Lightroom, CaptureNX2 or what?

wonko

wonko

wonko

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Hi all, I'm looking for a bit of advice and would appreciate any input.

I've recently bought a D7000, and am starting to get to grips with it. I'm now after some software to process NEF (RAW) files beyond what the free ViewNX2 can do, and am after something fairly intuitive to use that can be used occasionally to tweak the 'good ones' without having to re-learn it every time.

I originally had Lightroom in mind, and from dabbling with the trial version it seems very good. However, it seems that it doesn't import the NEF files with the camera's exposure settings as the 'starting point', which I think means you've got to build import profiles and manually tweak as required for all photos, which sounds like more effort than working on only the selected few.

So, any thoughts and suggestions please? Is Lightroom still likely to be the best for what I'm after, or would something like Nikon's Capture NX2 be a better option?

Thanks!
 
I've been using CaptureNX2 for afew months now, Finally bought Lightroom4 afew days ago and Wow, IT's much better, Photo's look much better, You can bring a lot more detail back with Lr4, Forget NX2 get LR4 it's really worth the money.
 
wonko said:
I originally had Lightroom in mind, and from dabbling with the trial version it seems very good. However, it seems that it doesn't import the NEF files with the camera's exposure settings as the 'starting point', which I think means you've got to build import profiles and manually tweak as required for all photos, which sounds like more effort than working on only the selected few.
Click to expand...

Most of the major photo processing applications such as Lightroom and Aperture will apply their default settings that they have designed for processing the RAW file of each particular camera model. You can also tweak the default of the import settings if you decide you want to change what it does.

In terms of getting them to look more like the incamera preview, just simply create a preset which gives a very basic boost to the image in terms of contrast/saturation/exposure/sharpening. Apply that to all your images and you will pretty much be there.

Once you've got to grips with things, you can start creating presets based on certain shooting situations.

Doing a quick first pass of all your images is one way of working, as you can then go through them and tweak or completely change how you want them to look. Its quite straight forward, but if you find it a pain, just shoot in jpeg.
 
Lightroom is certainly my favourite image tool. LR plus photoshop for more significant editing is a great combination.

The difference between the raw images and the end result is staggering when you get it right.
 
Lightroom all the way.

Building up your profiles and setting presets is a shed load of fun and its noise reduction algorithm is worth the price on its own imo.
 
Thanks for the replies. Lightroom gets all the votes so far.

@Nexus & ManCuBus - Ta, I've got a few days of the LR trial period left, so I'll have a go at making an import preset that gets the nefs close to the camera's jpgs.

I'll see how far I get over the weekend...
 
Another vote for LR. Recovered absolutely crazy amounts of underexposure and out of focus earlier. Was really a test in what could be done. Whilst it did come out a bit noisy, still incredible. xD

kd
 
I used to love using Capture NX2 - for a period it was the best for extracting the finest quality from NEF's. However, it's rather long in the tooth now, and with Nik software having been taken over by Google it's highly unlikely an updated version is going to be made.

My personal workflow now involves Lightroom 4 in combination with Photoshop CS6 ( with most of the processing done in CS6 ). When I was using Capture NX2 I used Photomechanic for organising the photos and applying metadata etc.
 
Thanks again to everyone for the advice.
As a quick update, I bought LR4 and am slowly getting to grips with the basics (but lots to learn about it and the D7000). Workflow is currently to copy from the camera using ViewNX2, then import using a preset that gives a starting point that is similar to the camera's jpg. That may well change as I play with LR more.
I've just posted one here in the 'post you pictures here' thread - hopefully I'm on the right track :)
 
granted this is only Lightroom 3.6, havent got round to upgrading to LR4 yet. But a quick side by side comparison of LR3.6 & CNX2.
This is straight from the camera import via TransferNX & opened in CNX2.
Imported the same file into LR, leaving it as NEF.
No editing of the NEF has been done, but CNX has applied the in camera setting from the shooting bank(D300 btw, big learning curve after the S5 Pro).


LR3.6 vs CNX2 by spg_mutts, on Flickr

Cant wait to upgrade to LR4 & see if its finally closed the gap. I had my CNX2 work flow down to a tee when i was shooting with a D80 but when i got my GF1 i moved to LR.
Jason Odell's CNX guides are brilliant if you want to go down that route.
 
King Damager said:
It's not really about how it's imported though, more about what you can do with it once you've imported it.

kd
Click to expand...

But if you have in camera setting that give you a good base line to start with, then once imported, you have less work to do.
Think that makes sense.
Guess if you dont have shooting banks & all in camera settings are set to zero or off then LR is the way to go. Once your using a lot of in camera stuff then LR just wont read it.
 
I'm a big fan of aperture tbh. I've tried LR4 via the free 30 day trial and just couldn't get to grips with it as it didn't seem intuitive compared to aperture. Not as many downloadable presets are available though compared to LR, making it a bit harder to get to grips with for new users.

Its so damn hard to change to another processing suit though when you master another one -.-
 
James J said:
Its so damn hard to change to another processing suit though when you master another one -.-
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Thats my problem, took me an age to get used to NX. But once i was using it, workflow was so quick. Then moved to LR & got that to a tee.
Cant decide now, back to NX & get advantage that it will read all the camera settings or carry on with LR & ditch any in camera settings as LR wont read them at all.
 
The pain of learning/swapping tools was a pretty big factor to me, and I ended up going for LR because it seemed quick to get to grips with, at least at a basic level. I can see myself as an intermittent user, so to some degree I'll be going up the same learning curve every time I use it! On top of that, I wasn't sure how good CaptureNX might be at handling non-Nikon images, plus LR was a bit cheaper so everything pointed that way.

alexthecheese said:
Are there any deals on Lightroom at the moment? I've had the trial, enjoyed it, but now it's finished I can't afford the £100 to buy the licence.
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Not that I found a week or two ago, unless you're a student - it's about £60 but has some license restrictions like not being able to resell it. Oh to be a student again :(
 
alexthecheese said:
Are there any deals on Lightroom at the moment? I've had the trial, enjoyed it, but now it's finished I can't afford the £100 to buy the licence.
Click to expand...

Student is pretty much the best bet. Find one who'll be nice. Mind you I had to phone Adobe to finally get the key off of them....

wonko said:
Not that I found a week or two ago, unless you're a student - it's about £60 but has some license restrictions like not being able to resell it. Oh to be a student again :(
Click to expand...

£54 :D

CS6 Master Collection, £450 or something :D

Picked up both the other day. xD (Well, got to spend Student loan on something!)

There's only very few license restrictions, and you can actually upgrade to the full (non-student version) from the student version next iteration without being a student.

To be honest, even if you can't get a deal, it's well worth saving for LR4.

kd
 
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