In celebration of its 25th anniversary of creating plugins for Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom as well as DxO PhotoLab, Nik Software has announced Version 3.3 which includes a pack of 25 new presets for Color Efex Pro and Silver Efex Pro.
The popular Nik Collection of photo editing software will live on. Just months after Google said that it was abandoning the brand and ending development, DxO has just announced that it has acquired Nik Collection from Google and will continue development "for the benefit of the photographer community."
Whoa. Google just announced that it's making its Nik Collection of desktop photo editing software 100% free.
When Google acquired Nik Software back in September, the photographic community took it as a sign that the internet giant was focusing more intently on our passion. But last week, when Google announced it would be pulling support for the desktop version of Nik's popular mobile editor Snapseed, the same people wondered if this spelled the end of the rest of Nik's well-respected suite of plugins.
Fortunately, the opposite is the case. Google may have pulled their support for the desktop version of Snapseed, but the remaining offerings from Nik are not only still available, they will be sold in a record-low-priced bundle.
When Nik Software was acquired by Google back in September, one of the prized catches -- besides Nik's impressive suite of high-end photo editing software -- was Snapseed, a highly popular photo editing app for iOS. Many people suspected that Google was gearing up to fight more directly with Instagram, now the Facebook-owned 800lb gorilla in the mobile photo sharing space.
Whether or not that was the motivation, it certainly seems like the case now: Google today launched Snapseed for Android, and has also made the app free for both platforms.
When news of Google's acquisition of Nik Software emerged a week ago, most of the tech press (and this blog) focused on one particular offering: Snapseed. It's a highly-acclaimed mobile photo editing app that has been growing like a weed as of late, so it made sense that Google would want it to participate in the ongoing mobile photo sharing war, right? Well, maybe not.
Nik Software announced today that it has been acquired by Google. The company is the maker of Snapseed, one of the most popular photo editing apps in the iTunes App Store and a competitor to Instagram.