27" and Lightroom 5.2 with the full suite of NIK Efex applications. I mainly use HDR Pro and Silver Efex but playing more and more with the others (Color Efex, Sharpener, Dfine & Vivezza). HDR Pro and Silver Efex are worth paying the £90 for alone for me. These were the two individual modules I purchased when I used Lightroom 3.4 and Photoshop CS2 on Windows. Having moved up to the iMAC it is no longer possible to buy the individual modules since Google bought over NIK and only the full suite is offered. However, they are very good and come with a very comprehensive suite of pre-installed settings which themselves are customisable. Definitely recommended and you will have hours of fun playing with your images and re-visiting old images. I think it is available as a plugin to Lightroom OR Photoshop (whereas on my old Windows PC, I had it as a plugin on both Lightroom and Photoshop) so think about which version you want if you use both. i personally have my NIK Collection as Lightroom plugins rather than Photoshop plugins since Lightroom is my main workhorse for image processing and I only use Photoshop CC for the few things Lightroom cannot do.

[Tony892]

I use Nikon D200 and D610 with iMAC 27" and Lightroom 5.2 with the full suite of NIK Efex applications. I mainly use HDR Pro and Silver Efex but playing more and more with the others (Color Efex, Sharpener, Dfine & Vivezza). HDR Pro and Silver Efex are worth paying the £90 for alone for me. These were the two individual modules I purchased when I used Lightroom 3.4 and Photoshop CS2 on Windows. Having moved up to the iMAC it is no longer possible to buy the individual modules since Google bought over NIK and only the full suite is offered. However, they are very good and come with a very comprehensive suite of pre-installed settings which themselves are customisable. Definitely recommended and you will have hours of fun playing with your images and re-visiting old images. I think it is available as a plugin to Lightroom OR Photoshop (whereas on my old Windows PC, I had it as a plugin on both Lightroom and Photoshop) so think about which version you want if you use both. i personally have my NIK Collection as Lightroom plugins rather than Photoshop plugins since Lightroom is my main workhorse for image processing and I only use Photoshop CC for the few things Lightroom cannot do.

Note to self for Christmas period. Get stuck into using Lightroom, transfer all my images across from iphoto to it and also get out taking photographs, particularly RAW and HDR shots!

[RossCumming]

Hi Tony, if you haven't started using Lightroom yet, a few things to consider before you do; read up on catalog files and decide what is best for you - you can have more than one catalog file, but you will have to manually switch between them. You may wish to use a different catalog file for different situations for example professional work over personal work etc. Think about using keywords if you don't do this already. You can apply keywords during the import stage (or later at any time if you wish). I think finding images using keywords very helpful especially when your catalog runs into the 10's of thousands of images! Think about the usefulness of keywords. You can have as many or as few as you wish. I try keep mine relatively simple, for example "landscape", seascape", "waterfalls", "family", "holiday", "rivers" and so on. Use things that you will remember. On a similar subject, Lightroom, like most other software, allows you to grade your images. This is on a scale of 0 to 5 and various colours with combinations of numeric grading and colours allowable. Again, consider setting yourself some rules. Personally after importing the images, I run very quickly through the images and give a first-pass rating. Rating zero is for deletion (not in focus or something else that makes the image unusable), rating 4 for images that I like most and will work on as my priority, rating 3 as images that I like but will work on as my second priority, rating 2 for technically nothing wrong with the image but it doesn't "jump out" at me. I may never work on a rating 2 image and may end up deleting them after a while. Any image I post-process then is assigned rating 5 (my top rating) so all my completed work is rating 5. I may then apply a colour to a rating 5 image if it is one I want to print or to submit for competition. You should also consider how the files will be stored on import; will you define where Lightroom stores them, or will you let Lightroom define this? I personally let Lightroom store them by date and by using keywords and ratings, I can find any image I want quickly without having to try remember what folder I stored it in.Also, when working on images, I find it useful to create a "virtual" copy of the master image and work on this. that way, i can create different versions of the same image easily since I always have the oroingal raw image un-processed. If you use NIK Efex, it will create a copy image for you anyway, so you don't have to worry about creating a virtual copy of you are going to apply a NIK Efex process.

 

Enjoy using Lightroom and NIK Efex, both will inspire you to go out and capture more images knowing you have very capable tools at home to do the images justice :-)

[Afterimage]

I downloaded the GNC Demo the other day because of this post, I wanted to give it a try.

Honestly, I think it's a good package. Lots of useful features and flexibility in  regional editing. I don't think I'll be purchasing it however. I use OnOne's Perfect Suite 7 w/ CS6 and that really does everything "extra" I need. 

 

That said, the GNC package does have DeFine - a rather good noise reduction process... something lacking in both PS and Perfect Suite. 

[TBonz]

Ross - excellent points...figuring out how you want things organized and cataloged is important to do prior to importing...As you indicated, you can always delete the catalog file or create multiple catalog files, but that will take more time in the long run...

 

One other note - no need to create a virtual copy prior to editing...you can create a virtual copy later if you want to do something different...the new copy will come out like the first, but you can undo everything on either the original or the copy with reset, so you can always get back to your original...hitting reset on the original or the copy doesn't modify the other...

[Merco_61]

I agree with Ross and Sportz2Pix, a plan and a system for storing, finding and retrieving files is essential when your catalog gets larger.

I can see a need for multiple catalog files if you need significantly different IPTC blocks for your different roles, or if you do some work in restricted sites such as military bases etc. Otherwise, don't bother because collections are faster to use to keep track of personal vs paid work anyway. You can write varying IPTC info to the files on import, but it easy to forget to switch back.

If you use multiple catalogs, tweak the UI so that you see at a glance which catalog you are in.

On the subject of virtual copies, it is a good habit to have, but not needed in Lightroom. If you do some work in other software it might be useful, or if you have done quite a bit of tweaking and need a fast way to get back to that state again. It does not hurt and hitting ctrl + click and choosing create virtual copy is easy.

[TBonz]

The biggest use I've found for vitual copy is to produce a second image with different post-processing - that could be a simple change to the cropping for a particular print or a change to other settings if you wanted to produce a second image with other contrast or color for example...

 

I've mostly used it for different cropping...either different sizes (8x10 vs. 8x12) or, as a real world example:  I had cropped a football photo to highlight one of the players from the team I was shooting for.  A parent from the other team contacted me and had seen his son's jersey in the photo but wanted to know if I could re-crop the photo to include his son so he could order that photo...one virtual copy and re-crop later, I posted thephoto that he ended up purchasing...

[RossCumming]

I wasn't too clear in my post, that's exactly what I do with virtual copies. Use them to create slightly different versions of the same image, be it cropping or B&W version etc . It's a very useful tool and easy to use.

I've enjoyed these posts, it's always interesting to hear other peoples view points and also interesting to read about people having the same view/opinion, I must be doing something right in Lightoom ;-)

[ljbarbeau]

cool thanx for all the replies.  I'll probably purchase GNC after christmas.  before if I can..

[Afterimage]

You can download a 15 day trial. Also checkout OnOne's Perfect Suite 8. I was beta testing it before release and I think it has a lot to offer. Again, it's available for a free trial.

[asokell]

Good shout on the free trial. Ive used nik and its excellent. Especially like silver fx.