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A value of 4 in CaptureNX is different than 4 in Lightroom. So just reading that tag is meaningless And also, a value of 8 in CaptureNX's sharpening may not hold to the same intensity curve as an 8 in Lightroom. Speedlight 8 years ago. I don't save changes to my original NEF s. I suppose it's possible but I don't know of such a problem nor have I heard of one.
I thought the only problem would be that other programs would ignore the edits from CNX2. Well I think this is a good thread which I'm going to follow. I'm not sure about that for the future as to me it's an Adobe file type and I'm not too fond of Adobe and haven't been for some years. Dave Hartman. Speedlight says: I don't save changes to my original NEF s.
And that would ignore it from the newly generated NEF as well. DNG can work in several modes. If you simply do an encapsulation then that is simply changing out the MakerNotes section from one that Nikon uses to one that Adobe uses. Note that this doesn't translate anything you have already done in CaptureNX This is fine if you continue to use Adobe products or other products which may be able to read DNG edit steps in the MakerNotes..
I noticed my faux pas of not directly addressing the topic of this thread. Gimp with UFRaw plugin is of course free but it does have its limitations. Also, it's opensource and so if I really feel the hankering I can go into it and tinker with it. I only dabble slightly in image manipulation so software that is meant to focus onimage development tends to appeal to me more. Darktable like Gimp is also very cross-platform. Aftershot Pro has been really good performancewise and I do like that it is also cross-platform.
It's by far the most mature for the features I'm looking for in an image developer program. But it also incorporates a RAW processor and enough post-processing and image manipulation tools that it can almost go toe-to-toe with Photoshop Elements. It only runs under Windows however. Edited by artoris member 8 years ago. The white balance tool is the best I've ever seen.
Easy Mark 8 years ago. Will have to try Lightzone out. Thanks Aftershot Pro works on Linux, which makes it a likely candidate for me. Murray McMaster 8 years ago. It's probably time for me to download the Capture One Pro demo again. They are currently allowing a second 60 day demo. From what I have seen, they are the 3rd party that comes closest to producing Nikon color. I think the thing I want to avoid most is having to use an intermediary tiff, which I would have to do fairly regularly if I use NX-D to convert my raw files.
Edited by ad hoc horse member 8 years ago. It gives me richer colours and better highlight and shadow recovery. As someone else has mentioned, its white balance controls are good and it also has good keystone correction. Speedlight Posted 8 years ago. Edited by Mr. Speedlight member 8 years ago. WintrHawk : No. LorneCCB Posted 8 years ago. Edited by LorneCCB member 8 years ago. But, as long as you keep a version of Capture NX2 running, you can go back and rethink any or all edits.
Obviously, if you hav. Sorry for the delayed reply. I was rebuilding a new PC over the weekend so was offline for awhile. I appreciate everyone's response so far. WintrHawk : You mention you are using Aftershot Pro. That used to be Bibble Labs from my understanding. Does that work with the Nik Google plugins? If so, which ones? JyBravo 8 years ago. Gimp is ok but its not my go-to editor more of a supplemental for things CNX2 can't do well.
Bill-S 8 years ago. Charlie Packard 8 years ago. Bill-S : Sadly not all of us are Mac users Some of us are happy not to be Mac users. I run mine under Win 7. John the Photographer 8 years ago. I have been looking forward to Paint.
Net 4 for some years now. It is finally here. IMHO, Paint. Net 4 will give PS a run for their money. I've just tested it with Google's Nic Collection and both works flawlessly. What's more, I have all of Nic's Efex! Net4 is not as convenient as Capture NX2.
Obviously, I will miss the edits being saved in my NEF files. If you have tried Paint. Net 4 yet, do yourself a favour. Try it out. I don't think the plugin architecture is the same as that for the Adobe products. RogerGW : Many thanks, Roger. My rather dumb quick search looking at prices pulled up a MacOS only offer!
I shall now download the 60 day trial. Thanks again Charlie. Bill-S Posted 8 years ago. Edited by Bill-S member 8 years ago. Neither am I. I am all Windows- but that has been covered now.
C1P seems to me the direction I will follow once NX2 finally gives up the ghost. It is as close to one stop editing as NX2 is currently for me. It is just missing the added selectivity of control points editing compared to NX2.
But brush and gradients local edits accounted for. Maybe not as good a spot removal tool as NX2 also, but functional. Good highlight and shadow recovery. Sourly missing is opacity and blending modes for local edit "steps". Thanks again everyone for the comments. Charlie Packard Posted 8 years ago. Edited by Charlie Packard member 8 years ago. Bill-S : Thanks for the pointers, Bill. My age makes me wonder whether Google-Nik is poised to hoover the U-Point lovers into its grasp when Nikon's licence ends :- I am sure Nik's brains and skills will be used in-house, but the Nik brand has much more retail mileage than just as a plug-in software package for Adobe.
Nikon has 'lost much face' with me over this debacle and from their handling of the D oil disaster from which they are unlikely to recover me as a customer. My D is still a damned good camera but I think Fuji's approach, particularly to customer relations and firmware updates is excellent. I have their X-Pro1 as my current squeeze and will probably try the X-T Charlie Packard : the Nik brand has much more retail mileage than just as a plug-in software package for Adobe.
Photos 8 years ago. Sorry, can never work out what Googles products are called or how they knit together. U point tech is widely available within Google's sphere of influence. It's native in the latest Android, Snapseed, Google plus, Google photos and likely more. That won't help those of use who like to work on raw and tiff files though. Another thought, some of the Google Nik plugins will work as stand alone editors. Do this either by right clicking the tiff make a duplicate if necessary and selecting open with or by opening the plugin and dragging and dropping the desired file onto it.
If you don't want a repeat of this fiasco with other softwares, I think the only reasonable choice, to my dismay, are Abobe products. ACR is almost all I need, unless I need to add textures, or do a lot of cloning etc. PS has millions I suspect of actions available to do most anything. Incredible help and tutorials at the free AdobeTV. And while it likely is overkill for many of you, I think its time to bite the bullet.
GIMP might be okay too, but I don't like the interface. Murray McMaster : And its too bad, too, as Snapseed was a great editing tool, until Google took it off the market for desktops. It has the feel of CNX2 for me. I use it on the iPhone a lot. Digital imaging processing is dying as a business opportunity.
I've predicted for quite some time that eventually the "camera" industry will evolve to producing only phone cameras and higher end DSLRs. Look at the camera stats on Flickr - phone-camera pix are looking to be almost a majority.
I suspect that phone-camera jocks don't use desktop apps much for image processing, because the whole purpose of the phone-camera is not to produce quality images for competition or for sale, or for the art not that some don't use it for these purposes.
Phone-camera images are used for communication. Rapid communication. Desktop processing apps for phone images are a no go. In my mind, the whole market of desktop apps for image processing is suspect. As much as I hate to admit it, Adobe has the edge here, if one considers long-term persistence of product and support. So slightly off topic but still related since one of the major losses of moving away from Capture NX will be missing u-point technology. I was playing around in lightroom with CEP filters.
In Capture NX I could apply the Dynamic Skin softener, then select a minus brush and quickly brush out eyes, hair, etc. With Lightroom, the photo seems to open up as a TIFF in a seperate window and the only selective feature appears to be a control point. But if the hair color is similar to the skin color then the hair is still affected. There doesn't appear to be a quick way to brush out what the control point is spilling over to.
Am I just missing something or was Capture NX just that much easier to use. But in lightroom to soften skin I use the adjustment brush. Paint the face or whatever and lower the clarity, noise and sharpen. You don't need plugins for LR if you know how to use all the settings. Granted it can't do laying tricks like photoshop. I downloaded the nik pluggin as it has Viveza u-point pluggin and am still monkeying with it on LR.
But most of those plugin I can already do with lightroom, plus I don't want to create another tiff unless I have too. I uninstalled CNX-2 long time ago. While having all three in CNX was convenient, it was limiting. The raw converter lacked selective edits and advanced features found in other converters, it's strongest point was having control over Nikon camera features.
A few years ago it may have had the edge on IQ but not any longer. So unique, in fact, that I formed a dependence on U-points and thus on Nikon software for that type of masking, as I'm sure many of you have. I used CNX for several years, and a little over a year ago I saw the writing on the wall about its then questionable future.
My raw processor of choice will depend on the work. With landscape images destined for large prints I often try more than one processor and choose the one that gives me the best results to pass to my editor.
For less important images, where IQ isn't critical, convenience wins out. I chose PS because it's widely supported, its community huge, its company sound, its future virtually guaranteed, and it can do anything other editors can do including CNX and then some. For me, luminosity masking actions really sped up the transition away from U-points, and I get better results.
Instead, it uses its U-point mask internally with its own limited set of internal basic adjustments brightness, contrast, saturation, structure to produce a finished end result. So that's why I've been using PS as an alternative editor. Good luck. Regards, Frank. Peter van Rens 8 years ago. Thanks got taking the time. Edited by iScan-Cumbria member 8 years ago.
Pretty much perfection. There was room for enhancements and tuning however. The thing is, CNX keeps that door open. CNX-D at least currently does not and neither do the alternatives.
The woeful shortcoming on Nikon's part was 2-fold. Calamitous marketing, plus gross strategic error in not securing, in perpetuity, the rights to Nik patents. A little better marketing and they would have realised that in-house CNX2 would have been a profit centre and not a loss centre. You're right. But some of this fore-thought can be hard to push in a company like Nikon. It's especially hard in a traditional Japanese company like Nikon. Believe me. I know. Given the former, it would have been a short step then, for Nikon to have purchased outright Nik.
The purchase of Nik could have led to both a Cannon and Adobe slayer. I wouldn't go so far as to say that. I don't think Canon comes into the picture here and I think Adobe is much too well established. But I think recent developments do serve to point out the differences in people's thinking, understanding and acceptance of certain attributes in their workflow. Some really value the way processing and post-processing was melded together so that one could for the most part be free to break from linearity in their workflow.
But to others These advantages are lost because their workflow is different. And that's fine. Use whatever practices work for you. It all really is about the comfort factour of the environment. I'm sure that there are plenty of things in Lightroom, CaptureOne, DxO, etc that could potentially be of value to me but I have not realised due to the nature of my workflow. The rub for me however is that transitioning to them means giving up the things that I do value in CNX.
I don't think I've seen Lightzone mentioned here. It's free and open source, does a good job rendering color, can make multiple adjustment steps, does masking based on color or luminosity and works on raw, tiff or jpeg and there are excellent tutorials on YouTube.
It really looks like a good NX2 replacement to me. ColetteSimonds 8 years ago. Murray McMaster : In the last several days I have downloaded several trial versions of various software. I liked none of them. My first impression comes from whether it's intuitive or not when I first play with it immediately after download. None of the tools I downloaded for trials were intuitive. I don't want to have anything to do with any of the ones I tried Capture one, Lightroom, etc. They all suck for me.
But Lightzone was easy to use right away. I don't know much about it, but I didn't have to spend hours figuring out simple moves that shouldn't force me to go to a user's guide. When I first try a software, I want to quickly figure out simple basic operations. For more complex moves, then of course I will go to the user's guide. So Lightzone is the keeper for me now, and yes, it looks very much like a CNX2 replacement.
Lightzone does look intereting. I will download it and have a proper go at it. They start off right - calling it Darkroom software Lightzone crashed on my Mac so it has been removed. There-again I am not a great fan of open source software as there are no guarantees it will hang around or be supported proactively.
Thunderbird comes to mind! Well, looks like we are all doomed!! Open source is not always bad though. But I would rather take that chance with it than pay premium for some other brand name software, and be ditched one more time. But who knows, maybe something else will unfold!! Lightzone does have nice edit features with steps that have opacity and blending mode control much like NX2.
The colour and region selection is good, but would be enhanced with the addition of a brush mask too. Looks good, but as suggests - how long will the project be active? Free or not, I don't want to have to abandon another set of edits because software is deep-sixing. Bill-S : What do you mean by "abandoning another set of edits"? I am sorry, I am not proficient in the language of this stuff. I have only used CNX2 and know nothing else. And I know I am ignorant, but I learned about sidecar stuff here, on this forum.
I didn't know what it is. My edits are minimum anyway, except for ADL, and local points of course. But my edits are different every single time for every single picture. So that's why I don't know what a "set of edits is". Could you clarify this for me, please. A lot of the stuff discussed in this and other threads is over my head and I really don't understand most of it; what I understand is that I want to get a decent image, something I have been able to do in CNX2 like most of you.
So with no known history or direction of Lighzone, maybe you edit about images over the next year with it then they announce they are tired and no longer want to work the project. It is very slow to convert its edits to a 16 bit tiff by the way. Bill-S : OK, thanks. So you mean in case you want to reuse an edited NEF file. I don't save edited NEF files. So I guess for me it would make no difference, is that correct?
That's what I have been doing anyway in some cases. It's called destructive editing. I am sorry if I ask these questions. The loss of CNX2 had me thinking!! So by selecting a different software I wouldn't have to worry about destructive editing since it appears I always practiced destructive editing.
Please correct me if I am wrong. Sorry about my ignorance, here. The fall of CNX2 and the reading in this forum has started alerting me although I didn't understand everything said here!
I'm surprised to see so many people who've been abandoned by their software maker out looking for software from sources that are the most likely to abandon them in the same way. If you're in this for the long haul it seems kinda pointless. SEWinds Posted 8 years ago. Edited by SEWinds member 8 years ago. It's kind of off topic but yes a blur in logic exists going from film to digital. Keeping just the actual digital developed positive becomes destructive editing.
Hoping the edit commands that produced that result stay relevant in the distant future becomes non-destructive edit keeping.. ColetteSimonds Posted 8 years ago. Edited by ColetteSimonds member 8 years ago.
I just don't want to be forced to do so. I really resent it. Maybe something will come up that makes sense, who knows. I will use NX-D and I don't mind, but sometimes I do need the retouch brush you know dust spots and I don't want to pay premium for Adobe or Aperture or whatever else just for minor fixings.
I don't modify my images extensively anyway. Again, I speak for me and what works and doesn't for me. I wish there was a better solution out there. I will keep listening to everybody's opinion here. Your method is non-destructive editing - you never taint the original NEF.
By always starting from scratch with the original NEF and "savings as" you are in fact, defending yourself against reliance on any software.
As you said, you bake in your edits to a JPG a tiff might be better , and if you ever revisit the image, you start from scratch. So the loss of NX2 should not mean much to you -other software can get you to the edits in most cases that NX can do, so you are not losing anything if your future software can't read NEF stored edits. Good for you - not a bad strategy.
I myself usually re-edit from scratch an NEF file- usually because I have learned so much since the first time I edited the file that the 2nd or 3rd time around i can accomplish my goals in less steps and higher quality, or my taste evolves with age. So I don't know why the heck I am crying so much - but getting there in NX is so much quicker than everything I have tried so far :. ColetteSimonds says: OK, I understand now. Destructive editing is done when you have saved a processed image back onto itself.
RAW editing is by nature non-destructive. You are not changing the RAW. Since you have described your editing steps as always working from RAW then you have not been doing destructive editing. There's no need to. CaptureNX made this easy because the edit steps from my previous session was saved in the NEF itself.
From a workflow point of view, that NEF is said to be atomic. This made file management easy. Additionally, NEF has the ability to contain multiple versions of editing. So for those of us who have been using CaptureNX and have saved the edit steps back to the NEF, if we have to move to a new software package which will not honour those edit steps which so far is anything but CaptureNX in the NEF then we have lost all that work. The same would happen if we had sidecar files and moved to an editor which didn't understand the XMP in the sidecar files.
And of course to compound this problem is that those of us who have maintained different versions of processing and post-processing steps will have lost n number of those versions of their work. Edited by righteous foot member 8 years ago. OK, I understand now.
Your edits were destroyed when you chose not to save them. Your JPGs are the results of your edits, and you'll always have them for archive purposes. Actually you wouldn't have to worry about non-destructive editing since that's what most people worry about. WintrHawk : OK, thanks for taking the time to explain. I think I begin to understand. However, I have a hard time understanding this: "CaptureNX made this easy because the edit steps from my previous session was saved in the NEF itself".
Why I have a hard time? What I really want to know is whether my very original files are the same files I uploaded to my computer.
How would I know those edits were saved? Am I confusing all of you? Something doesn't seem to be clicking too well somewhere for me!!! I am horrified to realize how ignorant I have been all those years! So were are those non destructive edits preserved then? Thanks again. The understanding I will get will allow me to make a better choice in the future! Because your workflow never involved saving your edit steps in any form, the workflow can be described as non-destructive.
You did not alter the original RAW. However, because you never saved your edit steps, you also have to always start scratch. Think of your RAW data as like well Think of the NEF file as like that raw meat packaged in a shrunk-wrapped styrofoam container. Think of the edit steps which are contained in the MakerNote area of the metadata section of the NEF as like a set of recipes or cooking instruction scribbled on a paper sticker attached to the plastic wrap of the styrofoam container that the raw meat is in.
Now one thing you have to know is that this particular type of raw meat is magical in that when you go to cook the meat, you don't ever remove the meat from the container. What happens is that virtual copy of the meat appears on the frying pan on your stove and you can then either choose to follow the recipe scribbled down on the packaging or you can make up your own method and recipe. At the end, you have the choice of either writing any modifications or methods you used to cook the meat on that label.
You can even write a different version of your recipe and maintain what's already there. Images can be viewed as thumbnails, double clicked as full image previews, or with the current image preview and thumbnails combined.
You can also view images in a side-by-side comparison if you want to see before and after views, and compare various images in 2-up and 4-up layouts. Features of Capture NX-D include batch processing, levels and curves adjustments, adjustments to Nikon Picture Controls including the latest Picture Control styles as well as with RAW files from older cameras, white balance, noise reduction, unsharp mask and camera and lens corrections.
Other features of Picture Control Utility 2 include finer adjustments of each parameter, expandable window size, flexible size of the preview screen, larger display for easy setting of fine-tuning and more. And, you can also create custom Picture Controls to upload to your camera.
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