CAPTURE NX

[tim_knight]

I have a 2.4 Sony with 500 meg of memory. Will this handle CAPTURE NX trial

program? Is this truely free or is there a catch to it? I have been burned

before downloading something and then having problems getting rid of all of the

junk that comes with it, Canon being one of them.

[d._williams]

no catch other than buy it if you like it.

[neil_parker]

It's a trial, it's only free for 30 days, and will quit working at that point unless you

purchase the key.

[Jerry_]

Nikon Capture (non-NX) likes 1 GB of memory better. If you plan on 'un-bending' anything shot in NEF with the Nikkor 10.5mm DX Fisheye lens, less than 1 GB won't work.....

[savagesax]

Just deleted the CAPTURE NX. Darn think liked to open EVERY pic I have using it, when I really just wanted to view it. grrrr Then after only one day something went nuts with photoshop and capture! I had to delete both so I just reinstalled photo-CS2. What a pain. Don't think they like each other right now, or perhaps it is due to me running a 64 bit chipset instead of the old processors of 32 bit.

 

Anyway 500mgs is enough, but to run bigger programs like CS2 you need 2gbs to keep from slowing down and messing with your hard drive memory.

[CharlesBecker-Toronto]

my experience was similar to Bob's and I deleted NX as well-I wasn't too crazy about this being a microsoft.NET program to start with so deleting it wasn't a big deal-I don't do a lot of 'post-production' work so Photoshop Elements will do me for now. cb

[RaymondC]

Bob you could of changed the association with that filename extension. It would of opened it with another software that you dictated.

 

I for one have downloaded but not installed as not fast enof computer, its a P3 600Mhz. Running Photoshop is painful enof or NC 4.1, I do one pix at a time but no fancy stuff, its just a color balance or a contrast and resize. Call it a DIY minilab job at my home.

 

R

[michael_bradtke]

Okay I am trying it. So far I am not to thrilled with it.

 

I am running it on a AMD 64 with 1.5 Gig of RAM. It runs fast enough but then so does Capture 4.X

 

As of now I like Capture 4 better.

 

Michael

[paul_sokal___dallas__tx]

I used NX this weekend to work on a wedding. Running it on a Pentium D 940 with 3.25GB RAM. It's definitely faster, much faster, processing D2X files than the old Capture but it seem riddled with bugs, producing all sorts of unintended effects like shutting down clicking on certain buttons. I tried to apply some RAW settings to a group of highlighted photos and it tried to apply them to every file in the folder. This may have been user error as I haven't read the manual on batch processing, but if that's the case, it isn't very intuitive either. My belief is that good software can be operated (at least it's basic operations) by people with half a brain, or in my case 1/4 brain, without reading the manual.

[hique]

What about memory usage and speed compared to Capture 4.4?

 

I used the version 4.4 and thought that it was the heavier, most memory-consuming software I've ever used.

 

Is Capture NX better than Capture 4 in these regards?

[mark_tupper]

I downloaded NX last Saturday morning and have used it on D2X NEF files all waking hours since! Currently using an AMD64 3200, 2.5 gigs and 4 fast HD's, NX is, to my mind very slow and clunkey, OK it's the 30 day trial of version 1.0 but I won't be paying up after expiry - I'll already have gone back to CS2's Raw Converter - faster, easier to use and more obviously designed by photographers for photographers, Sorry Nikon - You make fantastic cameras and gorgeous lenses but software ? I'll pass...again<div></div>

[tim_knight]

Thank you all for the info on C-NX. I know memory is cheap and to update my computer wouldn't be that big of a thing, but I am getting along fine with Picasa and think I will save my money until the bugs are worked out and instead look for another lens for my camera (I have the D50 with an 18-70mm and 50mm 1.8 lens). I am looking hard at the Nikon 24mm 2.8 lens since I do like 35mm pictures for family pics, it is what I grew up with and learned to like. After that maybe the Nikon 85 1.8 or the Tamron 90 2.8 macro (I will research these two later). Thank you again. Tim

[jon_noble]

Guys, are you sure?

 

I have the Sempron64 3200+ with 2 gigs of RAM and 320GB of HD space and i find NX to be one hell of a package. I have tried almost all RAW converters (except Bibble) and find NX to be a great improvement upon the previous vesion. It runs quick enough for my tastes (except d-lighting). The control points idea is genius and actually works.

 

If there is one thing i find annoying it is that the browser is a little limited. I cannot get a enlarge preview, just thumbnails.

[pnance]

Yes, the Control Point feature is indeed great. I was able to easily fix an old photo, taken jpg with an Olympus 2mb, which was correctly exposed, except to the faces of two people, now the photo looks great. Its just a family snap, but now its all correctly exposed. And saved as a NEF it can be fiddled with more without worrying about losing more picture detail.

 

I have a Pentium 4, 2.85ghz, 1 gb memory, and over a 100gb free on the C drive. I have a few D2x files and NX opens them twice as fast as Capture 4.4

[mclain swift]

I am not sure why so many people are having such grief with NX. I think it is fantastic and will only get better with future versions. I don't process 100's of images, I work on a select few images individually so I can't speak for those that need to batch a ton of images. I am running it on my new Mac Dualcore G5 with 4GB RAM and it blows Capture 4 away for speed and reliability (it does seem to take longer sending a tiff to PSCS2 though). I was at a friend's last night showing her NX and she has an XP machine with 1 GB of RAM and it was pretty slow and lots of HD caching. I told her to put at least another GB in it and she would see a speed increase. I feel that a lot of people that are complaining about NX are running it on outdated machines. This is powerful modern software processing large image files. NX needs to be on a modern machine with lots of memory and it runs just fine. IMO anything less than 2GB is a waste of time with a lot of today's software and OS's.

[dan_beauvais]

So far, I'm a fan. The control points concept is very intuitive, and it's WAY faster than Capture 4.4. I'm not going to replace CS2, but NX gets a place in my toolbox. 2 GHz Celeron, 1 MB RAM.

 

Dan in Kitty Hawk

 

DanBeauvais.com -or- OuterBanksImages.com

[pnance]

That's interesting Swift. I found my Capture problems ended when I moved the Image files to a separate disk and made the C (and swap drive) huge.

[ottocrat]

NX is working just fine on my Macbook Pro with 2 gigs of RAM, despite the fact that it's running under Rosetta. So far, I quite like it, though as others have said it won't replace CS2, nor iVMP. It's really just an ACR replacement and as such I think it's going to be hard to justify the price. But I'm enjoying the trial version. Apologies if I've missed it in another thread, but has anyone found a useful tutorial (i.e. better than the online help)?

[gilles champagne]

Runs okay, emphasis on okay, on Dual Core Processor 820 with 1GB Ram. But the software looks and behaves similar to something out of the 90's. With the release of Lightroom Beta for windows, it's clear to me which is going to be more succesfull, Lightroom. The control points are okay, and at first use seem really great. But the circular constraint gets old fast. For someone who averages over 400 D200 images a day, this software will be deleted soon. THe workflow options are so archaic they impede rather than facilitate a resonable use of the software. Too bad, was hoping this was a path away from Adobe, but Lightroom just works so much better even though it's beta. In my eyes, Capture NX should have just been left on the shelf.

[hique]

Just tried the NX.

 

Nice and creative interface. Very inovative. Different from photoshop (at last). Not that photoshop interface is bad, but everyone just copies it so it's nice to see something new.

 

The control points and features are nice but the whole project goes down as it eats 417mb of my memory! CameraRaw is so much faster that it is not worth to use the NX.

 

Besides the speed problems, a nice software.

[dennison bertram]

I've been playing with the trial version for about three weeks so far, and I have to say- Love it and hate it. I love it because the quality of image that I'm getting out of it is really incredible. The colors are awesome, they render far better than with CS2's convertor or with Capture one. Much softer, smoother. More delicate. The control points is simply awesome. AWESOME I tell you. If I were a pirate I'd make everyone add control points to their software or have them walk the plank. Granted- I don't find them so usefull for studio shots (generally you should get your exposure right on the money huh?) but outdoors, it's a mindblowingly awesome feature. Wow the stuff you can do with localized exposure changes and color changes. Landscape photographers will be particularly thrilled.

 

Now, like all good pirates I have a temper- and I do hate Capture NX for a couple reasons. As many people have mentioned- it's faster than the previous capture. However, considering how infitensimilly slow the previous version was, "it's faster" is hardly a selling point. It's faster sorta like how bycycles go faster than tricycles. It's not fast like, Porsches are faster than people. IE: It's still very slow. D-lighting, (although also awesome) is like watching paint dry. On a humid day.

 

My opinion? I love the trial version, but it's so slow that it would be hard for me to justify purchasing it.<div></div>

[kemp_fant]

I just downloaded it this morning and I am blown away by the difference in quality of the image as compare to ACR CS2. I have an image shot at ISO400 and underexposed about 1-1.5 stop. ACR puts out an image with way too much color noise, basically an unusable shot at anything bigger than 4x6. The NX capture is beautiful. I agree that it is a bit clunky (I have XP machine with 4 GB RAM, which for those of you discussing bumping up your RAM, beware that XP really doesn't use anything over 2 GB in Photoshop)but maybe I'm just not used to it.

[dennis_caspe1]

I, too, am absolutely blown away with CaptureNX. The ability to make selections with the control points is so overwhelmingly better than making selections with PS (I have 7) or PS Elements 3 that it is like living in a different universe. I just cannot go back to using PS just on this feature alone.

 

The problem I am experiencing is not speed, but the absence of anything resembling the healing brush or the clone brush for those miserable sensor dust spots that I seem to attract. I am having no luck in taking the image into PS to get rid of those ugly spots. If I first take it into PS, I cannot save the image in NEF, so can't go back to enhance it. If I try to do the enhancements and then bring it into PS the only image that it finds is the original one, not the "last saved." I guess I could save it in PS as a jpeg, then take it back into NX, but that negates the functionality of NEF. If someone has a solution for this, or how to use NX to get rid of the sensor dust spots (other than not getting them in the first place), I would be very appreciative.

 

On the whole, though, I think that Nikon and NIK have a huge winner with NX and a technology that should revolutionize workflow techniques.

 

Dennis Caspe

[glendicrocco]

Currently I've been using Capture 4.4. Now with NX, there's a nice new interface but in the

three days I've been testing it I found the editing layout to be very counter-intuitive. I'm

making far more clicks to get a simple edit done. There's more screen space for the image

with all of these menus collapsed but it's not worth the trade-off in editing convenience.

When you "expand all" the menus collapse each time you open a new image.

 

My G4 has 2gb ram and a dual 1.42 processor. NX isn't any faster than Capture 4.4 for me.

As far as the control points, they're okay but you can accomplish this with adjustment

layers in PS or by exporting Raw files with different exposure values into PS and layering/

erasing.

 

The image quality of Capture has always been very good, good enough to avoid the

tweaking you need to do to make an image look good in ACR. But this new version of

Capture...to me it's 90% marketing, 5% new and improved, 5% new and inconvenient. What

happened to the "open with PS" button?" You have to go into the File menu to transfer the

image.

[ron_davidoff]

Speaking of NX problems, has anyone had any problems except myself trying to convert a NEF file to a JPG? I get a converted file that looks like something I ran through a PS cutout filter and ends up with psychedelic color.<div></div>