Nik

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Nik Software (logo since 2006)

Nik Software Inc. is a software company with headquarters in San Diego , USA , and another location in Hamburg . It belonged to the US company Google Inc. from 2012 to 2017 and was then taken over by DxO Labs .

history

In 1995 the company was founded by Nils Kokemohr (his name is Nik ) in Hamburg as Nik Multimedia . Initially, the offering consisted of software for use in graphics, design, printing and digital image processing.

One of the first products was Nils' Type Efex! (from 1999 Nik Type Efex! ), a collection of over two hundred effects for fonts in the form of saved workflows for Adobe Photoshop . The first graphic plug-ins appeared in 1999: A collection of 55 graphic filters - at that time still available individually - under the name Nik Color Efex! and the Nik Sharpener sharpening tool . On February 7, 2006, the company name was changed to Nik Software ; the new company slogan "Photography first" is intended to underline the commitment to the development of high-quality software for digital image processing.

On September 17, 2012, Google acquired Nik Software. On March 24, 2016, Google released the entire Nik Collection for free download. In October 2017 it was announced that DxO Labs , a manufacturer of photo software, had taken over Nik Collection and will offer a new version in mid-2018. At the moment (October 2018) the current version costs 69 $, it is only available as a trial version for free. The Nik Collection 2 was available in October 2019. The Nik Collection 3 by DxO has been on the market since June 2020.

Products

Filter plug-ins

Image in the Viveza plug-in next to the original image (left)

Nik's best-known products are graphic filters, which are available as plug-ins for Adobe Photoshop , Adobe Photoshop Lightroom and Apple Aperture . Since many image editing programs accept Photoshop-compatible plug-ins (with the file extension .8bf), the filters can also be used with the respective programs.

A U-point with parameters

Nik developed movable control points for the plug-ins - a special feature with which different image areas of a photo can be edited individually without having to create layers , masks or complicated selections. The patented technology called U-Point ( U stands for you , about your point ) has been used in all Nik products since February 2006.

  • Color Efex Pro : Collection of digital filters for color correction, retouching and creative image processing, which is offered in the variations Standard (15 filters), Select (35 filters) and Complete Edition (52 filters). Version 2.0 was released in June 2004, version 3.0 in October 2007.
  • Dfine : noise reduction to optimize digital images; Version 1.0 was released in 2004, version 2.0 in March 2007.
  • Sharpener : Sharpening digital images for all printing and output processes; Version 2.0 was released in June 2005, version 3.0 in September 2008.
  • Silver Efex : plug-in for converting digital images into black and white; Version 1.0 was released in July 2008.
  • Viveza : selective manipulation and control of color and light; Version 1.0 was released in January 2008.

The Complete Collection includes all current plug-ins for Adobe Photoshop and Apple Aperture, it was released in October 2008. After the takeover by Google, the collection became the main product under the name Nik Collection .

Capture NX

In 2006, Nik published the raw data conversion program Capture NX in cooperation with the camera manufacturer Nikon . The image formats NEF (Nikon-specific raw data format), JPG and TIFF are supported . Some of the above filters are also available for Capture NX . In June 2008, appeared Capture NX 2 . The successor product, NX-D, no longer supports the U-Point technology developed by Nik.

Snapseed

Snapseed is a program to take photos, edit them and then publish them in an online community . It was first released in 2011 for iOS and in January 2012 for Mac OS X and Windows .

criticism

The copy protection of Nik's software products is known to block the automatic sleep mode of Macintosh computers and to remain in the system even after the software is uninstalled.

Web links

swell

  • Ph.D, Jason P. Odell: The Photographer's Guide to Capture NX2, eBook.
  • Walter Schlögl: Image processing with Capture NX 2, The digital workflow with the Nikon system, dpunkt, ISBN 978-3-89864-549-2

Individual evidence

  1. ^ DxO Buys Nik Collection from Google, Will Resume Development . In: PetaPixel . October 25, 2017 ( petapixel.com [accessed June 13, 2018]).
  2. ↑ Google acquires Nik Software ( Memento from October 15, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
  3. ↑ Message on Google+: [1] (English)
  4. ↑ https://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Foto-B Demokratieung-DxO-kauf-Google-Nik-Collection-ab- 3872936.html
  5. ↑ https://nikcollection.dxo.com/
  6. ↑ New Nik Collection 2 By DxO
  7. ↑ New Nik Collection 3 By DxO
  8. ↑ Photo magazine special: professional image processing, page 12.
  9. ↑ Chip Foto-Video Digital, edition 09/2008.
  10. ↑ Photo magazine special: professional image processing, pages 10/11.
  11. ↑ Nikon: Capture NX2 replaced by free NX-D
  12. ↑ DPReview: Description of copy protection problems (Engl.)

Coordinates: 53 ° 32 ′ 41.6 "  N , 10 ° 1 ′ 30.8"  E