Can I use Nik software on its own? Or does it need some other software to run?

Sorry, I'm new to the world of re-touching. Are these plug-ins that require a host software or can I use them as stand-alone tools (I don't have any image processing s/w on my computer).

If it's the former, any recommendations for an inexpensive host software that is compatible with the Nik plug-ins?

I'm writing this in reference to the following offer which I'm interested in -

https://plus.google.com/u/1/112991908363536599988/posts/dwJAcwuphTa

Found on internet:

Steve T. , Jan 09, 2012; 11:01 p.m.

Thank you for contacting Nik Software. Yes, HDR Efex Pro is the only one of our software that will run as a standalone product.

Hmm; interesting.....  I have them all (the Nik versions on my Mac) and I think they *all* work as standalone if you drag a (JPEG or TIFF) file or files onto their OS icons to open it/them.

HDR Efex is the only one which has a file open menu though; so maybe that is why Nik speak specifically of it working standalone.

As far as I can tell (and I am pretty confident in what I say, certainly under OS X), the Lightroom and Aperture versions are actually standalone. They do not really run inside Lightroom or Aperture. Those "host" programs merely export a processed TIFF to the Nik program, and then after the Nik program is closed with a save, the result is imported back to Lightrrom or Aperture. The plug-in part is really just that export/import interface.

When used with Photoshop, then they are much more true plug-ins and work actually inside Photoshop. They still have the same user-interface as per the standalone Lightroom/Aperture implementation, but they just are running as a filter within Photoshop. That gives you also the power of smart-objects and smart-filters and with that an ability to go back and re-adjust.

The only issue you may get without a host is a Nik installer warning saying that it cannot identify a host program (I do not know because I have all of Lightroom, Aperture and Photoshop on my machine). Maybe the Nik installer for everything except HDR Efex does not let you install without host. The way round that would be to download Lightroom as free 30-day trail and install that first. Then install the Nik applications.

Obviously I do not work for Nik/Google, and above is just my own observations with the current Nik versions. I did not install the Google branded ones yet as I did not get my e-mail to do so. It's also of course possible that the functionality would change in later versions, but above is certainly my observation with current and previous versions. I suggest you download all that interest you and try for yourself at your risk.

Thank you for the replies. My OS is Windows. Does anyone know if I can just obtain this package by itself and run on my machine? Or will I need to first purchase something like LR4?

Hi,

I am using Windows 10 on a 64 bit machine and have not yet acquired a Lightroom or Photoshop license. But I downloaded the NIK software last night and tried to use it standalone. I encountered a number of issues.

For the HDR module, it works fine up to the point where I click on the "Save" button on the lower right of the interface to save my finished image. It goes through the process of preparing the data to save but when the progress bar reaches the right hand side of the slider field, poof, the software silently closes down, and I do not see any image file created anywhere. I should also say that when I click on "Save", I get no dialogue asking what type of image file I wish to save. It just starts working. I did see on a youTube demo on using this standalone that some sort of dialogue should pop up asking what type of image to save, but I don't get this.

I also tried the module that makes B&W images. This only takes one image to work on. As standalone I did find a File open menu item here too. But this also closes down on saving the finished image. However, it does manage to save the finished image, overwriting the original image that I started with! I did later find a warning about this on the internet

billythek wrote:

sis345678 wrote:

Hi,

I am using Windows 10 on a 64 bit machine and have not yet acquired a Lightroom or Photoshop license. But I downloaded the NIK software last night and tried to use it standalone. I encountered a number of issues.

For the HDR module, it works fine up to the point where I click on the "Save" button on the lower right of the interface to save my finished image. It goes through the process of preparing the data to save but when the progress bar reaches the right hand side of the slider field, poof, the software silently closes down, and I do not see any image file created anywhere. I should also say that when I click on "Save", I get no dialogue asking what type of image file I wish to save. It just starts working. I did see on a youTube demo on using this standalone that some sort of dialogue should pop up asking what type of image to save, but I don't get this.

I also tried the module that makes B&W images. This only takes one image to work on. As standalone I did find a File open menu item here too. But this also closes down on saving the finished image. However, it does manage to save the finished image, overwriting the original image that I started with! I did later find a warning about this on the internet

The Nik tools (the current "collection" that you can download free) are not intended to be run stand alone, but rather as plugins. However, you can hack them to run standalone, but they act very quirky when you do that.

I tried them also as stand alone on a Windows 10 machine and didn't find any problems. Just make shortcuts on your desktop from the exe files and drag&drop either jpeg, Tiff or png files on the shortcuts and it will open the file in the modules.

It is true however that you have more options when run as a plug-in in photoshop. You can even save them on a layer for further editing.

Best bet they work fine in Elements, Photoshop, Lightroom and Photoline. ACDsee isn't fully compatible yet with the 8bf plug-in structure. I also encountered some problems with other plug-ins trying to make them work in ACDsee ultimate!

The plug-ins were initially designed to run in Lightroom and Photoshop.

During installation it will show a list of compatible hosts. If the host is not in the list, best bet is it won't work.

I just checked the paid version number i have with the free version and the numbers match! So the paid version and the free version are identical!