I don't know if this was reported here already but Google bought Nik Software.
This is the company that makes, besides some cool plugins I use all the time, Capture NX/2.
Now, Google is going to make all the updates. So version 3 of Capture NX will be done by Google and this maybe be
a good (or bad thing).
Gregg B. wrote:
I don't know if this was reported here already but Google bought Nik Software.
This is the company that makes, besides some cool plugins I use all the time, Capture NX/2.
Now, Google is going to make all the updates. So version 3 of Capture NX will be done by Google and this maybe be
a good (or bad thing).
What do you mean "version 3 of Capture NX will be done by Google"?
Do you know this for a fact? Did Google fire all of the current NIK employees?
beshannon wrote:
What do you mean "version 3 of Capture NX will be done by Google"?
Do you know this for a fact? Did Google fire all of the current NIK employees?
Yes, Google will fire all the Nik employees and I know this for a fact.... Yes, that's what I meant.
That's, of course, not what I meant. Since Google owns it now all the changes will be controlled, and influenced by Google, and its engineers. Capture NX is not a very good software (and I'm being generous by saying "not very good"). So Google probably bought it cheap, will make lots of changes and will put top software engineers they have to help to improve it, and try to sell it to us for more ( possibly more, they may try to keep price the same sicne Capture NX isn't used that much anymore. People prefer Lightroom or other raw converters).
The Nik plugin suite is very usefull but also has some dumb problems that hopefully Google will fix.
I thought Nik was already completely out as far as Capture NX2 was concerned, and it is being maintained only by Nikon.
This could either be really good or really bad news. I'm leaning towards the latter. Especially because I use NX2 and CEP 3, and Snapseed on iOS, both of which are now going to be at the end of their product life.
sylvesterii wrote:
I thought Nik was already completely out as far as Capture NX2 was concerned, and it is being maintained only by Nikon.
This could either be really good or really bad news. I'm leaning towards the latter. Especially because I use NX2 and CEP 3, and Snapseed on iOS, both of which are now going to be at the end of their product life.
I agree with you Sylvester. This could be a good or bad thing. I have no clue what is going to happen to Capture NX. I just hope that it'll be dropped/discontinued. And, that Nikon will adapt raw open format such as DNG by Adobe (just like some companies already did) and instead of NEF or TIFF, or along with TIFF, a DNG will be used as a primary raw image file format. I'd like that to happen.... but will see...
With all due respect, did you say Capture NX2 IS NOT a good software? I wonder if you know how to work the NEF files with it!
I am going to give you my opinion. I am convinced it is the BEST software you can use with NEF files. Its sharpening machine is far superior to anything I have used to edit RAW files and Nik put some wonderful tweaks in it, like color control just to mention one of them, that make the life of the person working with the software less complicated.
I will say it is still somewhat slow, perhaps some other nice features can be added but I would never say it is not a good software for Nikon files.
Just my opinion.
"Good" is such a relative term and can mean a lot of things. For high volume shooters that are doing events and weddings it is most likely NOT going to be considered a good software simply because it doesn't have the speed to be practical in processing hundreds or thousands of images.
camerapapi wrote:
With all due respect, did you say Capture NX2 IS NOT a good software? I wonder if you know how to work the NEF files with it!
I am going to give you my opinion. I am convinced it is the BEST software you can use with NEF files. Its sharpening machine is far superior to anything I have used to edit RAW files and Nik put some wonderful tweaks in it, like color control just to mention one of them, that make the life of the person working with the software less complicated.
I will say it is still somewhat slow, perhaps some other nice features can be added but I would never say it is not a good software for Nikon files.
Just my opinion.
It's good you have your opinion. And you should....
The reason I don't particularly like Capture NX 2 is because I think Adobe, for example, is way better at image processing algorithms and so their products are faster, optimized, don't crash (at least as often as NX/NX2) and overall Adobe is able to produce better quality software. If you like Capture NX2 and you think it produces better images, by all means go ahead and use it. I still think that it's not a good software. To make it more clear, just compare it to other products. The GUI isn't even intuitively designed. Adobe, Apple, Microsoft have all cognitive scientists that specialize in Human Computer Interaction (HCI) to make software as intuitive as possible. At first I didn't know how to use the damn software. The image processing slowness, and fact it decrypts/encrypts white balance information makes me want to stay away from it. There are much better products out there William and you should try them out...
I use NX2 regularly, daily in fact, for ALL my files. I haven't had it crash once. I believe it's not only good software, but the BEST. This is all, of course, only my opinion and doesn't amount to a hill of beans at the end of the day, but for MY needs it's the one I turn to every time. Better to one person might not be better to others though, I appreciate that. I tried LR and didn't enjoy the experience at all... but again, YMMV.
FWIW, I too, used to think that NIK wrote and maintained Capture NX, for Nikon. I was told, by Thom Hogan and some other folks in the Nikon community that I respect, that NIK has never written the main program Capture NX. NIK only sold some of it's features, like control point, to Nikon for inclusion in Capture. Supposedly, Nikon has always had their own software engineers working on the main program. That would explain why NX can be so frustrating to use for some people and would also explain why the NIK plugins work so well and NX, not so much.
As for Google buying NIK, I can only hope that they don't screw it up. Maybe they'll even lower the prices of the main plugins that they sell. Right..
I don't know any professional retouchers using Nikons' Capture NX2 as the RAW converter. The industry standard is both LR and C1 Pro. Perhaps only some hobbyists use it.
mshi wrote:
I don't know any professional retouchers using Nikons' Capture NX2 as the RAW converter. The industry standard is both LR and C1 Pro. Perhaps only some hobbyists use it.
That's because it's so darn slow with modern computers. No?
Kerry Pierce wrote:
FWIW, I too, used to think that NIK wrote and maintained Capture NX, for Nikon. I was told, by Thom Hogan and some other folks in the Nikon community that I respect, that NIK has never written the main program Capture NX. NIK only sold some of it's features, like control point, to Nikon for inclusion in Capture. Supposedly, Nikon has always had their own software engineers working on the main program. That would explain why NX can be so frustrating to use for some people and would also explain why the NIK plugins work so well and NX, not so much.
As for Google buying NIK, I can only hope that they don't screw it up. Maybe they'll even lower the prices of the main plugins that they sell. Right..
Hm... I didn't know that Kerry. That's a good point. Either way, Capture NX/2 has some features that people like until they try something else. I think that Lightroom 4 is really good and I like DNG files (they have this preload feature that allows you to load big/huge files faster). The only reason that Capture NX would kind of produce better images if because NEF files are partially encrypted and only Capture NX can decrypt that info. I got around this problem by converting my NEF files to 16-bit TIFFs first, and importing them into Lightroom library as DNG next. Then, all processing I do in LR (and Photoshop if I need to).
So at least we won't have to blame NIk. Well if this is the case then Google buying Nik may not change anything, maybe except for their plugins.
I don’t believe this acquisition will benefit anyone who isn’t a smart-phone aficionado or a social networking addict. The cynic I am, I'm more concerned that Nik plug-ins could disappear entirely.
For a while I used Capture NX2 to do my raw conversions and then finished in PS. However, if I really had to push the processing or was just experimenting and needed the speed and capability, I could not do it because of the limitations in what the various sliders could do (+- 2 EVs?) and resorted to PS.
Capture NX2 hasn't been competitve in output quality since CS2 and it's always been glacial in processing speed.
I will not miss NX2 if it goes away as it should, based on evolution's survival of the fit (and demise of the unfit). CS6 is light years ahead.
Gregg B. wrote:
I don't know if this was reported here already but Google bought Nik Software.
This is the company that makes, besides some cool plugins I use all the time, Capture NX/2.
Now, Google is going to make all the updates. So version 3 of Capture NX will be done by Google and this maybe be
a good (or bad thing).
I hope Google improves this software because I love it. And it is true. Google bought Nik Software Inc.
That's what I was saying early, but I'm reading more and more on G+ that they are liking the idea of having Nik's filters available over their for software edits. Time will see...
Based on what I read on Thom's site, a while ago Nikon took NX back from NIK and has been maintaining it ever since (which is why NX has not been updated with the latest NIK plugins). Now that Google has bought NIK, and Nikon is in complete control of NX, you can be sure that NX2 is the last version we will ever see of that application. Shame.
Yes, that's what I meant. 
