Anyone Switching to Capture NX?

I'm curious how many of you are giving this a try and what you think of it. I wish the interface were a bit better, but the quality of the edits and tools is very high. I currently use Capture One, but I think I may switch to NX.

I use Capture One LE which I like very much. Is this an upgrade or something totally different?

Steve - I downloaded the trial version a couple of weeks ago. I really liked the interface and many of the tools, but its speed was so slow that I would never use it. I think there was a thread on it within this forum several weeks ago also there was a long thread in another forum http://www.nikondigital.org and there was yet another in http://www.thedambook.com

Scott

I use Capture One LE which I like very much. Is this an upgrade or something totally different?

Alice, Capture NX is the latest version of the Nikon Capture RAW conversion software. (Actually, NX is more ambitious than earlier versions of Nikon Capture and appears to be positioned as a full-blown image editing program.) It's in no way related to Capture One.

It depends. If they want to charge me for it after my purchase of Nikon Capture within the last year, they can take a long walk on a short pier. If it's a free update, I'll give it a try and make up my mind then. NC is no picnic speed-wise and if NX is slower, why in the world would I want to pay for it?

I've downloaded the trial version and I've been working with it for about a week now. I like it. The only issue so far and I have heard from others that it's a problem being addressed by NIK is the problem with batch processing. No software is perfect in its version 1 form (anyone working with Windows will know that! Windows - beta tested by half the planet). I've downloaded a few trial versions of RAW converters from different companies over the past few months. I think at this point my mind is leaning towards just jumping on the NX boat because I could wait forever for the best of all worlds. I own a D2X and it's a good Nikon converter so I'm happy enough. Lightroom looks cool but it's only in the beta stage. I am trying to educate myself about the side file vs embeded issue and cross RAW converter compatability. It really would be a lot easier if every camera company out there agreed on one file type because then you wouldn't have to worry about the potential lack of future support if they abandon their RAW converter. Who cares if Beta tapes were better - VHS won - end of story.

Steve - The Nikonians site is quite a good resource for NX info. A few of the guys there were the beta testers.

Hank - I know for a fact that you are out of luck as far as a free update. It will be offered to Capture 4.4 purchasers at a reduced price for a limited time but no freebee.

At this time, I use Phase One Capture One as my main RAW converter. Over the past few months I have evaluated ACR, Aperture (had to buy it), Lightroom, and DxO. To be honest, I am stumped over which one I like best. Each has its good and bad. To me , it boils down to what yields the best image at the end of my workflow, and so far I like NX, but this is only after three days. The other thing I am factoring in to this is I am only going to have one RAW converter, and I am going to know every feature, button, and preference. Most of these are fairly complicated packages and it takes a couple of months to really get to know them.

In a perfect world, I would like my RAW converter to have the user interface of Aperture, the image quality of NX, the system integration of ACR, and the speed of Capture One - is that too much to ask?

I have Capture up through V 4.4, tried lightroom. To be honest, I am very happy with Camera RAW until something better comes along. Capture was slow and tedious and Lightroom may be worth looking at later, but right now, for individual shots, I am perfectly content with Adobe's Camera Raw. If NX is as slow as the previous, no thanx.

Hank - I think the upgrade price from current Capture 4.x users is $89. Some people on NikonCafe.com posted the price after making their purchase. You have to enter your Capture serial number. Personally, I bought Capture when I bought my D200. After Adobe Camera Raw started supporting the D200, I pretty much stopped using Capture 4.x. ACR is so much more seamless in my workflow and Bridge is so much more powerful for entering IPTC and other metadata, and I cannot get any better quality from Capture than I can from ACR. The net is that ACR wins over Capture for me, and I don't envision NX doing any better so I probably will not be purchasing the upgrade - at least not the current version. There are so many complaints about slowness, and I hear there are still some bugs related to metadata. I prefer to edit my files in a stable, clean utility.

Though the details vary, you have pretty well summed up my stance Walter on further upgrades of anything. Products and progress by companies other than Nikon are bigger factors in my decision about upgrading Capture. I'm waiting to see what becomes of Lightroom for example, before deciding how else to adjust our workflow.

Our circumstance is a little different than general nature photographers because whatever we use has to integrate with a couple of additional programs to process and layout images for our lab (not just for prints, but also for digital albums and specialty products such as greeting cards.) Even if the programs integrate perfectly, things can get cumbersome when you have 3 or 4 large hungry programs running at once. We're not ready to upgrade computers for more speed, even if they are ancient things almost two years old.

I keep wondering why folk pay out for this stuff, I didn't like the idea AT ALL of having to pay Nikon even more for a programme to get my raw files out of their camera and so I downloaded the free Raw Shooter Essentials. I only use RSE to access my pics, I then do whatever needs to be done in Photoshop.
I am a sheep rather than the shepherd when it comes to technospeak, am I missing out on something, have I missed a point somewhere.

Hello Colin,

I don't think you have missed the point at all. All of this jibber jabber about software is just that. It really boils down to personal taste and what you like in your pictures. I have some friends that do no post-processing at all. They set their camera up the way they like (they do shoot Raw), take the shots, then download and print, or send to the web or whatever. The images are just fine right off the camera. The only software they need is something to import images, then do a conversion for JPEG or TIF.

Sometimes I feel like a slave to the process. Taking the pictures has become secondary to post-processing, and that is just not right. So don't feel like you're not in sync with the rest of the world, you are probably ahead of your time. I can see a day when all this post-processing software and trickery will implode and people will realize they are really not photographers any more, but software engineers.

Sorry for the soap box. Take care.

Ahead of my time that makes a change Steve.
Once I have put the converted raws onto my PS desktop I mainly choose levels, a touch of hue/sat and USM, sometimes of course, other things like cloning out objects are needed but that's essentially it. All I have to do now is discover, finally, how to size pics to put on this site, never get the same size twice, can't work it out at all, ho hum...

I currently use Nikon Capture for RAW conversion, but frankly don't see the point in upgrading to NX. As far as I can tell, the main advantage are the extra editing features; since I do all my editing in Photoshop (using PSD files for masters), I wouldn't use those new fetures. And they want me to pay as much as I paid for the original? Fugettaboutit.

So I'll continue to convert in Nikon RAW, manage in Bridge, and edit in Photoshop. Hopefully Lightroom will streamline things a bit, but I was really disappointed in the speed and lack of support for Photoshop files in the beta version (which means I can't access any of my master files!). We'll see.

Capture 4.x still has my business for RAW conversions; I downloaded the trial for NX and didn't see anything that impressed me at all - same slow speeds, and I won't be using the control points the way the folks at NIK envision, so... with the money I saved not upgrading Capture, I upgraded my PS to CS2! No more waiting for D-Lighting, 'cause I have Shadow/Highlights. But Camera RAW just doesn't cut it as far as I'm concerned - its default idea of the pictures I took is atrocious, and I find the interface counter-intuitive compared to Nikon's implementation. Oddly, sucking RAW files into the HDR tool produces wonderful images by default - no adjustments necessary (or possible, for that matter).

I'll be waiting for Capture 4.4 to convert my images for some time to come, I guess.