![]() I do not use Dfine or Viveza much myself to comment, but I think those would be just great standalone with LR also. Certainly HDR Efex, Silver Efex, and many of the Color Efex filters can be used just great standalone with LR. In practice, I launch Nik from inside Photoshop (as opposed to LR) because of that Photoshop layer (= really meaning opacity to blend the Nik effect to the unprocessed original layer) and layer-mask power I get around it, but I would not say it is essential to do it that way to get worthwhile benefit from the Nik tools. It actually works very well, and in some senses is better than a Photoshop selection and masking for the kind of things you can do in the Nik tools. U-point is an auto-selection algorithm based on a variable-size circle and all similar tonality/color pixels within that circle are modified. Within the Nik tool, they typically have Nik's U-point technology to allow local application of the tool. ![]() The only downside I can think of is that if I decided to make changes to the same image I'd have to start from scratch all over again since there's no way to come back and work in a. Watch the Nik videos first to familiarise yourself with them, and then try them out (it is only 15-day trial and it is 7 separate applications, so you need to learn the background to each beforehand). ![]() Maybe I'll just download a trial version and play with it, open RAW in LR4, do basic adjustments and then off to NIK and just save the image as TIFF. You use that external program's interfaces/sliders to make the modifications you want there, save those back to your TIFF and then than is what LR now re-imports, where afterwards you can apply further LR adjustments if you wish (and/or pass the image into another Nik tool). With LR and any plugin like Nik, all LR does is apply your RAW adjustments into a TIFF (or JPEG) file which it then passes to the external program (like any Nik application). I use Nik with Photoshop CS, and have LR5. The other option is to try out Topaz plug-ins in their photoFXlab in their stand-alone mode and see if I can save files with layers that would allow me to go back to my photos for further retouching without having to start from scratch every time. ![]() The only reasonable option (money wise) would be to buy PSE 12 and use it with NIK and then I would have access to layers. Most of the training videos online show NIK being used from Photoshop, where it can be a very powerful combination because you have access to layers, so it makes me wonder how it would fare when you use it with Lightroom and its lack of layers support. I've tried to look for posts showing the workflow of LR and NIK together but haven't found much. Like the title suggest, I'm curious about NIK users and what their experience is with using the software with Lightroom or PSE. ![]()
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