Back in July I wrote fondly of the Nik collection of processing bolt-ons which work so well with Lightroom and some other editors. The star of the show, for me, has always been Silver Efex Pro, but the suite covers a number of additional editing processes, all with a good range of standard effects.
Now the future of the Nik Collection is in doubt and a petition has been launch to try to persuade Google to resurrect support. Long story short, the Nik Collection was an independent software suite and was quite expensive — even one module, Silver Efex Pro, cost me over £100 some years ago. But the cost supported a strong development team and we all recognise that you get nowt for nowt, as we say in Lancashire.
Then along came Google, buying up Nik and offering to keep things going. The trouble was, the whole suite soon became free. In additional to my expensive Silver Efex Pro I received all the other modules for nowt. Good for us but ultimately bad for business.
Three month ago Google pulled the plug. There would be no more development of the Nik modules. While they would continue to work for the time being, they will certainly fall off the pitch as operating systems develop. That reminds me that I haven’t tried SEFEX with High Sierra — it could well already be broken as far as I am aware.
The petition — which you can sign here — is an attempt to get Google to change its mind. It’s worth adding our name but it seems to me that unless Google takes the thing on commercially, and starts charging again, there is little chance of continued development. It’s a great pity.
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As I understand, Silver Efex is especially important to Leica Monochrome users. Too bad that Leica does not have their own software department and bought Silver Efex instead of Google. 🙁 Would have made much more sense.
There is a fix for this….
Film.
Some features are not working at this stage in High Sierra. It is only a matter of time before the Nik suite will not work at all. We have basically handed over our processing needs to Apple, Google and Adobe, who do whatever suits them.The other worrying feature is that all 3 of these companies are now pushing cloud ‘real estate’ at us with a view to a further killing. The Cloud version of Lightroom appeared yesterday, but we still have the Classic version for the time being, but for how long……?
William
Well, I’ve signed the petition – fingers crossed. In the meantime, I’m treating my old Mac very gently.
Yes mine has broken with High Sierra. Ah well…..,
Hi Tom, Thanks for this update. I decided to try just to verify your findings but Silver Efex (at least) is till working for me with Lightroom CC and High Sierra. Are you on the CC version or the local version of Lightroom. There must be some difference between our two setups. Mike
you are confused…it is NOT working