Nikon View NX-i version 1.2.1 64 bit

<p>To view and cull my D810 and D500 RAW files, I have had to switch to Nikon View NX-i. I am finding it very slow on my desktop pc compared to Nikon View NXD that i used to use for my D800e RAW files. <br>

On my desktop I have dual monitors and to get them to both work, I had to select under Options, the following: Viewer, Full Screen Mode, Full screen on scondary display. My desktop has SSD for C drive. The Nikon images are on another internal hard drive. Cache is on the SSD drive. <br>

On my laptop, with less RAM, no SSD C drive, and an older processor, View NX-i seems to be faster, other things the same. <br>

First question, what is causing the slow time (5-15 seconds) for the image to fully load on my second monitor?<br>

Second question, sometimes on my desktop, I get a message "Out of memory" and the program crashes. I have at least 120GB free on my SSD drive. <br>

Third question. Am I viewing the imbeded JPEG or a processed RAW in View NX-i? <br>

Alternatives. I could use Lightroom but I have been told that its viewer is slow as it processes the RAW image. Other programs I should use? <br>

Thanks,</p>

<p>Joe</p>

<p>'Out of memory' generally refers to RAM. In the Task Manager, how much RAM is VNX-i using, and how much is free? Is your CPU being maxed out by VNX-i or other processes?</p>

<p>Have you tried the (also free) Capture NX-D package? It has a pretty good image browser built in, as well as more sophisticated raw processing options.</p>

My desktop has 16 GB of ram. I will check it out using task manager. My laptop has 12gb and I never get the out of

memory notice. I have uninstalled and reinstalled view nx-I to see if that would fix things, but same things happen.

 

I do have nx-d that I access when needed through view nx-I.

 

Joe

<p>I have not tried similar two monitor setup with View NX-i. Just installed View NX-i yesterday to one 8 year old single monitor machine. However I think this lag might have something to do with enabling dual monitor.</p>

<p>To first question my guess would be that large image is read from hard disk, then processed to reflect edits made in Capture NX-D prior starting of View NX-i. On single monitor in full sceen mode images take some time to reach maximum sharpness. Maybe 1-5 seconds depending on image size. Perhaps Your laptop hard drive is 7200rpm and desktop hard drive is 5400rpm unit.</p>

<p>To second question I have to admit that I have not yet encountered this "Out of memory" event. This computer I am using has 4GB of memory and system monitor says sometimes View NX-i memory use to be around 1.2GB. Then I move to another folder of images and program relieves memory to use. Perhaps if I had more and larger files in single folder, I might also run into "Out of memory".</p>

<p>To third question, Somewhere I read that View NX-i supports Capture NX-D edits stored in sidecar files. It is supposed to show atleast edits made prior opening of View NX-i. I do not yet actively use sidecar stored edits in Capture NX-D, but in couple of test files I have tried this seems to be the case. I do not know whether the image viewed on sceen originates from raw + edits or raws embedded jpeg + edits.</p>

<p>Perhaps there are alternative programs, but one possibility would be to study possibilities of in camera jpeg engine rather than build monster computer likely to finally export jpegs. Readymade picture control + geometric corrections + vignetting corrections and perhaps smaller image dimensions should help culling process. If shoot raw + jpeg, one can dig out raw when in serious need.</p>

<p>Will this Nikon NX-i work properly on my "Gateway" Laptop, running Windows Vista Ultimate, with 32 bit operating system?<br>

I am a Senior retiree, NOT a Techie by any means, need a good Software program to download, view, and organize my Nikon D3300 images. I also want to be able to download my Android smartphone images too.</p>

<p>1: the issue may be with the display driver and/or hardware or dispaly memory. You might try to tune that part of your system. I have noticed - more so in the earlier versions - that the edit/info/label database takes time to be synchronized with the sidecar actual files.<br>

Is the lag related to D500 images only or both D500 and D810 images?<br>

2: I have seen that View NX-i does not free the memory as it should. This leads to a situation where the standby memory (taken by XN-i) eats graduallyall the available amount - as it shows in the Resource Monitor. Seems to be better with the current version in this respect. Try "clear the (thumbnail) cache" in the settings /options and try a bigger value for the cache memory.<br>

3: If you have selected "double square" = "show jpg and nef as a single image", the the NX-i shows you the nef -maybe initially for a second or two the jpg. You can choose jpg or nef solely by unclicking the "double square!. Then you have a separate thumbnal for the jpg and nef. Selecting either opens the corresponding image format/content.<br>

Yes after editing - with NX-d - the jpg is re-generated to reflect the edits. This may be the nef internal jpg tough, what I have bee looking at, as I have the "double square" selected usually.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Will this Nikon NX-i work properly on my "Gateway" Laptop, running Windows Vista Ultimate, with 32 bit operating system?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Nikon lists Windows 7 or later as a requirement:<br>

http://nikonimglib.com/nvnxi/onlinehelp/en/nk002000.html<br>

But sometimes companies just say this so they don't have to deal with supporting older versions of Windows - it might still work.</p>

<p>For 32bit Vista environment perhaps View NX 2 is better as it is still available as 32bit application. For downloading images I would like to recommend card reader and file manager. Nef codec is (or atleast was for vista) available to enable thumbnails on file manager. For viewing images View NX 2 might work with also android phone images or then not. This seems to depend on make and model of phone or other manufacturer camera, program will shutdown if there is incompability. Irfanview is nice program for viewing images. Organizing images is perhaps not strong side of View NX or irfanview, and I think Lightroom and newer operating system (maybe vista allready had image keywording features?) might be the ticket for keywording and such.</p>

<p>If the vista laptop has nothing special in it, it might make sense to get new computer, operating system and programs. However D3300 is able to produce such flow of data that need of new system is either obvious or then not. </p>

Thanks for the very thoughtful responses. I will check the double square setting and see how it is set.

 

When I use view nx-I, the images have just been downloaded to the desktop. None has been processed in any way in

any program. I use downloader pro to invest the images. Sidecar files are created at that time. I thought Nikon software

wrote info to the Nef file and not sidecar files.

 

Joe

<p>ViewNX-i and Capture NX-D use sidecar files. I imagine they aren't compatible with sidecars created by other software. Earlier Nikon packages, including ViewNX 2 and Capture NX2, save changes directly to the NEF.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>ViewNX-i and Capture NX-D use sidecar files. I imagine they aren't compatible with sidecars created by other software. Earlier Nikon packages, including ViewNX 2 and Capture NX2, save changes directly to the NEF.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>This is how I (currently) understand it is.<br>

When using Nikon Transfer - as the tool to transfer images from the memory card to the computer, creating optional backup files to optionally an another drive, and doing some optional other actions as well, NO sidecar file is created. <br>

Only after the first editing, labeling, rating of an image file that particular sidecar file appears.<br>

I would suggest to test this tool as it is normally included with the View NX-i package.</p>

<p>It sounds like Joseph is using Breeze Downloader Pro instead of Nikon Transfer for image transfer and management. Downloader Pro creates sidecar files for its own purposes, which aren't the same as Nikon's (or Adobe's). VNX-i will create a second, separate sidecar file to store raw edits as required. I guess VNX-i might be able to replace Downloader Pro in Joseph's workflow (depending what features he uses), in which case there'd only be a single sidecar file to manage.</p>

<p>I went to the toolbar and checked my settings for “Viewing Simultaneously Recorded Images” and “Viewing Grouped Images (Sequence).” These are right next to each other and are represented by stacked boxes, two or three, respectively. I turned both of them off (grey instead of yellow.) These changes definitely have helped reduce the time it takes for the program to load the image. It is not instantaneous, but now just a second or two. All of the images displayed in the filmstrip were NEF images as I did not take NEF and JPEGs at the same time. Maybe the program was taking time to search for a JPEG that was not there? <br>

I must note that with “Viewing grouped images (sequence)” turned on, all of the images taken in a burst or sequence still all appeared in the filmstrip. I did not get just one image, the best, as explained in the manual. I do not know if this a bug in the program or not. Most of the images I took with my D810 and D500 were taken in burst mode, either CH of CL in AF-C. <br /> I will see if these changes also affect the “out of memory” error notice.<br>

<br /> I used windows explorer to see where the sidecar files are located. I do have two sets of sidecar files which is not a good thing to have. Downloader Pro creates a set and places them in a folder created by Downloader Pro at the time of download. This folder also contains the NEF images. A sub folder, “NKSC PRAM” also contains sidecar files. I am assuming these are created by Nikon View nx-I and/or Nikon NX-D. Here is what I found in the Manual for View nx-i:<br>

<br /> <strong>About Adjustment Files</strong><br /> When metadata is edited, a folder named "NKSC_PARAM" is created at the same directorylevel as the original image, and an adjustment file is saved to the folder. The edited contentsare saved to the adjustment file and the metadata of the original image is not edited. If youdelete the folder or adjustment file, the edited contents will be lost. <br /> The image file and the adjustment file are associated under the file name. If either file isrenamed on the OS, the edited contents may be lost or applied to another image.The adjustment files are shared with Capture NX-D. Edited contents of metadata are mutuallyapplied between ViewNX-i and Capture NX-D.<br>

<br /> This raises another major concern I have with these two programs. Can the Nikon created sidecar files be read by any Adobe product like Lightroom or Bridge or Photoshop? If No, then I am probably wasting my time ranking images in View NX-1 if I am expecting those sidecar files to be read by Bridge or Lightroom which I have just added to my desktop. (My plan is to learn LR and move away from NX-D.)<br>

<br /> I do see a section in the manual entitled “Open with Application” but the details are not specific enough for me to determine if this means that the images could be opened with an Adobe product. <br /> Any thoughts on this additional issue are appreciated.</p>

<p>Joe</p>

<p>No, Adobe uses a third format of sidecar file that isn't compatible with either of the others. But you probably don't need all three programs. You could do everything (including import form the media card and raw conversion) using the Nikon software. Alternatively, you could do all of this in Lightroom. Personally, I don't use a dedicated image transfer program at all, I just use the operating system to copy from the media card to the PC. I then use one of the Nikon packages for image ranking and raw conversion (currently Capture NX-D - I find VNX-i pretty much superfluous). Where necessary, I export to tiff for further editing in Photoshop. The main reason I used Capture NX-D rather than Lightroom is that I prefer the default output from Nikon's raw converter (if you're considering moving to LR it's worth experimenting with the conversions first to see which are more to your taste, and how much work it is to get the output you want).</p>