NIK or onOne or..

[rgs]

Just looking for opinions. Nik, onONe, neither, both or other. Thanks.

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

Just looking for opinions. Nik, onONe, neither, both or other. Thanks.

Hi Richard,

They all offer great tools. I guess a choice depends on what you expect to achieve.

My Number One plugin for general tonemapping is Topaz Labs Clarity, and for masking Topaz Labs Remask. The benefit of the Topaz Labs plugins is that they are task oriented and thus allow to add functionality as it is required by your current specific needs. Their upgrade policy (to date) is, free updates for current users. That makes the investment, coupled with the high quality output, even more attractive. They even offer a standalone hub application (including blending layers and masks) that allows to use the plugins without the need for Photoshop or Lightroom. I like to have that flexibility and not being locked in another product to be able and use the tools.

Cheers,
Bart

[jrsforums]

Hi Richard,

They all offer great tools. I guess a choice depends on what you expect to achieve.

My Number One plugin for general tonemapping is Topaz Labs Clarity, and for masking Topaz Labs Remask. The benefit of the Topaz Labs plugins is that they are task oriented and thus allow to add functionality as it is required by your current specific needs. Their upgrade policy (to date) is, free updates for current users. That makes the investment, coupled with the high quality output, even more attractive. They even offer a standalone hub application (including blending layers and masks) that allows to use the plugins without the need for Photoshop or Lightroom. I like to have that flexibility and not being locked in another product to be able and use the tools.

Cheers,
Bart

+1.....just want to add....the hub app, PhotoFXlab, also works well from Lightroom, giving you access to all the Topaz tools in one round trip.

John

[Philip Weber]

I have all the Nik plug-ins, onOne's Perfect Photo Suite Premium 7.5 and nearly all the Topaz apps. If it came down to just Nik or onOne, it'd be the former every day of the week and twice on Sunday. I find Color Efex Pro 4, Viveza 2 and Silver Efex Pro 2 to be indispensable and while I don't do HDR as much as I used to thanks to my D800, I think their HDR Efex Pro is better than Photomatix (which I've had for years). onOne has a few things that are helpful and their Resize (based on/in Genuine Fractals) is arguably the best at what it does but overall, I think Nik is far superior.

I wouldn't overlook Topaz Labs software however, as their Clarity and Detail plug-ins are great and I sometimes use Adjust and Simplify for effect too.

I think most, if not all of these offer trial periods after download, so that's probably your best bet.

I hope this helps,
Phil