If you are a keen professional photographer, you must have heard of the high profile purchase of Nik Software by Google back in 2012.
At the moment, Nik is part of the Mountain View team; however, the company still works on Snapseed app on both iOS and Android platforms.
In an announcement made by Google, Nik software for both Windows and Mac users will no longer cost the $149 it used to as from March 24 onwards. The company sees this as a long-term investment step as it looks towards establishing itself in the mobile photo editing industry.
This is a surprising move by Google considering that this tool has been a ‘hotcake’ ever since it started dropping prices. A few years ago, the Nik software was selling for a significant $500 and now that it is available for free on all major platforms, photography enthusiasts will be more than happy to learn this. If you had bought the Nik software suite this year, there is even good news for you as Google has promised to refund all customers who had paid the $149 fee that was required to get this professional photo editing suite.
Nik software is now meant for all
Usually, paid-for software applications attract professionals who need them to make revenue or for their own professional purposes. This is the same case as Nik software. However, now that the application can be downloaded and installed on desktops for free, Google is simply saying that anyone can now use this application for their own photo editing needs.
The Nik software suite comes with quite a wide range of tools, among them seven plugins for Apple Aperture, Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Photoshop. The suite also comes with black and white controls, noise reduction, color enhancement, HDR effects, sharpening as well as vintage camera filters and color correction.
With the professional photo editing suite now available for free, everyone can take advantage of these features to retouch, sharpen or even adjust the color and tone of photos without spending a dime.
Is Google giving up on Nik software?
It is not an easy decision to give up $149 in exchange for nothing. Nik software is used by professional photo editors and the fact that it is now free may sound weird for many. In fact, it gets even scarier given that the desktop version had already been discontinued when Google cut the price of the software from $500 to $150.
Rumors are rife that updates may no longer come to this platform as Google plans to focus more on Snapseed photo editing software for PC. Google has not confirmed anything yet, but for now, you can download the free Nik software here.