Google will no longer update the Nik Collection, a suite of popular free plug-ins for photo editing software including Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom.

The Nik Sharpener Pro tool.

The announcement comes as a banner at the top of the Nik Collection page.

‘The Nik Collection is free and compatible with Mac OS X 10.7 through 10.10; Windows Vista, 7, 8; and Adobe Photoshop through CC 2015,’ the announcement says. ‘We have no plans to update the Collection or add new features over time.’

Google acquired Nik in September 2012, and under the search engine’s ownership development and improvements slowed.

The plug-ins are popular for black and white conversion, HDR, noise reduction and sharpening.

In 2013, the price was substantially lowered from US$500 to US$150. While a far cheaper price, many saw this as a sign that Google was easing its development of the software.

In March last year, Google began to offer the software for free. Again, this was to much applause, but signalled the forthcoming end of the Nik Collection.

While the Nik Collection remains free and available for download, as new operating systems and version of Adobe CC are released it’s likely the plug-ins will fall behind and no longer function.