I am coming to Nikon from a few years at the other camp. I used Canon's raw converter Digital Photo Professional (DPP). It was a modestly powerful, easy to use package that didn't require pics to be imported. I like to leave 'em where I put 'em.
Does anyone know an editor is similar to that for ease of use, and speed of workflow?
the combo of NX View with NX2 is very powerful and NX2 understands all the in camera settings. I must say that i have been using this combo for years but i am also liking the new Lightroom Beta3
Nov 15, 2009 at 05:02 PM
Andre Labonte Offline • • • • • • Upload & Sell: Off
jmcfadden wrote:
the combo of NX View with NX2 is very powerful and NX2 understands all the in camera settings. I must say that i have been using this combo for years but i am also liking the new Lightroom Beta3
I have been using NX view with NX2 and just love it! I have little need for anything else. I do like the clone feature in Photoshop, but photoshop is non-intuative compared to NX2.
The only two things I want to get into that NX2 does not do: HDR and Panos. I need to ID some good programs for those.
Most all of them have free demo periods, download NX2, Capture One, and Lightroom and give them all a try and see what you feel gives the best results
There is no single best option as they all have some strengths and weaknesses and it really comes down to how well they fit into your overall workflow
I personally like Lightroom for most stuff, but use Capture One for portraits as I think it does a better job with skintones. But thats not using the beat 3 so maybe that will level the playing field a little
i had the nx2 trial and dont shoot enough raw to find a huge difference, ive settled on aperture for everything that doesnt need to go to ps and it does a commendable job
NX2 does a really good job converting Nikon Raws, but I think the interface is dreadful. It is also slow as a dog compared to Photoshop (eg zoom in and wait 5 seconds while for the image to be sharp). This is on a Mac Pro with 10Gb RAM.
It is also really tedious to keep NX2 updated. The built in update feature is useless and you have to track down the update file from a website.
I use it to convert the Raw and then get into CS3 as quick as possible. I think CNX2 is worth it for the substantial improvement in IQ but I wish Nikon would sell the raw decoding secrets to Adobe so we can get the same results in a user friendly application.
Has anyone used the new (windows only at the moment) version six of DXo pro? I like only one part of the feature set and that is their volume anamorphosis correction. It looks to be very good and that is one thing that I can never come close to fixing as well as the examples show with photoshop. I'd love to hear opinions on it if anyone has any. It seems perfect for the 14-24.
As for raw converters; I've settled on Lightroom for now. I consider the beta's conversions a bit better than LR2, which I think of a good enough but not great. The editing flow makes it fairly easy to go through many shots and get "good" though not great conversions. I say not great because while it has the ability, the fast workflow uses presets and that gets you close but never is it optimal. To get it perfect of course negates LR's greatest strength imho.
Aperture I liked because of the way it abstracts file keeping. You kind of have to let go and trust the program - but once you get over that micromanagement of files Aperture is fantastic. The conversions are about the same as LR in quality, which is to say "pretty good" but you can't edit files (or I can't) nearly as fast as with LR. Oh .... and it is the only program slower than NX2!
NX2 - can't get past the interface - so I haven't got any valid ideas as to its capabilities.
Capture one. You can "pry that out of my cold dead hands" I've gotten used to LR, so jumping back and forth is a pain. But once the complicated interface is learned and used well, the program is very fast at going through many files and I can get closer to the final look than any other program. The conversions are the most detailed and nothing sharpens like C1. It may not be to everyones taste but the look of the sharpening of C1 is to my taste and I can't duplicate the look with any other program. In fact only with C1 do I output the files already sharpened rather than leaving it to photoshop and plugins.
I find that nothing gives the fine detail and texture that C1 can deliver. Well, probably NX2 ... but I will have to give it more time later when some update comes along and it works with 10.6
So download and try each for six months and see what you find. It's the kind of fun we never had with film!
Andre Labonte wrote:
but photoshop is non-intuative compared to NX2.
Photoshop has become quite the beast of a program. It's much more suited to graphic design than intuitive workflow with photos. I can't believe that after all these years things like curves and levels are still nearly the same tools they were all those years ago. You'd think we'd at least have RGB histograms by now. The pricing is rather steep too.
@ OP
Arstechnica.com did a raw converter comparison when Aperture and Lightroom both came out. Perhaps they'll do another when LR 3 and the new Bibble hit.
