This is a "Rant"
I've been a fan of Nik plugins for Adobe Photoshop for some time, a long time actually. So long in fact that I remember actually paying for the first module Silver Efex and lamenting the fact that Nikon owners got a Nik product Capture NX as their Raw conversion software for Nikon NEF files while I had to suffer with Canon's DPP as their option.
Fast forward a few years and Nik had released a number of modules, Color Efex, Viveza, Define, all of which I purchased and continue to use. This was before the company was swallowed up by Google in 2012. Initially I applauded the move, thinking there would be financial resources for new Nik products to be developed (stand alone image editing app anyone?) and the existing line to be advanced. Along the way, Google bundled the complete collection of plugins, offered it at a discounted price and again I bought in. Well it's now 2017 and Google has done nothing to update or advance the product in far too long (in software terms). Could it be that the great minds at Google have no ideas how to improve it? Are they stumped? Do they care? Another great idea and product set stifled by corporate blunder? Hello Google (Nik). Knock, knock. Are you there? Do you have anything for us loyal Nik users? Is Nik alive or are you just waiting for the day to finally pull the plug?
Here's an interesting excerpt from Ron Martinsen's Blog from 2015 "What Plug-ins should I buy?"
What Happened to the Nik Collection by Google?
For as long as this blog has existed, I’ve been singing the praises of what used to be called the Nik Software Collection. They were the defacto standard by which all others were judged, and myself and so many others couldn’t live without it. However, my personal opinion of Google’s purchase of Nik Software, is that it seemed to be more of a patent grab than anything else as the innovation that Team Nik brought vanished after the acquisition (as well as many of the Nik employees).
If my calculations are correct, we are approaching 4 years since the last update of Color Efex and 2 years since the last update of anything (Analog Efex). As a result, it’s appears that these products are in sustained engineering mode. Given Google’s history of cutting products and services that aren’t part of their core business, I can’t escape the fear that one day an operating system change will come and we’ll hear that the Nik Collection will not be updated to support it.
With this in mind, I’ve been trying hard to wean myself off my favorite products like Color Efex, Silver Efex Pro, and Viveza for fear that I’d be up a creek without a paddle if I had an important job and they stopped working – with no plans to fix them.
I’ll be clear and state that these are still phenomenally good products, but if I’m going to advise my readers to spend their hard earned money then I want to point them to software solutions built by people with a ton of passion to make their products better (i.e., companies like Topaz Labs with their Complete Collection and MacPhun with their beautifully designed Creative Kit). Sure, if you have bought the other recommended products and have an extra $149 to spare, then by all means pick these up as they are still quite good. However, I don’t recommend that people with limited funds make this their first purchase for the aforementioned reasons.
I have to agree with Ron. I don't trust that Google will provide continued support for Nik products over time and will start my search for an alternative product. To me, the writing's been on the wall for a while, it's a sign when a company buys a great product that is not in there core business line, then let's it stagnate and does absolutely nothing with it for years. Giving it away for free a few years back may have seemed altruistic ... but I think Google is just slowing letting the life bleed out of what was a great product. Loyal NIK users deserved more. Shame on you Google.
DJE
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