Nik Is Back!!!

Y’all! Nik is back!!   DxO, the company that purchased Nik from Google in 2017 announced just a couple of days ago that they have re-released the beloved software.

The best news of all, is that the entire suite is now fully compatible with Lightroom and Photoshop.

The Nik Collection 2018 by DxO is now fully functional and compatible with all 64-bit Windows and Mac platforms, as well as with Adobe Lightroom Classic CC, Photoshop CC 2018, and Photoshop Elements 2017/2018. In addition, DxO now provides support in four languages on its website (http://nikcollection.dxo.com/), which will soon include exclusive tutorials. The software suite update, including the seven plugins, is now available in 13 languages, and includes a free 30-day trial period.

The Nik Collection 2018 by DxO is available for download on the DxO website (http://shop.dxo.com/us/photo-software/dxo-nikcollection) for $49.99 /

 

 

Purchaser of NIK Software Files For Bankruptcy

You read that headline right!  The company, DXO that originally introduced itself to the industry with an alternative camera, and then brought the industry a processing software, DxO PhotoLab, has recently filed bankruptcy.

Although this news might alarm NIK enthusiasts, the company assures that this should have no impact on consumers or their experience.  In fact, they also announced at the same time that in June of 2018 they will release the new version of the Nik Collection with the long awaited bug fixes that have been plaguing us.  In addition, they will be performing updates to ensure compatibility with the most current operating systems.

Adobe Raw and Camera Profiles in ACR & Lightroom

In photography and digital imaging, the term “profile” can mean many different things. There are color profiles, display profiles, lens profiles, printer profiles, working profiles, and so on. Within ACR and Lightroom, a camera profile is used to render a photograph, converting it from raw camera information into the colors and tones that we see.

In order to process raw photos, Adobe builds DCP camera profiles (DCP stands for DNG Camera Profiles) for nearly every camera make and model they support. The cameras that they don’t build profiles for but are still supported capture in DNG, which allows for the camera’s manufacturer to build their own DCP which is embedded within the DNG.

DCPs take into consideration the color primaries (based off of the color filter array that is positioned in front of the sensor), the specific sensitivity of the sensor used, and the sensor’s characteristics in different lighting conditions and at different ISO values.

To create a DCP profile, we capture a number of standardized test targets, including a variety of color checkers, under a variety of different lighting conditions and light sources. The goal of this process is to create a standardized, neutral profile of how a particular camera captures the world.

Adobe Standard and Adobe Color

The improvements in Adobe Color helps make the red and orange leaves look both more natural as well as more pleasing.

 

With the DCP profiles, Adobe is able to normalize the results from a wide array of cameras, resulting in a standardized look and representation of images captured by each camera. Adobe Standard adds some subtle tonal and color adjustments to represent the common expected look and feeling of a photograph. The goal of these subtle adjustments is to ensure a good starting point from which one can edit their photos.

The look of Adobe Standard was designed to be a great starting point for photos that enables photographers to get the most of out them while editing, however it was also created nearly ten years ago. Over that time, we’ve learned a lot about what photographers want and have gotten great feedback on how we can make an even better starting point. From all of this feedback, a new default was born: Adobe Color.

Adobe Color was designed to greatly improve the look and rendering of warm tones, improving the transitions between certain color ranges, and slightly increasing the starting contrast of photos. In order to ensure the viability of Adobe Color on the widest range of images, the impact on some images can be very subtle.

One major improvement to Adobe Color, as compared to Adobe Standard, is that the hue of reds has been adjusted slightly to result in more natural looking reds and warm tones. This ensures that photographers don’t need to adjust the hue of red tones (either through the HSL or the Camera Calibration tools) to get a natural looking image–Adobe Color looks more natural right out of the box.

Another major improvement to Adobe Color is the transition from near neutral warm tones to more saturated warm tones. We adjusted how those transitions happen to ensure that the transition, or gradient, is more linear and doesn’t result in transition errors. This means those transitions appear more natural and there are no visible shifts along a warm gradient range.

A third important improvement to Adobe Color is a slight boost to global contrast. We added this slight contrast bump based off of feedback we’ve received from photographers over the course of many years, with the goal again of images looking more natural, more photographic, and requiring fewer adjustments to get to a good starting point when compared to Adobe Standard.

As photography is quite a nuanced art form, and since there are so many photographers that rely on Adobe Camera Raw and Lightroom, we not only retained access to Adobe Standard but we also introduced a number of additional Adobe Raw profiles providing choice and control over the initial rendering of images. The first two, Adobe Vivid and Adobe Neutral provide variations on Adobe Color to ensure that photographers can pick their personal preference or adapt the initial rendering to suit the subject.

Adobe Vivid and Adobe Neutral

 

Adobe Vivid increases the amount of contrast and saturation applied across the entire image, while still applying some skin tone color and tonality protections.

 

 

Both Adobe Vivid and Adobe Neutral start with Adobe Standard and add the improvements found in Adobe Color, and provide options that let photographers adapt the initial rendering to their personal taste and/or subject and create a personalized starting point by selecting a increased or decreased level of contrast and saturation in their photographs.

Adobe Neutral provides a starting point with a very low amount of contrast, useful for photos where photographers want the most control over their edits with the least amount of shifts from the neutral rendition created by their camera, or for photographs that have very difficult tonal and color ranges.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, Adobe Vivid increases both the contrast and saturation to provide a more punchy starting point.

Adobe Landscape

Adobe Landscape removes skin-tone based color protections and increases the pop of skies and foliage tones.

 

 

Adobe Landscape was created for photographers to apply based off of the subject matter of the photograph, in this case landscapes. As with all Adobe Raw profiles, Adobe Landscape starts with Adobe Standard and includes many of the improvements found in Adobe Color. In addition to those improvements, Adobe Landscape increases the saturation in foliage hues (greens) and sky hues (blues), removes the skin hue and tonality protections (ensuring that objects in a landscape that may happen to share similar hues and tonalities with skin tones actually get the contrast boost found throughout the rest of the hue and tonality ranges), and also slightly boosts the dynamic range of the image processing, enabling a wider range of tonality to be included in the image (increasing the amount of tonal compression applied by the raw processing engine) so that images with a very wide dynamic range can be rendered completely through the Highlight and Shadow sliders.

 

Reposted from Adobe.com.

 

 

Photoshop Update: Select Subject

Select Subject is powered by Adobe Sensei and lets you get started with your selections faster than ever before. Select Subject automatically selects the prominent subjects in the image with one click. You can then refine the selection using other selection tools.

It’s available in all the places you start selections:

  • Select > Subject.+ 
  • Select the Subject button in the Quick Selection tool and Magic Wand options bar.+ 
  • Select the Subject button in the Select & Mask workspace options bar while using the Quick Selection tool.+ 

The Select Subject command lets you select the most prominent subject in an image in a single click. Powered by advanced machine learning technology, Select Subject is trained to identify a variety of objects in an image—people, animals, vehicles, toys, and more.

Access Select Subject in one of the following ways in Photoshop:

  • While editing an image, choose Select > Subject.
  • While using the Quick Selection or Magic Wand tools, click Select Subject in the options bar.
  • While using the Quick Selection tool in the Select & Mask workspace, click Select Subject in the options bar.

Select Subject automatically selects the prominent subjects in the image. You can then refine the selection using other selection tools. For example, in the illustration above, use the Subtract From Selection option with another selection tool to remove the part of the sidewalk included in the automatic selection.

For more information on refining selections, see Adjust pixel selections.

 

 

 

*Article Credit:  Jerry Harris & Adobe Blog

Crash Course: Blending Modes in Photoshop

Do you want to learn more about blending modes in Photoshop and be better able to edit your images with more control and precision? Jesús Ramirez of the Photoshop Training Channel is here to help with the crash course below. The video below is less than 10 minutes long, so it cannot cover all the blending modes in great detail. However, if you want additional information and have more free time, Ramirez also made a 41-minute video about blend modes.

What exactly is a blending mode? A blend mode basically takes the pixels of one layer and blends them with pixels from another layer. This results in different effects, sometimes ones dramatically different in appearance. How can you utilize blend modes to improve the look of your photos? Find out in the video below.

(Via Photoshop Training Channel)Â