Overwriting the old Nik Collection - NOT good

Wonderful work.

Thank you :smiling_face:

I will miss my bicycle next week, am still thinking itā€™s the best way to discover and travel at the same time.

You can park everywhere :smile:

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Unfortunately, this is not always possible with the incoming updates - they are not always backwards compatible - especially not with old programs.
The programmers do not have a great interest in this, as it - of course - does not always result in new sales for the company they are employed in.

not sure about your point here, Iā€™m not saying save software that are a decade old, Iā€™m talking about recent version released, so if something goes wrong, you can install the last one that was running.

if you had read during installing nik5, you would had seen that older version are overwritten.

I try to be as polite as I can:
I do not think You have read the posts here. Of course i read this - this is the whole point with this thread,

ā€¦and try to read some of the other posts here about going back to old Nik Software after trying the new one.

@Kib

Many things have been written now and Iā€™m interested in reading if/what you decided.

Stick to the old versions youā€™ve been ā€œincredibly happyā€ with, install a new trial version on one of your computers, or have you not decided yet?

platypus:

Thanks for asking - you have a knack for asking very intelligent questions.
Seriously.

It has been a very interesting thread for me, although there have been some bumps along the way, but there always are.

The short answer is that Iā€™ll probably buy FilmPack6, maybe already today if I have time, and wait and see if DXO changes that overwriting with Nik Collection 5 (maybe itā€™s naive ?), because then Iā€™ll also buy Nik Collection5 .

I need a channel mixer with color for my infrared camera (I converted my old Fuji X100S to infrared when I bought the Fuji X100V), if I really skip Photoshop,

ā€¦and unfortunately there is only one black and white in FilmPack 6,

but I currently have a sample of Affinity that has it, and Affinity is cheap but - in my eyes - a very unfriendly way to process images.
In my eyes, it is even more complicated (less intuitive, and very mathematical) than Photoshop, and not at all the user-friendly way DXO does it.

The slightly longer answer:

At first I think Joanna answered me completely off topic (and I quite disagree about the Silver Efex), but after all she was the one who got uncoy / Alec Kinnear to write his long wonderful post with both black and white and color examples and great advice.

So thanks to Joanna and thanks to uncoy.

I only have a trial on my laptop (lousy screen), but I still tried some of what uncoy wrote, including Agfa Vista 200, and is he right? = To the extent that it tipped me off.
Thanks again uncoy.

What remains is:

  1. I have no doubt that I will also get FilmPack 6.s standalone when I buy for my DESKTOP (with a good screen), as it is already there after my trial (which I did not get to try properly)

I want the standalone to get an overview.

  1. I am very doubtful if I will get standalone on my LAPTOP because it did NOT get there like it did on the desktop.

Admittedly, I only use my laptop on vacation and longer trips, but when I do use it, I want this overview.

How to initiate?

Itā€™s easy to start on my desktop = Just pay and activate, as itā€™s already there.

But if I do the same on my laptop - just enter with the paid code - then I wonā€™t get the standalone on my laptop.

One option might be to delete it completely on my laptop and then try to see if it goes down this time?

Or get help from the people at DXO?

Support by DxO can be a mixed blessing according to what I read in the respective posts, but Iā€™d expect DxO to provide support for installing a paid/licensed product.

Installing more than one version of Nik on one computer will probably fail, unless you find a way to trick the installer to not remove or interfere with an older version. I had two versions (v2 and v3 if I remember correctly) running on my Mac a few years ago, but the current installers donā€™t cooperate.

The Nik uninstaller on Mac is not very thorough, leaving leftovers all over the drive, but YMMV on Win. You could still use your laptop for a clean install of Windows and use it for testing mostly.

Good luck!

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@Kib ā€“ glad, that you have ā€˜settledā€™ now with the forum.

As @platypus already mentioned, make sure to have checked all system requirements. When you donā€™t try DxOā€™s software or the trial period expired or ā€¦, DxO will not be going to refund you. :man_shrugging:

ā†’ Nik 5 and FP 6 donā€™t run as PlugIn from old PS ā†


As said, Nik 5 throws the old Nik installation out. But (in Windows) you can re-install Nik 3.x, which then you must redo after each Nik 5 update.

Thatā€™s just the problem with Nik v2,v3, v4,v5. Itā€™s almost impossible to keep more than one installed. Upgrading and downgrading is a complex, multistep process with many points of failure.

DxO should probably allow multiple versions of Nik to exist, or if that is not viable, have a path to backgrade if a user doesnā€™t like the upgrade.

Iā€™m now gun shy with Nik and will stick to what works so I donā€™t get into Nik hell, which was particularly bad with v4.

Happily PhotoLab is a lot better behaved.

  1. There are no bad releases, with major regressions (compatibility with other apps for instance).
  2. One can keep multiple versions running at the same time. Both PhotoLab 5 and PhotoLab 6 are on this computer, and licensed.

I havenā€™t tried to run both at the same time, but one can certainly open one and the other. I havenā€™t used PhotoLab 5 much since I installed PhotoLab 6, as the new colour management nightmare turned out not to be as dark as initial users made it out to be. As soon as one uses an effect or profile or preset which requires legacy colour, one gets legacy colour.

Iā€™ve barely seen the wide gamut colour (and am none the worse for it, as I mostly prepare for online and for consumer printing ā€“ wide gamut only helps when working with very high end prints or perhaps when working with tier A publications like those in CondĆ© Nast group or perhaps National Geographic).

What weā€™d all like is for DxO

  1. not to keep cutting the cross-application compatibility out from under Nik
  2. make it much easier to go back to a previous version if one doesnā€™t like the new version.

PhotoLab versions can run peacefully in parallel, as long as they are different major versions. Iā€™ve indexed my complete photo archive with DPL versions 4, 5 and 6 running in parallel.

Reinstalling older Nik Collections should work out, if one has a) kept the respective installers, b) been able to clean out the newer leftovers and c) a supported constellation of app and os versions.

Things get a little bit more complicated when more than one user account is used. The Nik installer is not made for such a setup and needs to be run from each user account in order to be able to deposit the plugins and other by-files in the respective/correct places.

Yes, it is a mixed pleasure.
A few days ago they wrote and asked if they should help further with the problem of no standalone on the laptop, and I said yes, thank you.
Approx. at the same time I wrote here on the forum.

Today - because I had intended to buy FilmPack 6 - I asked if it would be worthwhile to remove FilmPack (6) from my Laptop, if I can (it is only a trial version) and then start over after a cleaning of the PC (laptop), but they simply reply that there can be a difference between PCs :wink:

So contacting them didnā€™t help.

I completely agree.
Deleted the Lab 5 Elite myself after I got the Lab 6 Elite, but I just tried it first before I bought.

Thereā€™s a good chance I would EVEN do the same with Nik, but DXO please let me try before you overwrite my old one.

Thanks.
What Leica ā€œsimulationā€ do you use, when you use Photo Lab with your Z6 ?

I See no chance that this is ever going to happen. Better be prepared to have your old Nik removed or made inoperable by the new installer. Your best chance is to try it on someone elseā€™s PC.

You are probably right, but now I have made a small effort - along with others I can look elsewhere on the forum.

Iā€™ve worked with complaints for many years and my experience is that if there are 1-2 complaints about the same thing, itā€™s just the tip of the iceberg, but people donā€™t bother to complain - they just go elsewhere.

If they are still not customer-friendly, then it will hit them one day - it has happened to many.

The only reason I use energy and time here about this issue, is that I really love Lab 6 Elite.

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@Kib I donā€™t know what system you use (Windows or Apple?) But on a Windows machine in the ā€˜Downloadsā€™ folder you will (should) find all the various ā€˜Nik_Collection**.exeā€™ installation files from whatever versions you originally downloaded. I had many issues with Nik in the past and had to uninstall and revert back to prevous versions that I knew worked. Also you can download the Google Nik Collection 1.2.11 without any support - of course - hereā€¦ Google Nik Collection 1.2.11 Download | TechSpot if thatā€™s any help?

W10 Pro.
Yes, I know, but as other writes it is a pain to go back - many troubles.
I also still have Nikon Capture NX2 (ā€œoldā€ Nikon shooters know, what I mean), and I bought this together with it.s Nik software (CEP) as plug in.

Perhaps DXO will - or will not - overwrite this.

But as long as they overwrite I do not want it - please read here, what others have written about going back to the original= It is a pain - IF you can do it.

The Nik software - all - I bought many years ago for Photoshop and Nikon software had a lot of problems and updates, but at the end it was very, very fine, and I am not 100 % sure I will get those updates the same way.

I have decided not to get it.

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Considering your situation, this looks like a sensible and grown-up choice.

Thanks - I bought FilmPack6, but it does not work at my laptop - have sendt the details to DxO= It works as plugin in DxO lab 6 Elite, but not Standalone, and not Photoshop (laptop)