Nik Software Score!

I don’t get on Google+ very often, just don’t get much out of it, although I follow a number of professional photographers and a couple of guys from Scott Kelby’s NAPP group.

But I just happened to fire it up tonight and saw something I had to jump on.

I’ve been lusting after Nik Software’s plugins for Photoshop and Lightroom for a few years now. But they’ve been very expensive, not in my budget. Last year, Google bought Nik and I figured the plugins’ days were numbered, Google would probably just quietly kill them as happens so often with corporate acquisitions. I don’t know why Google bought them, sometimes they do that just to get the employees. But the Nik plugins are very popular so let’s keep our fingers crossed that Google recognizes their value and keeps on developing.

Anyway, I saw a post by Martin Bailey that Google is offering the.whole.Nik.plugin.collection for just $149. And if you use Martin’s coupon code MBP15, you get another 15% off. I don’t know how long this offer will last, but I got mine!

http://www.niksoftware.com/nikcollection/usa/index.php?view=intro%2Fmain.shtml

You can try the collection for free for 15 days and anyone who’s bought any of the plugins is getting upgraded to the whole collection for free!

After I downloaded and installed, I quickly went through my Lightroom library and grabbed a shot to play with.

This is a pretty forgettable shot of the conservatory at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden, a building I’ve shot a bazillion times.

I applied a SilverEfexPro preset:

And now it has a dark and stormy night look .

Then I applied a ColorEfexPro preset:

I didn’t expect to find a border effect, so I added that too. I like borders.

Mainly, I’ve wanted SilverEfexPro because I’ve seen some awesome b/w conversions. My little example doesn’t do it justice, but when applied to a set of bracketed shots for HDR, it should be sweet! Note to self: get some bracketed shots to play with.

I’ve wanted ColorEfexPro because I’ve seen some HDR shots that have the Glamour Glow effect and it really looks nice. Note to self: get some more bracketed shots to play with.

If you’ve been wanting Nik plugins too, don’t let this opportunity get away from you.

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How my friends see me

At our church’s Women’s Retreat a few weeks ago, we did an exercise, for lack of a better word, that produced hysterical results.

We sat at round tables, about 8 per table (think wedding reception tables). We each had a blank sheet of paper and a generous supply of colored markers on the table.

We were instructed to look at the woman to our left and draw her nose. Then we passed the paper to the woman on our right. We were then instructed to look at the woman whose nose was on the paper just passed to us and draw her eyes. Pass to the right. Then look at that woman and draw her mouth. Pass, etc. When the papers had gone all around the table, each picture had all our facial features.

What a hoot! There was more to it, I think it was an esteem-builder or something like that. But I kept my portrait as I think it rather resembles me.

 

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