On Sat, 08 Dec 2007 16:41:34 GMT, "RG" wrote:


"Reginald P. Smithers III" wrote in message
...
RG wrote:
RG,
All I have to say is WOW, DAMN NICE. It is obvious I need to improve my
skills.


Thanks. Have you taken a look at Capture NX yet? I started using it a
few months ago, and it quickly became my raw converter and image editor
of choice. I now do all of my raw conversion and most of my editing in
CNX, only going to Photoshop when I need to use some specialized tools
that are unique to Photoshop. For someone who shoots Nikon raw files,
CNX has a lot to offer.

I am using Lightroom for Raw Conversations, do you know the difference
between Lightroom and Capture NX?

The difference is night and day. A completely different paradigm in raw
conversion. Lightroom uses the Adobe Camera Raw engine, the same as
PhotoShop and Elements. The only in-camera setting that Adobe has direct
access to and can change is the white balance setting. In NX, since it is a
Nikon product, you can access and change any of the optimization settings
such as tone, sharpening and color space. This means that NX will at first
render the image using the settings that were in place in the camera at the
time of exposure, something that ACR can't do. From there, you can change
them ex post facto. For instance, I like to use in-camera sharpening to aid
in viewing shots on the camera's LCD for immediate review. But once I open
the image in NX, I turn off in-camera sharpening and do my sharpening in NX.

To me, the interface of the NX raw converter is much easier to deal with
than the ACR interface. I also get much better colors out of the NX
converter. But best of all, from the perspective of raw files, is how the
edits are handled within the NEF file. All conversion settings and further
edits are saved non-destructively right in the NEF file. At first glance,
it might not be obvious how huge this is, but trust me, it's big. In ACR
once you convert a NEF file, you import it into PS or LR, do your edits from
there, and then save the file in whatever format you choose. If you ever
want to revisit the NEF file again and process it differently, you have to
start completely from scratch. In NX, the conversion settings and further
edits are saved as a list of instructions inside the NEF file. The concept
is sort of like a combination of layers and the history palette in PS. Any
time you subsequently open the NEF file, all of your conversion settings and
edits are in place,and any of them can be altered or deleted as you see fit.
This means that you can pick right up where you left off and do a minor
modification or revert the file back to its original state and start over
from scratch, or anything in between. You can even save multiple versions
of a photo inside the original NEF file. Again, the actual pixel data is
never modified, only a set of instructions on how to manipulate and render
those pixels is added to the file. This means that inside the NEF file the
original pixel data is always there and immediately available, but in
addition, I might have a full-sized full resolution version as well as a
cropped version with a completely different size and DPI resolution saved
within the NEF file. All I am doing is saving different instruction sets
within the original file. Everything is non-destructive.

After the raw conversion is done, the other thing that is way cool is the
color control points, a technology created by Nik Software. Using this
technology, I can make local changes to a photo in a snap that would take
forever in PhotoShop. It's very difficult to explain how these control
points work, you almost need to see them in action. To that end, I direct
you to the NX web site and encourage you to download the 30-day free trial.
Make sure you watch the flash demo of the color control point on the sky.
The program is a fairly small download, and is fully functional for 30 days.
I was hooked almost right away. If you do this, I'll be happy to answer any
questions you might have.

http://www.capturenx.com/

Here's a link to a good eBook that is available for NX. Jason is an active
participant at Nikonians.

http://www.luminescentphoto.com/capturenx.html

RG


Very nice shots 'over there'!
--
John H