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Monday
Oct152012

Recovering Lost Nik Software Presets (And Others?) Following Aperture 3.4 Upgrade

We recommended that you back up your 3rd party plug-in presets prior to the Aperture 3.4 upgrade, but of course many had already upgraded or never saw the notice. I don’t fully understand why, but I’ve been told it has something to do with “sandboxing” in how Aperture 3.4 (and Mountain Lion, perhaps?) handles 3rd party software or software that accesses other applications (i.e. plug-ins), but regardless, many many users have found that their presets were missing after the upgrade.

Fortunately, reader Patrick Curry shared how to recover Nik presets specifically, which he got from Nik tech support. I can verify this works, because I, erm, didn’t follow my own advice and upgraded without backing up!

To access the missing preset files follow this file path in your user folder: ~/Library/Preferences/Nik Software/(plug-in name)/User Presets. To access your Library folder, hold down the Option key while clicking the Go menu in the Finder.

Copy these presets to your desktop, open your Nik plug-in, click on the Import button, and select the copied presets.

Thanks Patrick!

If you’re having the same issue with other plug-ins, I recommend looking in the same place (Preferences), as well as in ~/Library/Application Support/ as you may find presets hiding in there as well.

Reader Comments (4)

thank you for your reply. i called apple and it turns out that i needed to update my iphoto as well. from what i understood, since my photos were not saved in the vault, my pictures were sent to my iphoto account to secure them. once i did that upgraded my iphoto, all of my pictures were back! i'm very happy and excited! thank you again,
raquel

October 15, 2012 | Registered CommenterRaquel Anguiano

Raquel, if I'm not mistaken you are replying to a forum discussion you started. Can you please post this comment there? Thanks.

-Joseph

October 16, 2012 | Registered CommenterJoseph Linaschke

I'm having issues with the plugins since the update. Color efx and silver efx works fine but I can't get the rest open.

March 12, 2013 | Registered CommenterR A

RA, reinstall the plugins… that usually is the easiest thing to do. You can re-download them from the nik website.

-Joseph @ApertureExpert
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March 13, 2013 | Registered CommenterJoseph Linaschke
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