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With all of the new Nikon converts, I thought it might be a good idea to share some of your favorite Nikon Capture NX features.
1)The noise reduction is hands down the best I have used.
2)I love the way the layer masks work, you paint in or paint out an adjustment.
3)The U-Point adjustment rocks.
My 3 favorites!
I have to agree with you James, I even know about those and I'm a Canon guy!
You know some days I love NX, some days I want to dump it. I think when I am loaded with images to process is when the slowness bothers me, otherwise nothing works better on NEF files for details and color.
Also particularly like the color point !!!!
My only problem with NX is the flow Staying in LR streams the flow Anything that is mayor I will process in NX
Thanks for the tips james, keep them coming.
Dont use CNX too much yet but I do like the colors compared to ACR/LR.
I agree with George to a degree, it does seem very slow sometimes.
I think the fastest and most efficient way to process my D300 files for me is to try to nail them as much as possible in camera and just extract Jpegs for web email, and laptop viewing. For those not aware, Breezebrowser will extract a full size embedded Jpeg out of the NEF file in less than a second. Canon has a embedded jpeg also but it is not full size.
Robert
I'm running a Q6660 quad core with 4 gigs (even though Vista can't "see" all 4 gigs) of ram and NX is now sooooooo much faster than NC4.4.2.
However....NX will never be as good a UI (unless they change it dramatically) as NC was.
Interesting comment JS regarding the NR feature. I've been going back and forth relative to it's merits in NX.
My biggest tip is to set up a .set file which sets all of your parameters (assuming you're processing RAW) where you want them to be...apply that and then tweak from there.
Just remember...if you adjust anything in Picture Controls (personally I don't use this during processing), it will dump you're USM settings currnetly and you have to re-set them before you're complete.
I love the high pass sharpening. I will use the regular USM, but at the end make a new step and choose high pass, 1 px, then deselect, select + selection brush, then just brush in the eye's or primary subject. You can even do this as a tiff, if you have already saved the image as that for PS.
Hi James, have to agree - having gone full circle I have come back to Capture NX as my main processing package. For me, the NR is by far the best I have used for NEF files, the details and color are outstanding. The black and white points are super useful and the inverse threshold function is really excellent also. My only complaint was that after upgrading to NX, it really slowed down my PC's. In the end, I found out that this was due to the NR option - as a result I turn it off, use a generic .set file for processing and then fine tune any images I need to. I have CS3, Noise Ninja but I still find that CNX continues to give me better images and prints for my D200 and D300 NEFs.
George
My favorite is definitely the ease of developing a series of steps for for wildlife, landscape, portraits, etc., similar to the actions in Photoshop or presets in Lightroom. Jason Odell's manual for Capture NX is a terrific and user friendly tutorial.
The tutorials, tech tips, and tech guide at http://www.capturenx.com/ are great for anyone new to Capture.
I forgot to mention DLighting as one of my favorite. So much better than CS3's shadow/highlights.
Gale I've been working hard on NX and like it better every day One amazing feature is having levels and curves working together
My only concern is the overall workflow I have not come up with something comfortable !!!
Thanks for the info and yes keep them coming. I am just about to venture into Nikon as soon as the camera arrives by the big brown truck. Looking forward to learning more from other Nikon users. I know it will be a little different than canon, but I am excited about it. Change is always good.
I will tell you one thing I really do love is how you can straighten a horizon line. You draw one line and bam....works very fast and accurate too!
This is my first post. I used Capture with my D70 and then switched to Capture NX when it became available. It has become my primary editing tool, along with Picture Window Pro. Besides the Jason O'Dell ebook, which is excellent, I found the Vincent Versace DVD "Capture NX, Unleashing the Raw Power of Capture NX" to be an excellent tutorial. I would highly recommend both of these.
After getting my D300 the other day, I found that CS2 no longer opens NEFS, Nikonview does not either and Vista was getting screwed up!!! Well I DL a update from Nikon to solve the Vista problem.
But CS2 needs to go to CS3! Nikon Capture NX came with the D300, I was not going to install it but now I have and it seems to be working pretty fast, all I have to figure out how to use it. Now I have to decide if the upgrade to CS3 is worth it.
The problem I am having is I use Lightroom mostly. And if I wanted to do something in CS2 it would make a TIFF copy and keep LR's adjustments. Now I can still that with the D300 files. But suppose I want to go from LR to CaptureNX, it still is making a TIFF copy, why will it not let me make an original copy, NEF with the LR adjustments and then open in Capture? Or is the TIFF the only way to go here?
Michael,
Even though I purchased a D300 I have not begun using Capture NX so perhaps I might be missing something in this answer. If you are using CS2, you will have to use Lightroom with the newest Adobe Camera RAW update to read and convert D300 files. That conversion will have to be to a TIFF file that can now be shared among the other applications.
Robert,
Thanks for the info. After doing some reading and thinking about it , it just makes sense as to what i have to do. Still need to decide if upgrade would be worth it on CS2.
I love Capture NX but don't open my files in Lightroom. I open them directly in Capture and process from there.
