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Nikon NX2 or Photoshop Elements for RAW


stan_schurman1

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<p> Trying to get an opinion of which is more useful and user friendly, NX2 or PS Elements for processing raw. I currently have the 60 day demo of NX2 and I'm slowly learning how to use it, but I find that it takes forever to do anything. Even shutting it down is painfully slow. I've asked Nikon's tech help if this is just a problem with the 60 day demo version, but haven't heard back from them. Anyway, I understand that PS Elements is good. Has anyone had the opportunity to use both?</p>
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<p>I use both, and by far I prefer NX2 for image processing; I use Elements just for layers work. Both together are a good cheap solution for highest quality, non-professional users, I think.</p>

<p>I find NX2 on my iMac 3,06 reasonably fast, on a MB 2,4 a bit slower but perfectly usable, on a P4 PC unusable.</p>

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<p>NX2 is certainly not the speediest photo editor or RAW converter you can get, so I would not assume that it will get any faster when you get the licensed copy of it. I'm running NX2 on a 3.16 GHz dual core Win7 x64 with 8Gig of RAM, and NX2 is still slow, if I do lots of edits into one picture.<br>

Nx2 has its limitations, but I like it's RAW conversion and some of the features such as B&W conversion. When I had only NX2 and Elements, I used NX2 90% of the time. Now I have CS4, and NX2 gets used mostly for raw conversion anymore.</p>

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<p>Foe Windows I think Lightroom is the most intuitive software. The only problem I find is that I could never get my out from the camera to look the way they were supposed to. Lightroom doesn't read the camera settings and even using the camera profiles from Adobe the results were never the same and I ended up spending too long time trying to get my files looking the way I wanted. I am sure this is my own personal problem coz I know other people are very happy with their results. For me NX" is the best application to work with my NEF files and on a Mac NX" works great, specially now that the new upgrade 2.2.4 is out.<br>

Good luck!</p>

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<p>Stan,</p>

<p>This question of NX's execution speed has been raised often.<br>

Searching PN will yield some of these discussions.<br>

The general concensus (heartily endorsed by me as well) is that any computer not more than a few years old will run NX just fine. The key is knowing how to stream line your system. NX runs fine on any 3+ gig machine w/ no less than operating system minimum RAM +4.</p>

<p>For procesing NEF files, I see nothing on the market currently that comes close to NIK's processing algorithm...If there is something better, I'm sure listening because the interface of NX is somewhat clumsy but easily mastered with repetition.</p>

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<p>"I'm not sure what the problem is with my demo of NX2. I doubt if it's the computer. It's at nowhere near its capacity and everything else works quickly and efficiently. So far it sounds like NX2 has the nod, but I'd like to hear from others as well."</p>

<p>Stan there is a search function on top of this page (actually you are pointed to it before you can place your question) and it will give you a large number of similar threads. There you can read a lot about user interface and "efficiency" of NX2.<br>

The only difference between NX2 demo and the registered version is the fact that you need a serial number to register. You do not install any new software.</p>

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<p>Elements can't work in 16-bit and doesn't let me use ProPhotoRGB - already enough for me to rule it out. Tried a Capture NX/NX2 and the slow speed turned me off - need to re-evaluate on my new computer though (waiting for a 64-bit version). I process with ACR (CS4) or DxO Optics Pro for the harder cases.</p>
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<p>Could the camera (i.e., D90 or D80) NEF files be identified? Some older Nikon DSLR bodies can have NEF files worked on in Nikon Capture NX (not NX2) which may be faster on your computer. [Nikon shipped Nikon Capture NX with the D3, but for the D700 you need Nikon Capture NX2...both camera's produce FX NEF files in the size department.]</p>

<p> </p>

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<p>1 gig of memory sounds awful meager when you are talking about a Windows machine running a photo editor program. You can verify if it is to meager by pulling up Task Manager before starting up NX2 and click on the Performance tab. There you will see how much cpu you are using and how much you are using the Page File (ie. how much the system is paging in and out its memory, which really slows down the pc). Then, click on the minimize button. Then start up NX2 and start editing. After you edit a few images and you get your really slow response times, check out the Task Manager and see how much of the Page File that he is using. Also, you might want to check how much disk space you have allocated to the Page File and you may want to defrag your hard drive. Remember, Windows does not perform well with either fragmented hard drive or with low disk space.<br>

I found out from experience that NX2 does not perform well when you are editing a bunch of pictures at the same time. It seems to run the best editing a few or just one picture at a time.</p>

<p>Regards</p>

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<p>I contacted the HP tech advisors. I can go to 4gb, but since my operating system is 32-bit it will only use 3.2 gb of that. They suggest I buy a 2gb and a 1gb card for a total of 3gb. They also gave me the card specs, so I'm all set whenever I decide to do that. Going from 1gb to 3gb should be more than enough to make NX2, and anything else I'm running, sing. Thanks for the input. Guess I'll stick with NX2.</p>
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