Is captureNX the best for me?

[cmulcahy]

I received capture NX w/ my D300. I've had experience in a darkroom but this

is my first w/ digital So I'm not sure if I'm using the best product for my

editing.

 

A little back round info: I like to shoot in RAW. I don't focus on one subject.

I enjoy portraits, sports, architecture, nudes, and landscapes. I don't like

excessive editing or digital effects. I'm not into creating a computer image.

I merely want to improve on my photography by making corrections and

occasionally using basic tools to improve the image. I find my self cropping,

using exposure adjustment, sharpening, NR, black and white conversion, and

enlarging/zooming most often. Occasionally I'd like to be able to change the

back round of a photo and I find it very difficult to do using captureNX. I

wouldn't mind adding color to some black and whites once in a while but I've yet

to figure out how to do that using captureNX. I'd like to easily add a water

mark to my photo's. Maybe there are tools out there that I'd like but don't

get on captureNX?

 

I occasionally have issues with captureNX freezing up, loosing sharpening

adjustments during processing (before I can save it) , and bogging down my

computer. Is this common w/ all editing software?

 

It sounds like a lot of people use photoshop. I'm curious just how user

friendly PS is, can my computer handle it? I'm not an expert so would I be over

whelmed with PS? Is there another product out there that people would

recommend? Maybe captureNX is right for me but I just need to learn more about

it?

 

Any software suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Cost isn't much of an

issue for me. I have a friend in the software business and he can get me almost

any program for free.

 

My computer: Dell E510/Pentium DC 2.8GHZ / 3GB RAM / Radeon X600 256MB video card

 

Not the greatest computer by any means but OK I think.

[Hector Javkin]

"I have a friend in the software business and he can get me almost any program for free."

 

Could you explain what that means?

[cmulcahy]

I think it's pretty self explanatory. If you want specific details, sorry. I'll just say it's perfectly legal - if that is what you are wondering.

[ronald_moravec1]

NX is fine right up to changing backgrounds. That gets you into Adobe Photoshop land.

 

Loosing the sharpening is a report bug and Nikon is slow to fix things or never fixes in software. I will not buy any of it for this reason. They seem to have to resources to bring out new stuff all the time though.

Nice program if you can get it to work. NX is resource hungry and can slow your computer.

 

Windows machines don`t empty the cache between pictures. In photoshop delete the history between photos or reboot or it may stop too. No such problem with a Mac. Never ran NX on my Mac.

 

Photoshop is very complicated. But you can learn to do what NX does easily and learn more as time permits and needs require it. NX is a toy in comparision.

 

A few places to check to see how it works

 

Russell Brown Show

 

Adobe learning Center

 

The Lights Right Studio - Digital darkroom tab

 

Google the above and also photoshop tutorials. Lots of on line resources and books written

[robert_martin5]

I have Photoshop CS3 and Nikon Capture NX that I use with a Nikon D200. I find Photoshop CS3 very fast compared to Nikon Capture NX and Photoshop has a lot more capability than NX. I recommend that you try both to see what works best for you - I use Photoshop CS3 for all my RAW processing.

 

You need to be aware that Nikon software is the only software that will read your in camera settings (tone curve, sharpening, saturation, etc) - all third party RAW processing software only reads the white balance information and uses default values for all other parameters. This means when you first open a RAW file using the Adobe RAW converter (ACR - Adobe Camera RAW) it will not look like the JPG from the camera. You can save new default values for your camera and you can also save a lot of presets that give you a lot of flexibility with ACR.

 

Adobe Lightroom is used by a lot of people to process RAW files - it's RAW converter is basically the same as the one available in Photoshop CS3, but it has better database capability. People who use Lightroom generally use Photoshop for some of their processing since it is not available in Lightroom.

[Richard Williams]

I would (and do) use NX for the stuff it does well (especially raw conversion, and quick adjustments with control points and D-lighting), though I wouldn't be without some version of PS (even if it's just Elements, but preferably the full version) for further editing. Note that NX not only uses your in-camera settings for raw conversion, but also Nikon's own colour profiles for their cameras, which tends to mean nice default results (like the in-camera jpegs) without a lot of fiddling.

[diane_madura]

Hi Chad. Like some of the others, I use Capture NX only for processing RAW files, and making the "camera adjustments" to it. For everything else, I use Photoshop CS2. Capture NX is a little slower, and doesn't have nearly as much to offer. But I find, for me, it does the best job of converting RAW files to TIFF (which is what I work in in Photoshop). I would recommend Capture NX to anyone, I think it's that good for RAW conversion.

[wing8]

I also prefer NX for my raw conversion and use Photoshop CS3 for everything else. There will be a learning curve, how steep depends on what you want to do. I also upgraded my computer to a current model for speed with the D300 files and have no slowness with NX.

[gdw]

If you can get it free, get it and try it.