Help Installing Nik Collection

[Alan9940]

Hello All:

I've searched this board for posts regarding running the Nik Collection of filters in PL and I've seen that as of about 18.01 it's supposed to be possible, but for the life of me I can't get it to work; running latest 18.52 here. It's installed in my Applications folder, only, that I can tell so I went into Manage Plugins, navigated to this folder, and made sure it was activated via the checkmark. Restarted PL, but no Nik Collection. Does this suite have to be setup as External Programs? Would a kind person that's running Nik successfully let me know how to set it up?

Thank you.

Best regards,
AlanH

[Hoogo]

It's often a matter of 32Bit or 64Bit. If the plugins are 32Bit, then they only appear in the 32bit-version of PL, and 64Bit-plugins only appear in the 64Bit-version.

[Alan9940]

Hmm, I'm running OS X 10.9 Mavericks and just today installed the latest update (18.52) of PL; was running 18.51. I see on the download page that both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the program are included in the package, but when I download all I get is a PhotoLine folder that contains one PhotoLine application. I simply dragged this to my Applications folder. I have all the Topaz plugins installed and working in PL and I'm pretty sure they're all 64-bit. I just downloaded the Nik Collection trial (I own it on Windows side) so I assume it's the latest 64-bit filters. How do I know what version of PL I'm running?

Thanks!

Best regards,
AlanH

[Alan9940]

I just checked both PL and the Nik filers with Command/I and "Open in 32 bit mode" is unchecked. Therefore, all should be running as 64-bit, yes?

Best regards,
AlanH

[bkh]

How do I know what version of PL I'm running?

Open "About Photoline … " in the PhotoLine menu – if you're running 64 bit, it displays "64 bit" in the top right corner – in the 32 bit version, it's empty:

64 bit.jpg

Cheers

Burkhard.

[J i m]

Windows 8.1, PL 18.52

I have the Nik suite and with my setup it works with both 32 and 64 bit Photoline.

The 'options-plugins' menu points to :-
C:\Program Files\Google\Nik Collection\

Kind regards
Jim

[Alan9940]

@burkhard - Yep, running 64-bit version.

@Jim - sorry, I'm on a Mac so my path is /Applicatons/Nik Collection/. And, I have it setup that way and activated in my Plugins panel, but the Nik filters under Nik Collection don't show up at the bottom when I click on Filter.

Am I just out of luck?

Best regards,
AlanH

[bkh]

Am I just out of luck?

Did you check "Search in Folders" (which really should read "Search in Subfolders") in the Plug-In preference pane? Otherwise you'll have to locate the folder containing the plugins themselves (which is probably different from /Applications/Nik Collection/). And make sure you re-start PL after changing the Plug-In preferences (but I guess you are aware of that).

Burkhard.

[Alan9940]

Am I just out of luck?

Did you check "Search in Folders" (which really should read "Search in Subfolders") in the Plug-In preference pane? Otherwise you'll have to locate the folder containing the plugins themselves (which is probably different from /Applications/Nik Collection/). And make sure you re-start PL after changing the Plug-In preferences (but I guess you are aware of that).

Burkhard.

Yes, I have "Search in Folders" checked and I've clicked on both "Apply" and restarted PL with the Nik Collection line in the plugin pane activated. Doesn't show up on the Filter menu! FWIW, I'm already running several Topaz filters and PTLens without issue so I feel somewhat confident that I have the Nik Collection setup properly. What is a little confusing is that the Topaz filters are installed into Application Support; whereas the only place I can find the Nik Collection is in Applications. If you know Mac, this is two different paths. Therefore, not sure if this has something to do with it. I was really hoping someone using the Nik Collection in PL on a Mac would jump on this thread and let me know how theirs is setup. No such luck, yet, though...

Best regards,
AlanH

[Martin Huber]

On OS X the Nik installer doesn't install the plug-ins, if it doesn't find a compatible host application.
So when you are installing the Nik software and it asks for a compatible host, you will have to add a folder manually by pressing the small "+"-button. Afterwards the installer will create a new folder there named "Google" containing the plug-ins. PhotoLine should be able to use these plug-ins.

Martin

[Alan9940]

Hello Martin,

OK, with your help I was finally able to get the Nik plugins installed and working in PL. However, there are a couple of oddities that I'd like to pass by you:

1. The Viveza 2 plugin is listed twice. Any idea why?

2. The color of the preview in the DFine plugin is not accurate; that is, it doesn't match what I see right behind the DFine window in PL. Not that I really care that I have an accurate preview in a noise reduction tool, but I'm curious which leads to...

3. The color of the preview in the Viveza 2 plugin is WAAAY off! It looks like some kind of cross-process treatment gone wrong! What's even more odd is that when I pass the cursor over the plugin preview and look over at the loupe view in the lower right corner, that view is color accurate! What? Any idea what's going on here?

I would really appreciate your additional help, especially with the Viveza plugin because as it's working right now it's useless. One of the primary uses of this plugin is to adjust color...can't even begin to do that if ya can't see accurate color!

Thanks, again,
AlanH

[Alan9940]

Hello Martin,

This is getting more weird!

The Dfine plugin is now listed 4 times under Filter>Nik Collection; it was listed only once the first time I used it. What the heck? I also noticed that I have both a "Nik Collection" (with the applications contained therein) and a "Google" folder with all the Nik plugin folders under that containing .plugin and .config files. Is it possible that the duplicates could be messing up the color of the preview in Dfine and Viveza, and causing the multiple entries?

Best regards,
AlanH

[Martin Huber]

The Dfine plugin is now listed 4 times under Filter>Nik Collection; it was listed only once the first time I used it. What the heck? I also noticed that I have both a "Nik Collection" (with the applications contained therein) and a "Google" folder with all the Nik plugin folders under that containing .plugin and .config files. Is it possible that the duplicates could be messing up the color of the preview in Dfine and Viveza, and causing the multiple entries?

I have redundant "Dfine 2" entries here, too, and only the second one is working correctly. I will examine that.

Martin

[Alan9940]

Hello Martin,

Regarding the multiple Dfine entries, I noticed that once I cycled PL--shutdown & re-opened--I had a single Dfine entry. But, I still have two Viveza entries not matter what I do.

What about the color issue with the preview in Viveza? Will you be looking into that, too?

Best regards,
AlanH

[Martin Huber]

What about the color issue with the preview in Viveza? Will you be looking into that, too?

Well, I did, but IMO everything is correct from our side, and the problems don't occur with the other plug-ins. AFAIK we aked Nik about that, but never got a response. Strangely the preview is better, if the zoom is >= 100%.

You can use Viveza as external program. This way there don't seem to be problems.

Martin