A CaptureNX question

[ChrisBlack]

*feel the N00bness oozing from my every pore!*

Okay, I'll not beat around the bush (matron!) - is CaptureNX a decent alternative to the ridiculously costly Photoshop CS?
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Yep. That's all I wanted to ask, I guess :lol:

[emeyedeejay]

I've only played with it a bit but it seemed pretty good. Certainly able to do more than you'll probably ever use as well as the basics...
EDIT: actually I shouldn't be presumptuous ... it can do more than I'll probably ever use :D

[DeadKenny]

It depends what you want to do with your photos.

Capture NX is a raw process/workflow app, but it's not a fully featured photo editor. However if you're not aiming for Deviant Art style it'll likely do 99% of what you need for a fraction of the price of Photoshop.

Beauty of NX too is it has the fantastic control points feature which really is the best thing since sliced bread in my opinion. Only thing I find it lacks is a clone tool but then NX isn't a paint package, but it does have the colouriser which is pretty good at getting rid of dust spots (which is mostly what I'd use the clone tool for anyway).

Other big thing for me is all the edits are based on the original raw NEF as appended actions (kind of like layers in Photoshop). Edits are non-destructive and preserved with the NEF along with the original, all in one file, and you can open the NEF up later and change an edit you made and also change the original RAW parameters. With anything else you'd have to RAW convert to another format and then edit that. Want to alter a basic RAW parameter and you have to start from scratch. Oh and NX is the only app that will read all NEF edits, all in camera settings, and all NEF format versions (i.e. the latest cameras).

The UI certainly takes some getting used to and can be 'quirky' :D, but I like it. It's improving with each version.

[puddleduck]

If you want to get the best quality out of Nikon NEF you *must* use Capture NX or Capture 4.x.

Anything else is shortchanging you on image quality with regards to colour accuracy, sharpness and noise control. So pretty much everything :)

[Shoei]

I use NX for all my post processing. Any thing i cant do in NX gets done in CS2.
As pointed out, the UI is a bit clunky but control points are a brilliant.
If your going down the NX route, get a copy of Jason Odells "Guide to capture NX" e-book. well worth it and helps to speed up your workflow.

[ChrisBlack]

Mmm, all sounds like my kind of bag, baby. I think CS would be wasted on me, tbh - I've had TheGimp (steady at the back!) for a while and, bless it, because its free and open source, but curse it, for its complicated and ill thought aesthetics and stupid random windows. Bad windows. Bad.

[pkr]

NX has a 30 day trial. Best bet would be to just try it.

There are some on line tutorials that'll help as well.

I can also recommend Jason O'Dells eBook.

[Radiohead]

It still should be free though.

[Shoei]

It still should be free though.

It was for a while if you bought a D200.
Would have been nice for it to be included in the box though, since it's sooo useful.

[DeadKenny]

It still should be free though.
Arguably it's grown to more than a basic raw converter to get camera owners going, so I can see why they're charging. More so as I'm sure their plans for it are larger. I suspect it may expand to being marketed as more than just a thing for NEF files.

But yeah for the mid to top range cameras it would be sensible to just include it in the price. They're not going to just give it away at no cost though, there are developers to pay after all ;) (and being a developer I know how much you want people to cough up :D).

Given it can be had for £80 imported from OneStop Digital (http://www.thedvdforums.com/jump2.php?url=http://www.onestop-digital.com/), it's not much to pay, especially given the comparative high prices of some competitor products, and the astronomic price of CS2.