Nik to Live Again: DxO Joins the Fray.
DxO has acquired the Nik Collection from Google. Last June, Google announced it was suspending all development of the Nik Collection which was a death knell for the popular Photoshop/Lightroom plugin.
Now DxO comes to the rescue by acquiring the Nik Collection from Google. It is not clear what the new company plans for the plugin. They had announced that new versions will be available midyear of 2018. Will the plugin continue to be free? No one in the public appears to know. It seem judicious to assume it will not be free.
What should you do if you do not presently have the plugin.
Lightroom and/or Photoshop Users
You may still download the Nik Collection from Google via DxO. Just follow the link and download and install the programs. It runs best as a plugin to both Lightroom and Photoshop. When used with Photoshop the modifications to you file can be placed on a separate layer and the effects can be modified. This gives you the most control.
User without Lightroom or Photoshop
You may download and install the collection just as above. When you run the program you will see there is no File|Open command in the menu structure. To have Nik open an image: Click and drop the image file onto the shortcut for one of the six Nik programs. Do not drop onto the open Nik program but onto the Nik shortcut icon. Yes this is clunky and a pain to integrate into a workflow so it is better suited to an occasional use of the program for special circumstances. The good news is that it is free and powerful and is a mature program(s).
The Nik Collection will install under a "Google" heading not "DxO". If you have any problems there are a lot of tutorials geared to your operating system just search for using Nik without Photoshop or as a stand alone program.