Issues: Nikon Capture vs. NX

[MichaelMoenning]

I have a love hate relationship with Nikon's software, I love the image quality and hate the speed, or lack of speed. For difficult product images in which color fidelity is critical, Nikon Capture 4.4.2 is our standard, it just renders the file the most accurately for our work. For example, I have a client with a product that has 16 shades of tan leather. When that kind of mind-numbing color control is needed we use Capture or Capture NX, it just extracts the most accurate rendering of the Nikon RAW file, which in turn, converts to the printing profile with the least amount of color shift.

I have just recently done a job in Nikon Capture NX. As Dierk stated, working in NX's base adjustments is just like working in Capture 4.4.2 - SLOW. However, Capture NX allows the use of Edit Steps, similar to adjustment layers in Photoshop, which render much faster. I found an excellent post on the Nikonians website detailing the ins and outs of Capture NX, it's well worth your time:

http://www.nikonians.org/cgi-bin/dcf...um=DCForumID36

I have also found my way to the same level of color fidelity with Capture NX that Capture 4.4.2 has provided, so batching a shoot into 16b tiffs is faster and just as accurate. The color control points are very cool, and can be set into a batch process as well, just like any other Edit Step, which works well for images shot in a similar setup. Once you get used to where the tools are that you use most, I think you'll enjoy working in Capture NX.

For sheer speed, when color fidelity isn't critical the Adobe Camera RAW or Lightroom spank all of the Nikon products. When I say color fidelity, I'm not talking about colors that are pleasing, I'm talking color that converts well to offset lithography printing profiles. Again, my client with 16 shades of tan!

And to the original post, I have found the upgrade to a Core 2 Duo machine worth the investment.

Hope that helps

Mike

[JerryLevin]

Mike and Dierk -

Again thanks for the detailed info.

We just received new machines that have a Q6600 processor, 4 gig, and 10,000 rpm disks. Hopefully, we'll see some noticeable speed improvements over the current boxes which are a bit over 2 years old.

16 shades of tanned leather - wow... Then again, we've shot some very nice million dollar yacht interiors that were all teak finish - and color fidelity is just as critical (don't want to look like oak or other wood...).

Sounds like NX is the app to look at, and we can do that with the new, virgin machines.

The two big things I wanted to confirm were (1) the observation that Capture 4.2.2 does indeed slow down if any edits were done to the NEFs, and (2) hoping NX would simply go faster.

Thanks again!

[DierkHaasis]

Yo may also be interested in Jason Odell's eBook on NX. Quite useful to get the hang of it.

[MichaelMoenning]

It's been my experience that Capture NX version 1.1 using Edit Steps is noticeably faster than Capture 4.4.2 with the same adjustments to the NEF. I did a test with 5 NEFs, using three steps, D-Lighting, LCH Curve adjustment, Unsharp mask. Files saved as 90 Quality JPG in a batch process.

Nikon Capture NX - Using 3 Edit Steps: 80 seconds or 16 seconds per file conversion
Nikon Capture NX - Using Base Adjustments: 93 Seconds or 18.6 seconds per file conversion
Nikon Capture 4.4.2: 130 seconds or 26 seconds per file conversion

So, using Edit Steps and turning everything off in the Base Adjustments dialog box is the fastest way to adjust a NEF using Capture NX. The computer used for the test was a 17" MacBook Pro Core 2 Duo with 2 gig RAM

I hope that is useful.

Mike

[David_Buzzard]

I use mostly Apple Aperture, and for individule NEF files, I use the RAW processor in Photoshop. I've used Lightroom a little, but found I liked Aperture more. That said, Lightroom uses the Photoshop RAW processor, which is easily as good as the Nikon NX or Capture. What both Lightroom and Aperture do is apply the adjustment settings in what's called a side car file, and then applies those setting when you export the NEF's to JPG or TIFF files. Very fast and efficient.

Yesterday, I had 560 NEF files from a wedding to process. It took 2 1/2 hours to tweek all the adjustments (if I had a faster computer, it would have been more like an hour. Aperture is a processor and graphics hog). Once I had everything adjusted the way I like, I hit export, went off and had dinner and a nice walk around the lake, and it was all done. Compare that to working in Capture or NX!

If you have the up to date version of Photoshop, then Lightroom is only about $150.00, so it's pretty hard to argue with that.

David Buzzard's Technical Blog

[James Haba]

Hey Jerry:
It really depends on the computer you are using . . . at least it does for me. I was using Capture 4.2 and View until I got MAC intel laptop . . . View and 4.2 was soooo sloooow on it that I considered it useless. Then I tried the NX version. Now, I no longer use View at all, I just browse, open, tweek and save all in NX. I like to tweek each file seperately so I do not do a batch in NX. Of course your milage may vary depending on how you work. I like the way NX does color because it matches what I am seeing.
My .02
James Haba

[James Haba]

I do not like the way Photoshop does RAW (I am using CS1). It does not come close to what I get in NX. I see David uses Lightroom and Apple Aperture with success and I think that will make me look into it as well . . . . faster is better . . . as long as it looks good!
James Haba