If you are a photographer or have been engaged in photography and photo editing at some point you might have heard of Google’s Nik Collection Software. For a long time now or a long time now, Google has offered Nik collection download for a price of $150. However, just hours ago through the Nik Collection By Google, G+ page. The company announced that they are now offering the software for FREE!

What Is Nik Collection By Google?

The Nik Collection by Google is a collection of photo or image enhancing tools. These tools are:

• Analog Efex Pro 2
• Color Efex Pro 4
• Dfine 2
• HDR Efex Pro 2
• Sharpener Pro 3
• Silver Efex Pro 2
• Viveza 2

Each of the image enhancing tools has its own specialized function. This will ensure that you will get accurate photo enhancement in your images every time. This software is not a standalone software. It is more a collaborative software that plugs into your Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Photoshop Elements or Adobe Lightroom. The Nik Collection software is also available in Mac and it plugs into Apple Aperture 3.1 or later, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Photoshop Elements, and Adobe Lightroom.

Why offer it for Free?

According to Google’s announcement, it is because of Google’s focus on long-term investment to build incredible photo editing software and tools that they decided to offer Nik Collection for Free. So starting today you can now download the Nik Collection Software without having to go through any payment process.

For those  who paid and downloaded the software, Google announced that they will be refunded of the amount in the coming days. So no need to worry there.

Nik Collection Download

Excited to finally use the Nik collection? You can easily have the Nik collection download here:

Nik Collection download for Mac

Nik Collection download for Windows

Opinion:

Although this is a good news especially for photographers who wants to use the power of Nik Software but cannot afford it. There have been some doubts cast as to why would Google do this. One reason we are looking at is that maybe Google will stop development of the software. Which means no more updates. Another reason maybe is that Google might break its components up and add it to its existing photo editing suite on Google Photos and Google Plus. Or maybe Google will just do as announced. Right now we should all enjoy the Nik Collection software and its powerful photo editing tools.

Got anything to add to this post? Are you using Nik Collection by Google as your photo enhancement tool? Share via the comment below!