Nik Software announced that its popular Complete Collection, which bundles all of the company’s award-winning digital imaging software tools, is now also available as a Lightroom Edition at a special price of € 299.95 (incl. VAT).

The Complete Collection for Photoshop has been updated to include Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 support as well and also includes installers for Adobe Photoshop and Apple Aperture. Current registered owners of the Photoshop versions of Nik Software products can download and install the Lightroom compatible versions free of charge at http://www.niksoftware.com/lightroom/ .

“The availability of the Lightroom versions of our entire product line completes a journey that we began approximately 3 months ago to rapidly update all of our software products for Lightroom compatibility,” said Michael J. Slater president and CEO of Nik Software. “Our goal at Nik Software is to deliver the tools that photographers need on the platforms they prefer in their everyday workflow.”

With the Complete Collection Lightroom Edition, each individual software product is installed as a plug-in for Lightroom 2. Once installed in Lightroom, Dfine 2.0, Viveza, Color Efex Pro 3.0, Silver Efex Pro and Sharpener Pro 3.0 are accessible via the Photo>Edit In… menu. Edits made using the plug-ins within Lightroom are non-destructive in nature, with edits applied automatically to a newly generated TIFF file and not the original. Each product also takes advantage of Lightroom and its efficiencies for every day tasks, like the ability to edit multiple images in one session, saving time for photographers.

All Nik Software products included in the Complete Collection feature Nik’s patented U Point® technology which revolutionizes the way photographers edit. U Point powered Control Points give photographers precise selective editing functions without the need to create complicated selections and layer masks. This innovative technology is easy to use and works directly on the image, empowering photographers to make selective enhancements in a fraction of the time needed by using other methods.

Pricing and Availability

The Complete Collection Lightroom Edition as well as the Complete Collection Aperture Edition (MSRP: € 299.95 incl. 19% German VAT) are available in electronic form directly from Nik Software (www.niksoftware.com) or in boxed versions from Nik Software and through specialty camera retailers. This applies analogously to Nik Software’s Complete Collection for Photoshop, Lightroom, Aperture and Elements (MSRP: € 599.95 incl. 19% German VAT). A complete list of resellers may be found at www.niksoftware.com/resellers/.

Customers who currently own Photoshop versions of Nik Software products may use their product keys to install the Lightroom versions.

Product Descriptions

About Dfine 2.0

Dfine improves the quality of digital photos by easily eliminating Contrast and Color noise as well as “banding” while maintaining rich details. Automatic noise reduction streamlines workflow and U Point technology provides unprecedented selective control and power. For more product information including video lessons visit: www.niksoftware.com/dfine/

About Viveza

Viveza, powered by U Point® technology for direct on-image editing, is the most powerful and precise tool available to control light and color in photographic images. For the first time, corrections and enhancements to brightness, contrast or color can easily be made in a fraction of the time needed by other tools without the need to create complicated selections or layer masks. For more product information including video lessons visit: www.niksoftware.com/viveza/

About Color Efex Pro 3.0

Color Efex Pro 3.0 filters are the leading photographic filters for digital photography. Widely used by many of today’s professional photographers, the award-winning Color Efex Pro includes U Point technology for superb selective control and offers 52 traditional and stylizing filters that let users quickly and easily perform high quality retouching, color correction and creative enhancements. For more product information including video lessons visit: www.niksoftware.com/colorefexpro/

About Silver Efex Pro

Silver Efex Pro provides complete power and control to create professional quality black-and-white images from color digital photographs, and features award-winning U Point technology for precisely controlling detail and tonality. Advanced imaging algorithms protect against unwanted artifacts, a comprehensive collection of emulated black-and-white film types, and a state-of-the-art grain reproduction engine help produce the highest quality black-and-white images possible while providing more freedom to experiment. For more product information including video lessons visit: www.niksoftware.com/silverefexpro/

Sharpener Pro 3.0

Sharpener Pro 3.0 is the most advanced and powerful sharpening solution for photographers, eliminating the guesswork typically required for achieving superior printed results while providing the most control possible. New adaptive sharpening algorithms, award-winning U Point technology for selective sharpening, and sharpening soft proofing that allows inspection of results before printing all combine to ensure images have the desired sharpness of detail with repeatable, professional results. For more product information including video lessons visit: www.niksoftware.com/sharpenerpro/

About Nik Software

Nik Software, Inc. is a privately held company that develops software solutions for the growing digital imaging and photography markets. Established in 1995, Nik Software has become the recognized leader in digital photographic filter development and produces award-winning technology and software products for digital photography and imaging professionals including U Point® technology (www.upoint.com), Dfine®, Viveza™, Color Efex Pro™, Silver Efex Pro™, and Sharpener Pro™ software.

• Canon           EOS 500D (Digital Rebel T1i/EOS Kiss X3 Digital)
• Canon          PowerShot SX1 IS
• Epson           R-D1x
• Hasselblad    CF-22, CF-22MS, CF-39, CF-39MS, CFH-22, CFH-39
• Hasselblad    CFV
• Hasselblad    503CWD
• Hasselblad    H2D-22, H2D-39, H3D-22, H3D-31, H3D-39, H3DII-22, H3DII-31, H3DII-39, H3DII-39MS, H3DII-50
• Kodak          EasyShare Z980
• Nikon            D5000
• Olympus       E-450, E-620
• Panasonic     Lumix DMC-GH1
• Pentax          K-7
• Sigma           DP2
• Sony            A230, A330, A380

Note: Hasselblad support is for the 3FR file format only.  The Hasselblad FFF file format is not currently supported.

Lightroom 2.4 Bug Fixes

The Lightroom 2.4 update includes several bug fixes.  The following is a list of items FIXED in this release.

• Web galleries with a Collection Title of six characters would not export or upload
• The crop aspect ratio could revert to the last selected ratio even when reset to original
• The crop aspect ratio in Quick Develop could be lost after a crop adjustment
• The crop aspect ratio lock could be lost after an orientation switch
• Images could preview incorrectly when imported using the MTP/PTP USB protocol
• Sony .ARW files may not have been recognized by Lightroom’s import dialog
• The Japanese language configuration of Lightroom on Mac OS X 10.5 could fail to switch to the print module if the HP B9180 was set as the default printer
• Metadata options that are intended for use were dimmed incorrectly when exporting DNG files
• The Japanese language configuration of Lightroom on Mac OS X was missing a shortcut for “Zoom Out”
• Several translation and shortcut corrections were made for the eight additional languages introduced with Lightroom 2.3

About Viveza

Viveza, powered by U Point technology for direct on-image editing, is powerful and precise tool available to control light and color in photographic images. Corrections and enhancements to brightness, contrast or color can easily be made in a fraction of the time needed by other tools without the need to create complicated selections or layer masks. For more product information including video lessons visit: www.niksoftware.com/viveza

Viveza installs as a plug-in filter for Lightroom 2 and is accessible via the Lightroom Photo>Edit In… menu. Edits made using the plug-in within Lightroom are non-destructive in nature, with edits applied automatically to a newly generated TIFF file and not the original. Viveza also takes advantage of Lightroom and its efficiencies for every day tasks, like the ability to edit multiple images in one session, saving time for photographers.

Pricing and Availability

Viveza retails for $249.95.  Current owners of Viveza may download a free update at www.niksoftware.com/lightroom.

Nik Software also announced that all of its remaining photographic filter products are being updated to support Lightroom as well, beginning with Color Efex Pro 3.0. As these Lightroom-compatible versions become available, current owners will receive updates free of charge. All products are expected to be available by the end of the second quarter of 2009.

Customers interested in purchasing all 5 Nik Software products for Lightroom or Aperture only may pre-purchase the Nik Software Complete Collection for Lightroom or Aperture for $299.95. Customers who pre-purchase the Complete Collection for Lightroom or Aperture will receive email notification for each product as they become available.

These updates include camera support for the following models:

• Nikon D3X
• Olympus E-30

This update also includes preliminary support for the recently announced Epson R-D1x (and R-D1xG).

The Lightroom 2.3 update includes several bug fixes.

Fixes originally provided in the Lightroom 2.3 Release Candidate

• In the Windows 64-bit version of Lightroom an sFTP upload process could cause Lightroom to crash.
  Slideshows could return to the first image randomly during playback.
  A memory leak could cause Lightroom to crash while attempting to process files with local adjustments.
• Canon EOS 5D Mk II sRAW files could process with artifacts in Lightroom 2.2.
• Lightroom 2.2 could cause disc burning to fail for Windows customers.

Fixes new to the final version of Lightroom 2.3

Attempting to undo(CTRL-Z) a single step in Lightroom 2.2 on Windows could cause a series of previous actions to be undone.
Lightroom 2.3 now provides language support for the following additional languages:

• Chinese (Simplified)
• Chinese (Traditional)
• Dutch
• Italian
• Korean
• Portuguese (Brazilian)
• Spanish
• Swedish

Pro Photography Show has a similarly expansive collection of links to free Lightroom presets. Collections range from authors Sean McCormack, Jack Davis, and Matt Kloskowski to Adobe’s Exchange community.

Related Links:

• Presetting Lightroom Flickr group
• Wonderland Lightroom Presets
• Presets Heaven
• Adobe’s Exchange community
• Pro Photography Show

• Canon EOS 5D Mark II
• Canon PowerShot G10
• Panasonic DMC-G1
• Panasonic DMC-FX150
• Panasonic DMC-FZ28
• Panasonic DMC-LX3
• Leica D-LUX 4

Lightroom 2 Bugs – Fixed

• Images rendered from the Slideshow export process produced a jagged effect on hard edges relative to the quality of normal JPEG export
• Increased the number of characters allowed in Web gallery labels beyond 150 characters
• Catalogs with hundreds of root (top level) folders caused very slow launch times
• Drag and drop to move a subfolder to a different folder showed the incorrect photos in the grid
• Print Sharpening produced edge artifacts in certain conditions
• Density defaulted to 100 percent for initial stroke regardless of position of slider
• The  Adjustment brush created blocky, straight edges to brush strokes under certain conditions
• Lightroom could become unresponsive when using the graduated filter under certain conditions
• It was possible to lose the ability to edit an adjustment brush setting after applying a graduated filter with hidden pins
• Turning auto-mask on produced a lag in Lightroom performance in when applying the adjustment brush
• Print to JPEG functionality produced a low resolution image when printing photos with panorama aspect ratios
• Extended characters in a folder name caused Edit in Photoshop functionality to fail
• Smart collection did not respond to changes in custom metadata

Lightroom 2 Enhancements

• Camera profiles are now available in the Calibration panel in the Develop module.  These profiles are designed to provide different interpretations of raw capture.

Both releases include new camera support for the following models:

• Canon EOS 1000D (Digital Rebel XS/EOS Kiss F)
• Canon EOS 50D
• Fuji FinePix IS Pro
• Kodak EasyShare Z1015 IS
• Leaf AFi II 6
• Leaf AFi II 7
• Leaf Aptus II 6
• Leaf Aptus II 7
• Nikon D700
• Nikon D90
• Nikon Coolpix P6000
• Olympus SP-565 UZ
• Pentax K2000 (K-m)
• Sigma DP1
• Sony A900

Lightroom 2.1 also includes a number of fixes for issues that were introduced with the Lightroom 2.0 release. The details of those fixes are listed in the Read Me file associated with the update.

The ‘release candidate’ label indicates that this update is well tested but would benefit from additional community testing before it is distributed automatically to all of our customers. The Lightroom team would like the community to help verify the quality of this update through normal usage as this will ensure that the application is tested on a diversity of hardware and software configurations not available internally at Adobe.

By default, this Lightroom 2.1 release candidate will remove or overwrite your existing Lightroom 2.0 installation. If you wish to return to Lightroom 2.0 after installing Lightroom 2.1, simply reinstall Lightroom 2.0 from your original download file or from the CD after performing the following:

• Mac: Delete this file before reinstalling Lightroom 2.0: Library/Receipts/Adobe Photoshop Lightroom.pkg.
• Windows: Uninstall Lightroom 2.1 using the Windows add/remove program utility.

Both versions of the application share the same catalog format allowing your catalogs to be opened by either version without complications.

If you do experience an issue with this release candidate please report it to the Lightroom User to User forum.

For more information on Lightroom 2 please visit the Lightroom pages on Adobe.com

Lightroom will not install as a 64-bit application on Windows XP by default because it’s not an officially supported platform for 64-bit version. Lightroom is officially supported only on Vista x64.

But when you run the Lightroom installer and choose to “Open the Specified Folder” in the Files are Ready dialog (Be sure to uncheck the option to “Launch the Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2.0 Installer”)  you’ll see an Adobe Photoshop Lightroom directory that contains “setup32″ and “setup64″ executables.

Once again, running Lightroom 2 as a 64-bit application on Windows XP x64 is not a supported configuration.

Why all the excitement about a 64-bit version of Lightroom? First of all, you should use 64-bit version of operation system if you have 4GB or more of RAM. (Or at least planning to add enough RAM in nearest future). 64-bit capable operating systems and applications can take advantage of more memory than 32-bit systems.

If you have a 64-bit environment with 4GB or more of RAM you’re most likely to see great improvement in the responsiveness of the Develop module where Lightroom is loading large amounts of information into memory.

If you remember – last April Adobe released public beta of Lightroom 2.0 – and how much buzz was in the net with its new features – particularly with localized adjustments tool. Well now it is shipping, and not only has all these features, but also some brand new too.

Price: Lightroom 2 is $299 or available as a $99 upgrade for Lightroom 1 customers. There is also 30 Day Trial available