End of the world piccies...Nik Collection

[Pete Delaney]

As the world is ending next year (I've seen the film so it must be true) I thought 2012 would be a great year for capturing the end of the world or perhaps other spectacular events.

To that end I've noticed many folks making good use of Silver Efex Pro software from Nik. I didn't realise that the complete Nik Collection could be purchased for £206 for Amazon as a Lightroom plugin suite I think Mark uses it and perhaps Hollowlegs.

It saves a fortune to buy the kit as individually the software is expensive.

Anyone using this? I am coming back strong next year and probably with B&W stuff, more art orientated and therefore I will PP more and more

Any opinions on this bundle greatly appreciated.

Pete

 

[Jammyb]

Is there a trial? There is for Alien Skin Exposure 3 which I get one with pretty well, has advantage of doing colour and B&W, whereas I believe you have to buy a second package for Nik.

Played around with it on the shots here:
Paris | Facebook

 

[Pete Delaney]

Is there a trial? There is for Alien Skin Exposure 3 which I get one with pretty well, has advantage of doing colour and B&W, whereas I believe you have to buy a second package for Nik.

Played around with it on the shots here:
Paris | Facebook

Oooh thanks for that I'll have a good look... there isn't a 'Collection' trial as a single download but individually each software title can be trialed. I spent some of yesterday looking at you tube vids on Silver Efex Pro. It looked very good and results were impressive.

Pete.

 

[kpjf]

Played around with it on the shots here:
Paris | Facebook

Great photos from Paris!

 

[Peakoverload]

As the world is ending next year (I've seen the film so it must be true) I thought 2012 would be a great year for capturing the end of the world or perhaps other spectacular events.

To that end I've noticed many folks making good use of Silver Efex Pro software from Nik. I didn't realise that the complete Nik Collection could be purchased for £206 for Amazon as a Lightroom plugin suite I think Mark uses it and perhaps Hollowlegs.

It saves a fortune to buy the kit as individually the software is expensive.

Anyone using this? I am coming back strong next year and probably with B&W stuff, more art orientated and therefore I will PP more and more

Any opinions on this bundle greatly appreciated.

Pete

Yeah I have the bundle, thanks to work buying it for me, but to be honest the only one I use is Silver Efex Pro which is superb. The others I just don't really find much use for. This is largely because, whilst not long, it does take a bit of time to edit a photo in these plugins and the results aren't that different to what you can achieve just using Lightroom on it's own. Don't get me wrong, there is a difference but I don't like unnatural looking colours/photos and so tend to only do minimal editing of colour photos and so it's not really worth the effort for me. For B&W it's a different story, I'd say 95% of my B&W stuff I run through Silver Efex Pro, I can't imagine not using it now and the results you get are so much better than you can achieve with Lightroom on it's own.

Personally if it were my money, I'd just buy Silver Efex Pro, possibly Colour Efex Pro if you like the kind of thing it does. Again personally I don't use Viveza at all, I rarely use HDR Efex Pro but that's because I don't like HDR. Sharpener Pro is good but I really think it's only of use for creating poster sized prints and even then I don't think it's essential.

 

[Pete Delaney]

Thanks for the Silver Efex Pro vote of confidence. I may well get this software but to buy it separately is only viable if I can find it very cheaply. At the moment it is not much more to buy the bundle and I would use HDR Efex and Colour Efex for some stuff.

However, my love for B&W is set in concrete so I'll shop around and try find a bargain.

Pete.

 

[Bl4ckGryph0n]

I've got the plugin bundle for Aperture. My favourites in the bundle are Dfine (noise reduction), Viveza (absolutely superb bit of technology), and Sharpener Pro. I use Silver Efex and Colour Efex occasionally.

I think it is a very decent value set.

 

[Pete Delaney]

I took the trial run from Nik Software for Silver Efex Pro 2. It's very good with the one usual caviat...don't over do the effects... The more you add the more you can spoil the file with artifacts and added grain coming into play.
But light and selective targeting works well.

Quite impressed