NikonJin - the 100% free Nikon Forums

I have been a lightroom user for quite a while. Really love how it streamline my workflow and allow me to do the draft editing and sync the changes..etc quickly . But one thing i don't like is that it completely ignores the camera profile/calibration settings. All the beautiful colours from the camera are lost when lightroom loads and tries to render the raw file itself. I tried the different lightroom camera calibration settings but none really gives me the lovely colours i see on D700's beautiful LCD screen.

On the other hand, I keep hearing people saying Nikon Capture NX renders the RAW image very nicely and you can get exactly the same as what you see on the camera. So i downloaded the trial version and have been trying to use it develop the photos from a recent photoshoot.

The results: The picture just look SO much better!!! All the beautiful colours/contrast/details are there and i got the exact same look as the JPG from camera. I switch back to lightroom and try to process the same photo, while it is possible to get the same or very similar photo, it involves a lot of tweaking and is kind of hit or miss process. There are also quite a few nice features that is not available on Lightroom/Photoshop.

Unfortunately, the capture NX is not really a photo management software, the UI is not as nice as Lightroom and it runs even slower than lightroom especially on my old laptop. I can't imagine using it to go thru hundreds or even 1000+ photos. And it means i'll still have to go back to Lightroom to manage/quickly develop my photos and lost all those beautiful colours/details.. or i've to somehow add Capture NX to my existing Lightroom/Photoshop workflow (as it can't replace any of them).. and this extra step would slow down my workflow quite a bit..

arghh.. why can't Adobe work with Nikon can create the ultimate photo software

so any lightroom or capture NX users here??

Have you ever tried Apperture?

HI YELLOW~~~~

Lightroom user here.. from my point of view. Lightroom is very good to use and user friendly... I am pretty happy about this software.

about the Capture NX. i have not tried yet. It would be nice if you can share some photo and see the comparison.


cheers

I don't use either. I use photoshop. When I do shoot RAW, I will open and convert with NX. I think its reflects what I see on the LCD the best.

I have only used Lightroom once, I agree its fast, but I cannot customise each photo to my liking. Maybe I am just new to it. I use photoshop and I edit 1 by 1.

I have been lazy recently and started using lightroom, the sync function is very convenient.

This might be of some insight : http://www.photonovice.net/2007/04/20/ad...apture-nx/

ArcspacE: no, I haven't tried Aperture. The only reason i want to try Capture NX is it's "native" support for the Nikon RAW files. The camera profiles and settings like active D lighting...etc which are all ignored/guess by third party software. I doubt Aperture can do a better job than Lightroom in this areas and the integration with other Adobe software (bridge, photoshop, illustrator) is probably not as good. And does Aperture has a PC version now, last time i checked it was still for Macs only?

SGTTS: instead of showing the client's photos, i will try take some photo and show you some comparison photos when i have time.

CTM: If you have only 1-2 dozen photos you need to edit, then yeah you probably should just do it in photoshop. But when you have hundreds or thousands of photos that you'll need to edit within a limited time. You really have to use Lightroom! My usual workflow is i do the draft editing in lightroom to get the basic things correct (like fixing the WB).. then go to photoshop for the detail editing.

Yellow:

Thank you very much of your reply~

I'm very interested to see the result after the adjustment from both Lightroom and NX. As i will be using NX to edit photo SOON!.


About the editing of the photo. we are talking about the quality of the photo. OF COURSE, to achieve better quality, it always takes time. As consequences. Shall we set some more standard or requirement about editing the photo such as:

1. Amount of time it spent???
2. number of adjustment is required?
3. how major adjustment is needed?
4. what happen to the photo if there are only numbers of adjustment is done. what kind of result will be achieved?

this is something that comes out from my mind, which easier to tell which software is easier, faster and better to use.

Otherwise. all software might be able to achieve same result if there are no time limit or others criteria.


"Personal opinion only"~~~


cheers

The issue here is handling of RAW files taken from Nikon cameras. Nikon Capture NX2 has additional features over lightroom. Picture Styles, White Balance, Noise Reduction just to name a few. These can all be tweaked in NX2 before converting to JPEG. This is a major advantage of Capture NX2. The downside of NX2 is no batch processing ability.

NX2 and LR are different softwares for different purposes, I wouldn't say one is better than the other. They have their good / bad depending on the application.

I have all 3 installed on my computer. NX2, LR and Photoshop. I use them for different purposes.

I have both LR and PS on my computer at the moment, and i will use different software for different purpose also.

I use both PS and Capture nx2. Haven't tried out lightroom yet. I use PS and Capture nx2 for different purposes.