If you're a photo editor then it is possible that you have already got a pretty decent workflow for transforming so-so shots into lovely digital images. Those editors who are looking for a little more held will definitely welcome Google's latest announcement.

Google's Nik Collection of plugins and apps is now completely free - which a discount of $150 from the collection's normal price. The company has announced that this tool will remain free for all to download forevermore (and refunds will go out to those who already purchased the collection at any point in 2016).

"Photo enthusiasts all over the world use the Nik Collection to get the best out of their images every day. 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, so that now anyone can use it," reads Google's announcement.

"The Nik Collection is comprised of seven desktop plug-ins that provide a powerful range of photo editing capabilities -- from filter applications that improve color correction, to retouching and creative effects, to image sharpening that brings out all the hidden details, to the ability to make adjustments to the color and tonality of images."

The users will have the option to run the seven different plugins in the collection as standalone products.

"(On Windows) You can make shortcuts to the individual .exe files on your desktop and then just drag stacks of images onto them," suggested one Google+ user.

The collection includes Analog Efex Pro, for stylizing images with a more vintage look; Silver Efex Pro, for boosting black-and-white shots; HDR Efex Pro, for fine-tuning your high-dynamic-range attempts; Dfine, which lets you reduce noise in your images while preserving as much detail as possible; Color Efex Pro, for color correction and retouching; Viveza, for making changes in parameters like brightness, contrast, saturation, and hue; and Sharpener Pro, which does exactly what its name implies.