Tag Archives: Nik Software

No more boxed Nik Software – what do we get now?

With Nik Software going to download only, what are your choices if you still want boxed photo editing solutions?

(p.s. desktop Snapseed is also going too).

These three are your most comparable matches:

onOne Software

See: Perfect Photo Suite 7 – probably the closest comparison to ‘Complete Collection’ with some arguably more intuitive and useful features.

Perfect Photo Suite 7 includes the entire onOne range from black & white and filter effects to image resizing and layers. With a seamless integration into Photoshop, Lightroom and Aperture, or as a standalone product in its own right, onOne is a very good accompaniment to any image editing photographer. Good for RAW and JPG images too.

Star feature: Paint-in brush tool to work on specific areas of an image

DxO Labs

See: Optics Pro 8 Elite

Software that works in harmony with your camera and lens combination(s) to provide automatic image corrections. Optics Pro is an excellent combination of precision image correction (RAW and JPG) and creative effects. Sophistication meets creativity with very satisfying results.

Star feature: Downloadable corrections for a specific camera and lenses

Franzis HDR

See: Franzis Projects Platinum

The most natural ‘replacement’ for Nik HDR Efex Pro, Projects Platinum offers the latest in High Dynamic Range (HDR) processing. You can apply effects to a single image, or upload your RAW camera bracketing directly for tailored effects and editing. Preset effects give you a good base which can be customised and saved to suit your needs.

Star feature: The automatic ghosting removal feature is a huge benefit when working on bracketing images

Color Confidence November 2012 update

Welcome to our November update where we review specific news and new products for the month

Eizo launch new ColorEdge CX240

A new, versatile ColorEdge monitor from Eizo is now available. The CX240 is an ideal display for photographers and graphic art professionals with its wide colour gamut and uniform display brightness from corner to corner. It’s a 24″ monitor, covers 97% of Adobe RGB, and has a built-in self-correction sensor to keep your screen as colour accurate as possible (although, it will still greatly benefit from the addition of a monitor calibrator).

Learn more about this display here.

Get leading standardised lighting technology with Just Normlicht

Just Normlicht are world-renowned produces of controlled, standardised lighting solutions. By ‘standardised lighting’, we mean a light source that replicates natural lighting conditions, normally coming in the form or 5,000 kelvin (D50) or 6,500 kelvin (D65) temperatures. New in for November, Just Normlicht have launched 4 new desktop viewing booths for the accurate assessment of proofs and colour.

The colorFrame series offer space-saving desktop booths available in two sizes: 46 x 34 cm illumination area and 64 x 40 cm illumination area. These are also available as dimmer switch versions for greater control over the lighting.

For more information about these, and for controlled lighting in general, click here.

Nik Software acquired by Google

Big news confirmation for November. As you may be aware, Nik was acquired by Google in September. As a result, we will no longer be distributing boxed products, and once our stocks are depleted, only electronic downloads will be available direct from www.niksoftware.com

So if you prefer having boxed software – act now to avoid disappointment and get your copy while stocks last!

Get your free Tangerine Tango iPhone 4/4S case!

While stocks last, claim your free iPhone 4/4S case in Tangerine Tango (Pantone colour of the year 2012) with every Pantone Capsure order. The Capsure allows you to confidently and accurately match colour to almost any surface, meaning you can take inspiration from almost anything.

Learn more about it here.

Get stunning Black and White images this September

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Nik Software Silver Efex Pro 2 – save 10% off this September

Silver Efex Pro 2 is Nik Software’s flagship image enhancement plug-in software which gives you the power to create truly stunning black and white images.

A major upgrade from their award-winning Silver Efex plug-in, many professional photographers considers Silver Efex Pro 2 to be the definitive solution for re-creating the intricate quality, depth and impact of traditional darkroom black and white photography.

Key features will give you the power to amaze:

Amplifying Blacks and Whites increases the presence of highlights and shadows adaptively throughout the image, creating a unique contrast effect
Visual Presets characterised by photographic style, provide great single-click starting points which can be edited and shared with others
Fine Structure brings out even the smallest details and textures resulting in more visible image detail without creating an over-sharpened look

Take a look at the product here, and don’t forget to save 10% off this September.

Why not come and see it in action for yourself?

Every so often we run a drop-in day at our Birmingham HQ which gives you the perfect opportunity to quiz us on all things colour management, and come and see our extensive product range in action, demoed by our expert technical team.

Our latest drop-in day takes place on Tuesday 25th September at our Birmingham head-office, come and have a look at:

Our extensive range of colour accurate, professional standard monitors
Exceptional image enhancement software packages
How to calibrate your display properly
How to match your screen to your printouts

And better still, our drop-in days are totally free!

Learn more, and register here.

Nik launch HDR Efex Pro 2

Time to celebrate this weekend! (If you live in the UK…)

So, rather inevitably, as the Jubilee weekend rolls around, the sunshine has well and truly disappeared and the cloudy drizzle had arrived (well, in Birmingham anyway, congratulations if the sun is shining you…).

Anyway, how many of you are attending some street parties, or, more importantly, are designated photographer for the event?

If so, you may want to make sure you have these 3 essential items with you to ensure you take the best picture every time and image edit in confidence.

X-Rite ColorChecker Passport
This should be the first thing you take with you on any shoot – whether in the studio, or outside. The passport offers first hand camera DNG profiling and RAW workflow editing. It consists of three photographic targets: White Balance Target for accurate control, Classic Target consisting of 24 patch colours references for creating camera profiles, and a Create Enhancement Target for highlight and shadow details.
Datacolor Spyder4Express monitor calibrator
If you don’t “colour manage”, a monitor calibrator (to ensure colour is displayed accurately on your monitor) is a great place to start. The Datacolor Spyder4Express is the ideal ‘beginners’ calibrator for a single monitor which is simple and affordable.
Nik Software Silver Efex Pro 2
Creating Black & White images just got a whole lot easier. Black and white images immediately carry a timeless, classic feel – perfect to capture the jubilee moment.

The above are a sure-fire way to ensure you capture your Jubilee images accurately, and edit them afterwards in confidence.

And, to celebrate the Jubilee, we’ll be giving you free delivery on eligible orders this weekend – starting this afternoon!

Check back to www.colorconfidence.com for more information. Enjoy the break!

Nik Software – the perfect partner for Adobe Lightroom

Lightroom is fast becoming Adobe’s photo editing software of choice. Certainly speaking to people at this year’s Focus on Imaging, it’s one of the most widely used programs out there in the amateur/professional photography, image editing markets.

Lightroom is designed specifically with photography in mind, allowing users to manage large amounts of digital images. Effectively, it is one big database of images, allowing you to manage, organise and edit your images in once centralised place. From a photographer’s perspective, it focusses on following workflow steps, from library more through to editing and printing.

The good news is that you can pick yourself up a copy of Lightroom for pretty good value. There’s a host of special offers available on the Adobe website, take a look here.

And the better news is that when you do, you’ll be able to take advantage of the Nik Software Plug-in range.

Nik Software Plug-ins does exactly that – they ‘plug-in’ to Lightroom to give you more options when in editing and development stages. As well as the traditional settings available to Lightroom users, installing Nik Software will give you a host of other styles and features to play with.

The beauty with this is that something that could take considerable time to achieve using just Lightroom editing techniques – a certain style, noise reduction or specific colour effects for example – can be achieved in a matter of minutes.

The Nik Software range is vast. We’ve blogged extensively on their products over the last few months, so it’s well worth having a look back atour posts to learn more about the range. Just click here.

Alternatively, there’s a host of information on Nik Software available on our home website; www.colorconfidence.com

Happy editing!

Only a few days left: save 10% on Nik Plug-ins

As we’ve mentioned in previous posts – until the end of May you can save 10% on the Nik Software range. So, with a only a few days to go, here’s a gentle reminder about the Nik Software range, and why they are so useful for digital image editing…

Color Efex Pro 4 – available in Select and Complete editions, Color Efex is the most comprehensive set of enhancements for colour correction, retouching and creative filters to quickly stylise your images.
Silver Efex Pro 2 – the definitive plug-in for truly outstanding black and white images. Arguably their flagship plug-in, Silver Efex really is an outstanding addition to your workflow.
HDR Efex Pro – the new benchmark for creating stunning, high quality and realistic High Dynamic Range stylised images.
Viveza 2 – take control of light, contrast and colour in your digital imagery for fast, effective photo editing.
Dfine 2.0 – a brilliant plug-in to reduce noise in your images, creating superior quality images without the loss of detail.
Sharpener Pro 3.0 – create maximum impact with easy image sharpening

The range plugs seamlessly into Photoshop, Aperture or Lightroom – meaning you can utilise them in whichever tool works best for you and your workflow.

They all make use of Nik’s patented U-Point Technology too, allowing you to selectively apply adjustments to any area in an image with affecting the overall appearance.

If you want a sneak preview of the power and versatility of Nik Software, the Snapseed App is a great way to get a feel for the Nik way of image editing. Snapseed is available on iPhone and through the Mac Appstore.

We did an in-depth review of Snapseed back in January which you can read here.

A few of us in the office are proud owners of the Snapseed iPhone app, and truthfully, you’ll struggle to find a better app for image editing on the iPhone!

Go have a look… and get that phone out in the sunshine!

Time to get and about…

Look at that, it’s actually stopped raining for a few days – perhaps we can now get out and take some photographs (just as it starts raining again…)!? Would certainly be a good time to capture some summery images with the trees turning greener and days lasting longer…

This leads us nicely onto the art of photo editing. After you’ve taken that simmering shot which captures the moment perfectly, you may want to tweak or enhance it slightly when you get back onto the computer. Nik Software specialise in this image enhancement – helping you get creative with your images and get the best out of your shots.

They offer a range of award-winning plug-ins for Photoshop, Aperture and Lightroom allowing you to stylise and adjust your images. Black and white, HDR effects, stylised colour enhancement, image sharpening and noise reduction can all be effortlessly achieved in the Nik Software range. You can view the range here, or read our previous blog feature exploring the Nik range here.

And better still, throughout May you can save 10% off the Nik Software range on our website – so now you have no excuse to not edit your images to your heart’s content!

Image editing also leads us onto another colour management query – the screen you use to view your images.

A colour accurate display is essential for accurately viewing colour reproduction on-screen, lending itself nicely to the art of image editing. When using the likes of Nik software, it is useful to use a display that reproduces the image as closely as possible. This means you can edit in confidence knowing your edits are being portrayed correctly.

NEC monitors in particular offer this high-quality, accurate colour display, with many using in-built calibration devices to ensure accurate display longevity.

You can learn more about the NEC range here.

Happy Easter…

Well, after we claimed in our last post that Spring had finally arrived by basking in the glory of 20 degree sunshine, it’s now taken a turn for the worse and decided it doesn’t want to arrive just yet… So rest assured we won’t be directly mentioning anything about the weather in this one.

With Easter just around the corner, we thought we’d brighten things up a bit by giving you a free gift with certain orders.

When you purchase a DataColor SpyderStudio, Nik Complete Collection, onOne Photo Suite 6 or X-Rite ColorMunki Photo, you can claim yourself a free Kodak Check-Up Kit, or selected Moab and Permajet Paper:

The DataColor SpyderStudio is a complete colour management and profiling package meaning you can set the lighting conditions at point of image capture, accurately set colour on monitors and projectors and make your printers colour accurate. Claim your free gift with this item here.
Nik Complete Collection is the ultimate photographic editing plug-in package, giving you six easy to use plug-ins for the price of three to use within Photoshop, Aperture or Lightroom. Complete Collection makes use of Nik’s patented U-Point technology, making image editing fast and easy. Claim your free gift with this item here.
onOne Photo Suite 6 is a next-generation plug-in suite to make your digital imagery editing creative, faster and easier. Photo Suite 6 plugs-in to Photoshop, Aperture or Lightroom, or works as a standalone application. Claim your free gift with this item here.
X-Rite ColorMunki Photo offers convenient, cost-effective monitor-to-print matching and calibration. This means what you see on your screen is what you end up printing out. Claim your free gift with this item here.

We’ve not long got back from this year’s Sign & Digital UK show. As with Focus on Imaging, it’s always good to meet our customers in person, we had a great time talking to everyone and we hoped you enjoyed the show.

We’re very much looking forwards to our next show; PhotoVision Roadshow on Tuesday 24th April. Details here: www.forwardevents.co.uk

Happy Easter!

Spring has arrived!

The weather is much better, the sun is actually shining and Spring is very much in the air. Or, at least it was yesterday…

Anyway, to celebrate we have two special Spring offers for you:

1) Get into quality printouts with X-Rite and Tecco

If you buy a ColorMunki Photo this month, you can get yourself a free box of A4 Tecco paper.

The X-Rite ColorMunki Photo will calibrate both your monitor and printer, meaning what you see on screen is what you end up printing out (one of the most common queries at Focus this year was “why do my printouts look different than what’s on screen?”) ensuring greater accuracy.

This offer also means you can print out your newly found accurate images on quality paper.

The Tecco paper range includes different types of paper with varying characteristics, helping to add life and depth to your images. For example, Tecco Iridium Silver Gloss is a silver metallised paper perfect for intensifying black and white images, and Tecco Sepia Satin will add a classic/vintage sepia finish to your prints.

We have 5 paper types to choose from – so once your monitor and printer are calibrated, you can get creative with your printing.

Learn more about the offer here.

Then…

2) Get creative with Color Efex Pro 4 for less

So you’ve now got monitor and printer calibration sorted, as well as some quality paper to print on, but what about your actual image editing?

Until the end of April, you can save 20% on Color Efex Pro 4 from Nik Software.

Color Efex Pro 4 is versatile and intuitive allowing you to colour correct, edit and retouch your digital images, making use of Nik’s patented U-Point technology.

The ‘Complete’ edition has 55 filters (10 improved, 8 brand new) which offer combined flexibility and creativity to quickly stylise your images and make them stand out from the crowd.

Along with Silver Efex Pro 2, Color Efex Pro 4 was one of our most popular and well-received products at this year’s Focus on Imaging.

Learn more about this offer here.

And lastly, don’t forget to come and see us at Sign and Digital UK, stand P94! See www.signuk.com for the lowdown.

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