Is it actually still allowed to publish software for image processing today that does not – legitimately or not – say “artificial intelligence” in every second line of the press release? Of course you can, if you have an established brand and are not dependent on the marketing buzzword. Because the machine learning that hides behind the supposed intelligence is simply not necessary for every program.
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It is all the more refreshing that the French DxO Labs have now presented their version 7 of the “Nik Collection” without any AI keywords. The new features are listed individually in our detailed report. For long-time users, for example of the previously free version of Google, only the two biggest innovations in this column: The U-Points are no longer necessarily round, and the individual modules of the collection can be accessed directly from one another.
Elliptical U-Points
The first point is quite simple, but increases flexibility. Instead of circles, ellipses can now be marked for editing using the U-points. For example, a face for color adjustment can be selected with one or two U-points. In the past, many more clicks were required. If you only know masks and layers, you should try it out. The demo version of Nik Collection is still free.
The second innovation also has to do with saving time, especially if you use the collection as a plug-in for a host program like Photoshop. Then with version 7 it is no longer necessary to switch to the host after color adjustment with Viveza and then use Color Efex to call up a special filter for the entire image. The Nik Collection can now transfer the data between the modules directly. This was long overdue, as was opening images from the host faster. A look at the Windows task manager shows that much of the collection was previously single-threaded and hardly benefited from modern CPUs with many cores.
Annual updates are like a subscription
Apparently DxO has finally cleaned up the code base thoroughly. Anyone who appreciates the workflow with U-Points and the tastefully predefined filters will probably buy version 7 simply because of the faster speed. Everyone else has to think about whether they will need 89 euros for the update after just one year. It is to DxO’s credit that, unlike many providers, it doesn’t just offer a subscription model. But 90 euros every year is ultimately nothing more than the pre-paid subscriptions for Photoshop, which cost exactly the same on offer. Of course, only if you really need the latest version of the Nik Collection. With Photoshop you don’t have a choice anyway.
Nikon only paid $85 million for Red
Nikon probably had no choice, from a purely business perspective, when the company was sued by the Red company over a patent in 2022: the bottom line was that buying Red was cheaper than the long legal dispute. At least that is the conclusion Petapixels at a glance in Nikon’s current balance sheets. These show that Nikon acquired Red for a ridiculous price of around 85 million US dollars. In order to really classify this, you would have to know what conditions Red has agreed to with other camera manufacturers.
Because the patent in question for a certain type of recording of raw video in a camera still exists, it now belongs to Nikon. Other camera manufacturers have concluded agreements with Red, but it is not yet known how these will continue. As described last week, it is certainly no coincidence that Canon, Nikon’s arch-rival, was publicly pleased about the takeover. For better or worse, you now have to cooperate more closely with Nikon because of the patent.
Pulitzer Prizes for AP and Reuters
Our recommendation for a long read for the weekend is the commented photo series from Petapixel for the Pulitzer Prize for press photos. As with the World Press Photo Award (WPPA), we do not reproduce the images here because they are exclusively documented human suffering. In the “Feature Photography” category, a team from the Associated Press won for a long-term documentation of migration from Colombia to the USA. And, as with WPPA, Reuters won in the “Breaking News” category with images from the war in the Gaza Strip. The jurors particularly appreciated the fact that the agency had documented the first few weeks, and that is also part of it, “at great risk to their own safety”.
(never)