This post has been updated.
What was once a $500 package of pro photo editing software is now completely free. The high-end Nik Collection of photo editing tools, which was priced down to $149 after being acquired by Google in 2012, is now available for download by everyone.
“As we continue to focus our long-term investments in building incredible photo editing tools for mobile, including Google Photos and Snapseed, we’ve decided to make the Nik Collection desktop suite available for free,” Google announced on Mar. 24. Those who have already paid for the software in 2016 will get their money back.
The editing suite includes seven applications overall, including a tool to apply filters and adjust color and brightness, a tool specifically for editing images in black and white, and a tool for giving images better definition. It also includes a nifty “spot” editing feature, which lets you apply effects selectively by choosing specific parts of an image.
Google’s acquisition of the Nik Collection was part of a package deal that also included the software behind mobile photo-editing app Snapseed, Google’s answer to Instagram filters. Announcing its intention to improve Snapseed while making Nik free may be a sign that Google intends to focus on mobile photo-editing, to the dismay of more serious photographers and editors who tend to use desktop tools.
Update: Mar. 29, 3:16pm EST: Google confirmed to Quartz that the Nik Collection will continue to be updated for compatibility with other operating systems and programs, including Lightroom and Photoshop, but there will be no new versions of the suite in the future.