Quote: I was wondering a couple of things
) Personal expereince with the product
2) Upgrade policy
3) Can you run it on more than one computer (I have several).
4) Has anyone purchased it through the Educational Discount ?
my personal experience is nothing but excellent. it is by far the best option for B&W work.
here is my little description of the program:
it has a whole host of useful and really neat features such as colour filters, various film simulations (the only one that has Kodak Panatomic-X 32 ASA!) using what they call a 'grain engine' that according to Nik 'recreates your image out of grain mimicking the traditional silver halide process.' I have to say that its by far the most accurate and realistic looking film and grain emulation that I have seen (and I am a former user of Exposure2) it has a neat assortment of 'presets' with the ability to modify or create your own through the stylizing options which include toning, vignette and edge burning. this is of course something you would be familiar with if you use Lightroom. and of course it has all the controls and adjustments you would expect such as toning, brightness, contrast, structure (which as far as I can tell is a sharpening tool) shadows & highlights, but the Pièce de résistance is the U-Point system. this is by far the most useful tool in the program. basically it is a selective adjustment tool that allows you to select any part of an image, adjust the size of the effected area and then selectively adjust overall tonality with brightness, contrast and structure. all of this without any masking! photoshop users will be familiar with this hassle. you can have as many separate points as you wish.
I find the layout and use is incredibly well designed and easy to use. would be very familiar to lightroom users regarding layout. I cant say for certain wether its the program or maybe just my computer but I find that it runs much slower in Lightroom than in photoshop (I have it for both) but its not a big deal. I haven't really used the program enough to know all the ins and outs but it is a little sparse in the settings functions (shows its 'plugin' status here as opposed to functioning like a standalone app.) so not much in the way of user customizing the actual program. workflow is rather fast. one thing I have noticed is that everytime I use the program I have to open up the menus such as film types and stylizing ( I really wish it would remember what I opened last) this is annoying because even when using a preset, if you want to make individual changes you have to open the menus and scroll. probably not as annoying on a huge monitor though. the zoom function is a bit lame though as you only get fit to screen 100% and 300% with no scrolling or selecting of intermediate zoom levels.
comparing it to Exposure2, I have to say that it is sparse. not counting the fact that with exposure2 you get film emulation for both colour and B&W. the options and available adjustments really trump Silver Efex Pro. however I find that the results I get from SE Pro far better than what I get from Exposure2. cant really explain why though. the layout and controls of Exposure2 other than having more of them aren't as well laid out (or attractively presented) as SE Pro. I would say for someone who has the time and patience as well as wanting absolute control over everything might be happier with Exposure2. however I dont feel that what SE Pro offers is an any way inadequate and likely is more than what a lot of people will want or need in the way of adjustment. and of course Exposure2 has nothing like U-Point. which again is an incredibly useful tool, for which I use in virtually every photo I run through SE Pro. in fact I feel comfortable in recommending SE Pro for this ability alone.
as for the rest of your questions, I really cant answer. it would probably be best to checkout the Nik software website for those answers.