Very pleased with PhotoLab+Nik Collection! (I’ve been using Nik since they were their own company.). I’ve shifted my workflow from Lr+Nik Collection and it’s working well.
You’ve got something on your face… by gordon runkle, on Flickr
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I got the free version from Google, still available for download, and loved it for several weeks until I started to be upset that the software was creating images I didn’t accept as “real”. It was always somebody else’s idea of how to edit. They were interesting, but they no longer felt like “my” photos. I know, silly attitude. I preferred using Lightroom, now PhotoLab and DarkTable, to “enhance” my photos in ways that looked like a plausible result of my editing choices.
I know I’m just being silly - and I now have both the Google version of NIK and the DxO version, but I almost feel like I’m “cheating” when I used them. I’m probably just being a GOM, Grumpy Old Man.
I rarely use the presets except sometimes as a starting point. With Color Efex, particularly, I usually stack several of its filters with a very light touch (opacity <= 30%, generally). It’s definitely easy to over-do it!