14 DAY TRIAL // In a Google+ statement today, Google announced it was making the Nik Collection software package free and was offering to refund all recent customers that purchased the app during 2016.
Google bought Nik Software in 2012, mainly for its mobile photo editor Snapseed, which Google eventually made available for free, while also siphoning away some of its features into other apps and services.
But besides Snapseed, Nik Software was also known for other seven image editing programs, available as standalone desktop software, for Mac and Windows, and as plugins for Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Lightroom, and Aperture. Each of them was sold individually.
After the Google purchase, the search giant bundled all these programs together, and made them available as the Google Nik Collection, sold for $149 (€133).
With the plethora of free image editing software available today, Google had no real profit from these seven, and as so, has taken the logical step and made them free for everyone.
"Starting March 24, 2016, the latest Nik Collection will be freely available to download: Analog Efex Pro, Color Efex Pro, Silver Efex Pro, Viveza, HDR Efex Pro, Sharpener Pro and Dfine," said Google in a statement today.
Here's what Google made free
If you're curious about what each application does, here's a breakdown. Analog Efex Pro is a toolkit for applying the classic camera film and lens effect to modern digital photography.
Color Efex Pro is an application for applying filters for color correction, retouching, and creative effects.
Dfine can be used to adjust contrast and reduce color noise, with separate settings for each camera.
HDR Efex Pro can be used for creating HDR images, by merging a series of sequential images.
Sharpener Pro allows photographers to adjust an image's sharpen settings, and bring out more details.
Silver Efex Pro is for creating black & white photography, with support for classic darkroom settings and a boatload of presets.
Viveza is tool for adjusting a photo's color and tonality, and is ideal for photographs that want to make their photos stand out using (the appropriate) colors.
Earlier this week, Google also decided to offer another of its tools for free, the BinDiff binary comparison tool, used by its security researchers.
