CAPTURE NX-D

This week, the beta release of Capture NX-D was also

annouced. With the break between NIK-software and

Nikon, this was to be expected. And I regret the loss of the

NX2 control-points. Those were a very good tool to have.

There comes a time when a new camera will not be

supported anymore in NX2.. :'(

 

What is your action plan for the future? Avoid the Adobe

trap, or go with the inevitable flow?

<p>I think one thing that is important that Nikon allow NX2 edited NEF files to be read correctly into NX-D. This works now only with some adjustments, not all. Also there are a lot of things missing from the early NX-D prototype software; e.g. just as they added some important WB options (the ability to see the K and G/M tint values of an image captured with camera auto white-balance on) NX2 these do not yet exist in the NX-D. I think it's clearly quite far from release and I would hope NX2 to still get support for some new camera generations until NX-D can genuinely supplant it.</p>

<p>As for control points, they're nice for some things but these things can be done in Photoshop, if you have enough time (quite a lot of time actually ;-)), so I don't consider their loss all that important to me personally. I don't see Adobe software a trap, I find it very good, and the current pricing makes it easier to keep the software up to date. However, I prefer NX2 raw conversions so I use it for intial steps of post-processing.</p>

<p>For control points, I use Viveza 2, from Google's Nik Collection. The entire suite is only $149--a huge bargain for everything you get. My Photoshop replacement is Pixelmator (OS X-only), which I like even better than Photoshop, and does everything I used to use Photoshop for (e.g., selection tools, brushes, FX, layers, etc.). Plus, it's only $29.99! For content-aware capability outside of Adobe, Perfect Photo Suite has this feature (though I haven't tried it myself). For heavy-duty RAW development, I use DxO Optics Pro Elite for OS X.</p>

<p>I won't miss Capture NX2 at all. I purchased it only so I could change the exposure values of NEF files where necessary. I experimented with the control points, but never got into the habit of using them. Then, in 2010, Nikon updated View NX2 to include the feature that lets users change exposure values of NEF files. That was not in View NX2 before 2010, and it was the only reason I bought Capture NX2. I wrote to Nikon asking if I could transfer my license as I no longer needed Capture NX2, but they wouldn't budge on their prohibition of that. It's been sitting on my computer seldom used since then. I will check out NX-D while it's in beta, but I'm pretty sure View NX2 and Photoshop are all I need.</p>

<p>I've never installed any camera maker's own software. (I think I've also never installed a mouse driver.) I went with Capture One a long time ago for me Eos 300D, before taking the plunge on Adobe - but that was partly motivated by wanting to produce a magazine and flatly refusing to go through the pain of trying to do it in Word (and I'd tried LaTeX); buying Creative Suite at the time was effectively InDesign at full price, Photoshop at half price, and everything else thrown in free. For the past few years, I've mostly been with ACR and various versions of Photoshop, but I have recently paid to upgrade DxO - I had an old version that I used to prove that its LoCA reduction tool couldn't cope with the amount of LoCA on my 135 f/2 DC, and the upgrade was because of the noise reduction abilities they introduced recently. I'm mostly outputting 16-bit TIFF and then editing in Photoshop, though.<br />

<br />

If you're going to save money, GIMP has a free raw converter based on dcraw. I've no interest in trying to match the look of Nikon's JPEGs - if I'm editing raw, it's because I want to change the JPEG look anyway. (And I usually shoot raw + JPEG anyway, so if I wanted Nikon's "look", I'd just use the JPEG.) This is my solution at work.<br />

<br />

Don't get me wrong, I hate Adobe, but there's nothing like Photoshop if you're going to do a lot of image editing while maintaining as much detail as possible. I bought the thing partly because I'll eventually end up just writing my own image editing application (again - I did one in the 80s) to do what I need, and I wanted as much functionality as possible to tide me over.</p>

<p>I abandoned Capture NX some time ago. It was obvious that it wasn't under active development, and I didn't want to end up with a bunch of edited files that were orphaned. It's not only that newer cameras won't be supported under CNX2, it's also likely that at some point in the future an OS update will break CNX2 completely. That may not happen in the near future, but there is a good chance that it will happen eventually. I wouldn't want to bet against it, anyway.</p>

<p>No choice is risk-free, of course. But at least Adobe, despite its sometimes off-putting business practices, is likely to be around for a long time and has a good track record of maintaining backward compatibility.</p>

<p>I downloaded and tried the beta yesterday, after a few hours I removed it,pretty useless compared to Lightroom or Photoshop,very slow to use and not very intuitive.</p>

<p>I love NX2. I also have Lightroom, which I rarely use because it lacks control points. However, if the new version of NX-D lacks control points, I might have to switch to Lightroom and the NIK suite with Viveza and Color Efex Pro, etc. <br>

I have never heard of NX-D until I saw this post. IMO Nikon is crazy to drop control points. But I doubt if thay had the option to keep them once NIK was purchased by Google. <br>

Joe Smith</p>

<p>Let me add another point. Using Lightroom or Photoshop without control points from NIK just adds time to your post processing for certain images. From the demonstrations I have seen of these two products, Lightroom and PS, from experts who know what they are doing, The workflow is much faster with the NIK plugins than without them.<br>

I know some of you might disagree, but this is what I have heard and observed myself. If I have to drop NX2, and go to Lightroom, it will be Lightroom with NIK plugins. <br>

Joe Smith</p>

 

<p><em>The workflow is much faster with the NIK plugins than without them.</em></p>

<p>I agree - for things such as adjusting relatively homogeneous areas of the image such as the sky, or wall/seamless background of a portrait the control points are fast and effective. But for some things such as adjusting faces to be lighter the do not work well at all as they leave the eye sockets out of the selection (because of tonal differences). Lightroom (in itself, not with plugins) on the other hand has regional adjustment which ignores the underlying tone and is symmetrical in the selection - this works for different things than control points. In Photoshop proper you can make layers and masks that do precisely controlled operations on the image but these are time-consuming to do, even as you say, by experts. I think for me the safest approach to go in the long run to learn to do things as effectively as possible in Photoshop itself as it is likely to stay around and I need Photoshop for some things anyway, such as color correction by numbers and I prefer its sharpening tools. However, I would like the control point technology to stay around and evolve with time. It is a pity if Nikon is really dropping it - it may be that Google is not interested in collaboration with Nikon.</p>

So what is the (uncertain) longer term solution?

Nik Suite or AdobeLightroom plugins?

<p>Ilkka, I adjust tones on faces right now in NX2 using a Selective Control Point that affects only a controlled portion of the image. If I want to leave out an eye socket, I can deselect it. I have not tried to do this using Vivesa in Lightroom, but I am sure you can do the same things. Control Points can be used for whole areas like skies or very small area like a doorway in shadow. And your final files are much smaller than those PS files with multiple layers. That being said, I am a firm believer that you are far better of knowing how to do it, in a given program, even if that program is not perfect, knowing just portions of many programs. My brain is not wired for PS.<br>

Joe Smith</p>

<p>Ok true you can paint an area manually and control it also in NX2, I forgot that possibility.</p>

<p>The issue with using the Nik plugins in Lightroom is that their effect is destructive. It applies the effect directly to the image. If the master image is raw, LR will force you to create a copy on which to make the Nik adjustments. (If there is a way around this, please tell me!) Of course, you can instead open the image as a smart object in Photoshop -- assuming you have Photoshop -- and apply the Nik effects as a smart filter. That's nondestructive, although it requires creating a second, PSD copy of the image. Any way you slice it, it's not as seamless as CNX2.</p>

 

<p>This link by Thom Hogan is quite telling for people like me that have relied exclusively on NX2 for processing NEF files. I encourage all to read it as NX-D might not be able to read processed NEF files with control points in them. <br>

<a href="http://www.dslrbodies.com/accessories/software-for-nikon-dslrs/software-news/the-embedded-adjustments.html">http://www.dslrbodies.com/accessories/software-for-nikon-dslrs/software-news/the-embedded-adjustments.html</a><br>

I need to figure out what I am going to have to do to make sure I can open my historical processed NEF files. </p>

<p>Joe Smith</p>

<p> </p>

<p>I think with both Nikon and Adobe products it is best to keep both the original files and the final post-processed, high resolution image (with or without layers, preferably both versions) and maintain multiple backups of both. It may not be a great idea that all formats in all their variants will be readable in the future, unfortunately, especially since some are proprietary and very complex.</p>

<p>It has been suggested that using virtual machines might be a solution, e.g. you can run a particular version of Windows and image editing software as a virtual machine under Linux. Then, if I understood the idea correctly, you make backups of that virtual machine and can return to work on those old files using the software that was used at that time when those files were still new. For each software major generation that might present incompatibilities with future software you can create a separate virtual machine. I've been thinking about what kind of solution to use with my Nikon scanners with future operating systems. In my opinion Nikon should continue supporting their old products with updates and some testing on major new OS releases. It is similar to having lens compatibility in the past; they were good at that; what about software compatibility?</p>

Thank you gentlemen for sharing yoyr thoughts on this.

<p>I've been using NX & now NX2 forever it feels like. What I do know is that as long as NX2 will support my D70 I've had converted to IR, the D300 & D800 I have no use for other software.<br>

My NEF files are fine with my current version of NX2. I do certain things in my Photoshop CS3 version - I'm not paying for any upgrade of it either unless I have to, and at this time - I still don't have to.<br>

I also have a software for when I do my daughter's head shots or those of her friends I do them for as well.<br>

I don't see this as any disaster to me. I'm set, comfortable in my skin and I have three great Nikon cameras I plan to keep for a while.<br>

I will never forget how this one photographer on DPR was going through D300 cameras. He must have been on near 10 cameras before I stopped commenting on his posts. He was so complaining about the D300 cameras being faulty. Over & over again he kept telling me mine was going to fail. <br>

Well, I got my D300 the day it was released here in the US. I'm at present working on my 7th set of 0001-9999 - so I've shot around 70,000 clicks with it. This other photographer kept telling everyone no D300 will last past 5000 clicks. Ah well - - I guess the way <em>my</em> D300 failed was by still working with no service from Nikon since the day I got it. ;)<br>

So, I have no reason to look for new editing/processing software. To me, this is no disaster. As a matter, it doesn't even matter.<br>

Why look for problems until there are any!? Why not give Nikon a chance to fail you before you presume they will fail you. </p>

<p>JMHO</p>

<p><br />@Joe Smith<br>

It's Hogan's last paragraph at the link you provided that caught my attention. If for some reason you have to reinstall NX2 but it can't check in with Nikon to confirm your license nothing else matters after that, right? Doesn't matter if NX2 recognizes your camera, or if NX2 still runs on some future version of the OS, etc., . . .<br>

( <a href="http://www.dslrbodies.com/accessories/software-for-nikon-dslrs/software-news/the-embedded-adjustments.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.dslrbodies.com/accessories/software-for-nikon-dslrs/software-news/the-embedded-adjustments.html</a> )</p>