Hi All
Do any off you use the Nik collection when your editing your photos please? Is it a good plug in to use please for editing?

Thanks
Brian

It's good and lot of photographers use them. Color Efex pro was my favorite but I don't use them anymore.
I think there is trial version you should try it first!

I like the NIK sharpener, it is far superior to the Photoshop one, and is MUCH cleaner, (I don't have to use ultra-sharpen  pro, which is just an action, that selects only the edges for sharpening), (I don't like just increasing the contrast at the edges, which un-sharp mask does). I have no familiarity with the rest of the NIK software.
-Don

All plugs are beginner tools, but i would recommend playing and learning each tool from Photoshop, its safer for your work and more exact.

Maybe a better question would relate to how you work, and how much time and effort a plug in requires.  Do you want to be able to do batch editing?  The tool with the most potential will also have the greatest complexity, so what is 'best' isn't necessarily best for you.  NIK is fairly easy to use, and the different parts can be used separately; they pretty much have to be used separetly.  The downside is that you have to be mentally organized to remember where different features are.  If you have no time constraints, and can learn each part, one at a time, then you can do a lot with NIK.  Photoshop has all the tools dumped into one huge toybox, NIK has 7 medium size toyboxes side by side.
    If you shoot glam for clients, they will have makeup done so there is almost no retouching; and any effects will be simple, NIK would be overkill.  If you do fantasy art, the global effects of NIK won't work.
    Overall it's a good quality program at a good price for the average Joe to be able to add a variety of effects.

Thanks for all your feed back guys! It is a great help!

Brian

Thumbs up on NIK here too!

I use the Viveza (Control Points) part of it a lot.  I set up sometimes 8-9 points where I can fine-tune color, saturation, brightness, clarity, warmth, etc.  It was the same Control Point setup that was in Nikon's Capture NX-2 which NIK did for them, but now that Google owns NIK it's no longer in Nikon's Capture NX-D software.

Their B&W (Silver) one is much preferred for me over what PS can do without a lot of work.  Not too crazy about the Topaz B&W one though.

Definitely worth the price.  Leica includes a license with the Monochrome for only ~$7000 and change, or you can get the software without the camera for under a hundred bucks, which I found to be more cost effective.  It is a really comprehensive palette.