Nik value add over Lightroom?

alexbrodie

I'm not trying to troll here, I'm just not sure what I'm missing, so I was hoping someone would help me understand what's so great about Nik plugins compared to what's already available in Lightroom.

I'm a long time Lr user (since v1 beta), and am a huge fan. I spend a lot of time in it for someone who is just a hobbyist, and have built a high performance machine with 30" monitor and Wacom to make it as nice to use as possible - so I'm quite efficient in it, at least compared with other software. With the recent discount on Nik software I was excited to try after hearing such great things for so long, and I hoped it could improve my workflow speed and quality of output. So I installed the trial (which doesn't work correctly if you have save presets with catalog set by the way) to check it out.

So far I've briefly tried the ones I was most excited about: Color Effex, Silver Effex, Viveza and HDR Effex. HDR Effex seems nice, and I might prefer it to Photomatix (which I currently use). The other ones though had me stumped. Maybe they were relatively better than the alternatives in the past, but now that Lr 4 has so much functionality, I don't see myself jumping into those plugins often or ever for several reasons:

1. It's no longer a non-destructive workflow once you go to Nik
2. There's a larger disk footprint if you want to save all your edits in full fidelity (compared with Lr's metadata only edits)
3. It takes a long time to transition back and forth
4. Most of the effects seem to be available in Lr now
5. Lr edits seem more future proof - if a better version of an editing feature comes along, I feel I can likely reuse the work I've done in Lr

The one big thing Nik has (and has had for over a decade) is the smart zone selection - I think they call it U Point currently. Typically the only local edits I apply in Lr are blemish removal using spot removal, and brush edits: skin smoothing, eye whitening, teeth whitening, and sometimes dodge/burn. I can usually finish all this up in what seems like it would take to edit in Color Effex, use the Dynamic Skin Softener and save. It's not clear to me how useful Nik's selective edits are or how often I'd use them.

I'm sure there are a lot of good reasons and scenarios for using Nik rather than just Lr. How does it help you?

Cornflake

I'm a big fan of both Lightroom and Nik's products, particularly Color Efex Pro. One reason is, as you mention, the U point/ control point feature. I seldom want to apply a change to an entire image and the control points make it quick and easy to make local adjustments. Color Efex Pro is deceptive because it looks like a bunch of whizbang filters that most of us would rarely want to use. Once you spend some time with the program and ignore the presets, though, you realize that those filters disguise very useful tools. I can't think of much it will do that is completely impossible in Lightroom, although (unless I've missed it) Lightroom won't allow a luminance-only curve, and it won't allow separate contrast changes for shadows, midtones and highlights. But Color Efex Pro does a lot of things more quickly than Lightroom will.

VayCayMom

Color Efex Pro has an action I use on about 85 % of my images. It can be done other ways but something about the darken/lighten tool adds so much to my images. Just burning a vignette is not the same outcome. I could not live without this one tool!

mercphoto

alexbrodie wrote: »

1. It's no longer a non-destructive workflow once you go to Nik
2. There's a larger disk footprint if you want to save all your edits in full fidelity (compared with Lr's metadata only edits)
3. It takes a long time to transition back and forth
4. Most of the effects seem to be available in Lr now
5. Lr edits seem more future proof - if a better version of an editing feature comes along, I feel I can likely reuse the work I've done in Lr

Pretty much any edit plug-in for LR (or Aperture for that matter) will not be non-destructive. Its just not possible. However, Aperture will create a new version of the file, and the plug-in edits the version, not the master. So in that respect you have not modified your original, you still have that. I would hope LR behaves the same way.

Cornflake

"Color Efex Pro has an action I use on about 85 % of my images. It can be done other ways but something about the darken/lighten tool adds so much to my images. Just burning a vignette is not the same outcome. I could not live without this one tool!"

It's great and easy. Used it today. It helps a lot, but subtly, to focus the viewer's attention on the subject.

ptyrrell

Aperture is great how it automatically creates a new master to edit from in NIK and all plug-ins, LR does this too if you set it up to do so. If not just create a virtual copy in LR before entering NIK or any other plug-in, if LR doesn't do this I use to use "create virtual copy" afterwards and just hit reset in LR but this doesn't seem to work anymore for me, so you must do it first, otherwise just set up lightroom to do this for you??? I use both Aperture and LR almost equally, I prefer importing into Aperture solely because I personally find it's almost twice as fast for some bizarre reason and I personally prefer their library system.

EphTwoEight

ptyrrell wrote: »

Aperture is great how it automatically creates a new master to edit from in NIK and all plug-ins, LR does this too if you set it up to do so. If not just create a virtual copy in LR before entering NIK or any other plug-in, if LR doesn't do this I use to use "create virtual copy" afterwards and just hit reset in LR but this doesn't seem to work anymore for me, so you must do it first, otherwise just set up lightroom to do this for you??? I use both Aperture and LR almost equally, I prefer importing into Aperture solely because I personally find it's almost twice as fast for some bizarre reason and I personally prefer their library system.

Ah, me too. I just wish Apple would remove there heads from their butts and do a real update to Aperture. I prefer it as well, but ending up use LR for the noise reduction, and a few better editing tools.

Any word if anyone at Apple even cares about that product any more?

mercphoto

They still care about Aperture.

ThirdDayImaging

I love the Nik plug-ins. Especially ColorFX and SilverFX. There is a lot I could say, but one of my favorite features in ColorFX is how every filter seems to be infinitely adjustable. The contrast and tone settings just seem to give a little something extra after doing the majority of pp in LR. I then take the image back into LR for final exposure adjustments, if necessary. The whole workflow is very uncomplicated, and renders consistently good results.

If I'm to be honest however, with all the tools we have at our disposal these days, there's a certain point where it just comes down to personal preference. Even in the age of "cold digitization," the available resources are so vast that it is still very feasible for the visual artist to produce unique images. To quote someone I disdain, "That is a good thing."

Gary752

mercphoto wrote: »

Pretty much any edit plug-in for LR (or Aperture for that matter) will not be non-destructive. Its just not possible. However, Aperture will create a new version of the file, and the plug-in edits the version, not the master. So in that respect you have not modified your original, you still have that. I would hope LR behaves the same way.

I use LR 4 and when I select Edit In (any plug-in) it asks me if I want to use the original, original with LR settings, or a copy. If you select Copy, it automatically creates a TIF file and places it alongside the original RAW file.

GaryB

ThirdDayImaging

Right Gary - that's exactly how I have my defaults setup in LR4. Many hundreds of "undestroyed" images and counting!

arodney

Point is, making an iteration (TIFF) to use the plug-in breaks the non destructive parametric workflow. NO 3rd party plug-in's have, and some could say never will have access to the ACR engine. The time you decide to use these plug-in's, you might as well render the image as a TIFF and continue in Photoshop with said plug-in's. The only reason this rendering is done is because ACR/LR processing now stops and for those that don't own Photoshop or Elements etc, those plug-in's are accessible without said products. The time you decide to render, consider what you can no longer do in ACR/LR with raw data! You've just drawn a pretty significant line in the editing sand.

ThirdDayImaging

I'm either missing what you're saying (which is entirely possible - lol), or I'm having a completely different experience than what you're describing.

I always have two choices when I edit with plug-ins. I can either bring the image (tiff) back into LR and continue editing, export, etc., or I can work with the RAW file which has been left exactly as it was (including prior LR adjustments).

I'm not disagreeing with you, you sound like you know a lot more about the technical side of things than I do, but perhaps you could be patient with me and try to explain what you're saying in different way.

As far as my daily workflow is concerned, I'm not seeing the "line in the sand" that you described.

arodney

ThirdDayImaging wrote: »

I'm either missing what you're saying (which is entirely possible - lol), or I'm having a completely different experience than what you're describing.

I always have two choices when I edit with plug-ins. I can either bring the image (tiff) back into LR and continue editing, export, etc., or I can work with the RAW file which has been left exactly as it was (including prior LR adjustments).

Yes, you can continue editing a TIFF in Develop, but that's totally different data than working on the original raw data and building instructions FOR the final rendering to create that TIFF. The second you render raw+instructions into that TIFF, you're no longer working with the same data. You've baked that color and tonal appearance into the TIFF. When you edit a raw, that doesn't happen. It is a true non destructive workflow as the raw isn't touched or altered and, none of the RGB pixels have been baked. You are simply viewing a preview of the raw+current instructions and you can move back and forth as much as you desire. Only when you build that TIFF is the cake baked so to speak. You can't unbake it.

Again, the render to TIFF for these plug-in's is necessary because they have zero access to the ACR processing engine. They ask, and the ACR engine provides a baked TIFF with the current instructions. IF you owned Photoshop and the plug-in, the results are the same. IOW, you gain noting from these plug-in's using LR other than you don't have to apply the same processing in Photoshop which you may now own. If you own Photoshop, or Elements, it makes no difference if you apply the plug-in in LR OR you just render it as a TIFF, open it in Photoshop and apply the same plug-in. The only other ' benefit' is that LR will store that new, baked TIFF iteration into the Library. But the processing is the same.

As far as my daily workflow is concerned, I'm not seeing the "line in the sand" that you described.

The line is between actual raw, parametric editing vs. pixel editing. The differences and how they could affect your workflow can be significant. Just like the differences between trying to edit raw data versus editing the camera JPEG. That JPEG is baked and not in a very good color space or bit depth but that's another discussion.

pathfinder

While I have most of the Nik plug ins for both Lightroom and Photoshop, I find I usually prefer to do my Nik alterations in Photoshop, so that I can do them on an adjustment layer.

I guess I could use the brushes in Nik window before returning to LR, but I just prefer doing them as an adjustment layer in Photoshop, maybe because I am just more comfortable there, but hey... Or because I have access to all the various blending modes and masks in PS, before finally returning a tiff to LR.

I do not think it is an either/r question, but a just a question of whether I want to use the Nik plug in globally or more selectively, and yes, I do use the brushes in Nik sometimes, just infrequently.

ThirdDayImaging

Ah, that last analogy (jpeg/raw dynamics) did it - I think I get it now. In other words, I better be permanently happy with my LR adjustments if I plan on further editing the image via a plug-in. Because when I bring the image back into LR, any editing I attempt will actually begin to deteriorate the image in the same way that it does with a jpeg, as opposed to a raw file.

Am I getting it? Btw, thanks Andrew.

arodney

ThirdDayImaging wrote: »

Ah, that last analogy (jpeg/raw dynamics) did it - I think I get it now. In other words, I better be permanently happy with my LR adjustments if I plan on further editing the image via a plug-in. Because when I bring the image back into LR, any editing I attempt will actually begin to deteriorate the image in the same way that it does with a jpeg, as opposed to a raw file.

Yes and no. Yes, there is data loss editing the TIFF either in Photoshop or LR but if you do this on high bit data, the loss is moot. Another common misunderstanding is that if you do all the work on layers in PS, there's no data loss. Correct:until you print or flatten. Then those instructions have to be applied to the underlying data and there is data loss. Do it in high bit, it's not visible. It's there however.

The bigger issue is editing flexibility. Do this: Shoot a scene raw+JPEG and be sure the white balance is way off. Say set the camera to Daylight and shoot under Tungsten.

Take both into Lightroom or ACR and attempt to white balance. In the raw, nothing set above in terms of WB will affect the raw. It can look butt ugly and you can fix it in a second. Try the same approach with the JPEG or even a TIFF. The data and processing is vastly different. You baked this TIFF or JPEG cake with salt instead of sugar and unbaking it is nearly impossible.

When you work in ACR or Develop in LR, all you are doing is building sets of rendering instructions which do nothing until you ask to render out that TIFF or PSD from raw. At that point, the instruction based editing of raw data stops! You can still apply edits to TIFF's and JPEG's in LR of course, you are still building instructions but you're applying them on baked RGB pixels. By the very nature of you editing, it means the original TIFF or JPEG wasn't done being seasoned to taste. It still needed edits. So why did you render and stop this flexible editing workflow?

Once you know you're done in Develop, OK, render and further edit in Photoshop using tools that don't exist or are not precise in a raw converter. Retouching using fine pixel and brush control comes to mind in Photoshop. Compositing. The toolset in Photoshop is different than LR as is the data and processes. Understand how each tools works and where it is best used. Moving from raw to rendered, then using tools that are best applied to raw isn't the best workflow by a long shot.