DxO is well known for its mobile camera benchmarks. Most of the premium smartphone manufacturers link to the benchmark scores in order to assure the buyers of the camera performance. The benchmarks company has saved the day for dying Nik Collection Software Suite. The Nik Collection consists of a series of software aimed at helping the photographers create the best photos. The Nik Collection was earlier priced at $500 but is currently being offered for free.
That being said its quite likely that the Nik collection will not be free for long or the company would rather bring out a freemium model in play. DxO, on the other hand, has assured that the Nik collection will be free for the time being while the company works on a new version for 2018. Google had acquired the Nik along with Snapseed in 2012. Immediately after the acquisition, the price of the Nik Collection went down from $500 to $150 in 2013, and it was finally offered for free in 2016. The Nik collection is known for its ability help with film simulation, HDR, black and white conversion and other post-processing tasks.
“The Nik Collection gives photographers tools to create photos they absolutely love; We’re thrilled to have DxO, a company dedicated to high-quality photography solutions, acquire and continue to develop it.”- Google Engineering Director Aravind Krishnaswamy.
The DxO acquisition comes as a surprise since Google had explicitly mentioned in May 2017 that it would no longer be developing Nik collection, a move that had the letdown the photographers. Things seem to have changed for good as DxO has promised to continue the developmental work and add new features along with updates. That apart, if you are interested in downloading the Nik collection you can do so for free from this link.