CAPTURE NX

Lensflare

Lensflare

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3,156
Name
Simon Everett
Edit My Images
Yes
Anyone know what this is like to use? I am a computer numpty and the photoshop I have watched other people (magazine designers) use just looks like you need to spend your entire life at to learn the different ways to do things - and then in 3 weeks time when you come to do it again, you will have forgotten it.

I have been told the Capture NX is a very much simpler and just as good - plus it is non destructive to the image when you do things to it, as the original remains unchanged and you just tell it to do whatever and then it makes another copy or somethingn.

Interested in this new fangled technology - but got a brain like a sieve! I don't remember things very well, using a camera is automatic now....I don't need to think, I just do. I don't think digital could ever be that intuitive.
 
I use Capture NX for very simple editing. I like it because it lets you control camera settings such as exposure compensation and white balance, and gives quite simple ways to subtly change the light levels, warmth, saturation etc. Doesn't look that good for major post-processing but for simple changes to light and colour then it's great and very easy to use.

It is very memory hungry though, I tried running it on a PC with 1gb RAM and it struggles at times, 2gb and it's fine. I guess other programes would be similar as the file sizes being processed are quite large.

If you are working from RAW files (Nikon NEF) then Capture NX lets you undo all of the changes that you make, even after a save. I think if you imagine the programe holds the raw data captured from the sensor and the information on how to process it, when you make changes you alter the information and not the RAW data captured, so you just tell the software to display the data differently without actually changing it. Someone will no doubt chip in and correct me if I am wrong!
 
Food for thought there - personally I can't see the need to do more than tweeks. All that guff about being abe to remove telegraph poles etc....or take the aerial out of someone's ear....you can do that in camera before you ever press the shutter release if you look!

The answer is to make pictures, not take them. So all the photoshop stuff, I'll leave that to the designers - i just need to make the basic image stand out from the crowd, and so the ability to brighten things up and lift colours will do me.
 
It is non destructive.
It is excellent for NEF RAW, but you need some horse power to run it.
A 2.6 celeron and 1gig of ram will just about edit 6mb D70 files without too much nonsense, but its un-usable with 15mb D200 files.
I have to use the previous incarnation, Nikon Capture 4.
 
Lensflare said:
Food for thought there - personally I can't see the need to do more than tweeks. All that guff about being abe to remove telegraph poles etc....or take the aerial out of someone's ear....you can do that in camera before you ever press the shutter release if you look!

The answer is to make pictures, not take them. So all the photoshop stuff, I'll leave that to the designers - i just need to make the basic image stand out from the crowd, and so the ability to brighten things up and lift colours will do me.
Click to expand...

I think exactly the same! I'm from the 'old school' days of film and are still of the belief that a picture should be perfect at the moment of capture. I have come around lately that it's acceptable to tweak (and not completely alter) the light levels and colour saturation etc to perfect an otherwise stunning image. Nikon Capture NX is great for that! It will also let you straighten an image very easily, where the horizon is slightly off level, but you do lose some of the image at the edges where the programe 'squares off' the straightened result.
 
I forgot to say, you should put a wanted ad on here to see if anyone has a legitimate copy they want to sell. The earlier D300's all shipped with it for free and I managed to find someone on here that had an unregistered product key that I persuaded them to part with for about £30!
 
There's a sticky at the top of this section which lists free downloadable editing programs. I'd be tempted to give at least one of them a whirl before shelling out any dosh :)

I don't know anything about Capture NX but can recommend The Gimp if all you're after is resize/sharpen for the web/levels tweak etc. It does far more than that though (see here for a skin smoothing example) and is very simple to find your way around and get along with.

I freely confess to being an absolute imbecile when it comes to pretty much anything, computer related or not, so if I find a program user-friendly, believe me, it really is!
 
Thanks Alison, and all - I just wanted to find out if the free with the camera edit suite was worth actually installing!

I have donenow - I can always uninstall it. Having used it, I find it OK - for the few tweeks I wanted to make.

When I have had a chance to read through the 220 page manual I will have more of an idea of what it can do - a quick glance makes me think there are plenty of repeated options (changing the curves several different ways and calling them different!)

Ilike the idea of being able to locally alter tonal balance, exposure and contrast though. Just used to it to lift a face from under a hat without altering anything else. Dead easy but looks impressive.(y)
 
Yes it can be slow-my pc is only 512 k ram and 1700mhz and it freezes quite a bit-great software though-but i do wish it offered a ferw more things like cloning and stuff-maybe it does and i havnt figured it out yet though.

Lot cheaper than photoshop-I have an old version of paint shop pro and go between the two for different things they offer.
 
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