Google’s high-end, seven-piece Nik Collection of photo editing software is now free for all. The company announced in a statement Thursday that it is no longer charging for the collection — comprised of seven desktop plug-ins that allow users to add filters to images, retouch them and more. It previously sold for $149. Nik’s applications are compatible with Photoshop, Lightroom and Aperture.
The Nik Collection includes seven desktop plug-ins: Analog Efex Pro, Color Efex Pro, Silver Efex Pro, Viveza, HDR Efex Pro, Sharpener Pro and Dfine. The collection is available online for download.
“We’re excited to bring the powerful photo editing tools once only used by professionals to even more people now,” Google said. “As we continue to focus our long-term investments in building incredible photo editing tools for mobile… we’ve decided to make the Nik Collection desktop suite available for free, so that now anyone can use it.”
Anyone who bought the software this year can expect to see a refund in the coming days, according to Google.
Nik was purchased by Google in 2012, and prior to that each program cost around $100 for a total of up to $500 for the software suite. After the purchase, Google offered the whole bundle for $150, and made it available for all of its supported applications via a single installer.
Want to learn about Nik? Google has a great collection of videos on YouTube to get you started.