Anyone interested in a free NX seminar:- see below



John Clements Nikon Capture NX Seminar
23/08/2006 Kingston

Want to know more about Nikon Capture NX? Then come along to a FREE seminar with John Clements and learn more
From simple navigation through its interface, to a step-by-step demonstration of the major adjustments many will use, John Clements shows why he believes Nikon Capture NX is a major step forward in attaining utmost quality through Nikon’s Total Imaging System
For more details about the seminar and to book please click here
Venue
Nikon UK Ltd
380 Richmond Road
Kingston upon Thames
Surrey
KT2 5PR
7pm - 9pm

JPEGs and NX
 

To see what can be done with a jpeg in NX I have had go at a high contrast image.

If the JPEG is converted to a NEF editing does not degrade the origional image. A major plus point is that it allows D Light to be used. In high contrast situations this can be used to draw out shadow details without sacrificing highlights.

In this image D Light was first used, followed by a series of control points. Colour picker was used in 2 areas. The burnt out side of the grey building and the sky. All other control points were tweeks. Some increased brightness, some reduced brightness and some returned the point to origional.

The idea being to show how much the origional could be changed.

Don

White Balance Tip
 

Heres a tip, rather than click 'Base Adjustments' on the edit list and choose white balance then choose single point or marquee. Pick up a neutral control point then drop it on a place ideally 18% grey but pure black or white will be okay to instantly correct colour balance. This method is much faster than click, click click etc.

NX is billed as being faster I think its faster to operate rather than dramatically faster to convert NEF's

black and white control points are also available but this is similar to changing the black and white points on a histogram but a histogram is required to find the ideal result.

NX Black, White and Neutral Control Points
 

To follow up on Stephens post. A couple more screen captures.

In the first screen capture one Neutral, a Black, and a White point have been placed.

Neutral Control Point is used to correct colour cast in the image. The manual suggests that you can place several of these on an image to correct for multiple colour casts.
Black Control Point will cause the targeted colour to become black and will affect all dark tones in the image.
White Control point will cause the targeted colour to become white and will affect all light tones in the image.

To assist in placing either the black or white point the Double Threshold box on the histogram pallet should be checked.The displayed image will then appear as grey with some pixels black and others white. This is to assist in placing these points if they are used. Attached is a screen capture to show the control available in setting either White or Black points. The effect of the selection on the normal image view is immediately visible by unchecking the ' Double threshold ' box.

Once set on the image these points can be moved, values changed, be turned on and off or deleted.

Don

Black and White conversion
 

Black and white conversion has never look faithful in my opinion especially the 'desaturate' function in photoshop. Fooling around this morning I found black and white conversion in NX, located off the filters tab on the toolbar.

Not only will this filter convert to back and white but allows control over the process (see pic 2)

The image I was viewing seemed perfect for the black and white as it could hide the bushes in the background allowing more attention to the subject.

Pic 1 - Original uneditted image
Pic 2 - Black and White conversion dialogue box
Pic 3 - Black and White conversion applied using standard settings

Final image in our gallery
http://www.worldphotographyforum.com...4&limit=recent

The more I experiment the more useful NX becomes.

I have just downloaded the free 30 day trial on Stephans recomendations as a replacement for Raw Shooters. Apart from it absoloutly kills my laptop in terms of speed (it is only a 1.4 processor with 512mb of ram). I have 2 questions:
1. Alot of my photos are not level, how do you level photos in the programme?
2. Once i have made any tweeks to the picture how do i convert the .nef file?

In answer to (1) There is a straighten tool marked as a line with arrows at each end on floating toolbar F3. I haven't used it as I straighten in photoshop but it may have the same qualities such as draw a straight line then NX will automatically straighten the photo to that line.

In answer to (2) In Edit -> preferences under the general tab you can browse for the 'open with' application. Find the application and when finished editting click file -> open with and after a short while NX will convert your NEF and open your application. Please note there is no progress indicator for this so be patient on that machine. You could also save the file as JPEG to your desktop then pick it up in any application.

NX does require 1GB RAM as a minimum so a long wait for conversion may result.

I dont mind waiting if it means good results.

Ollie,

What photo editing program do you use ?

Don

Ive been using paint shop pro 7 untill i got this software. I would use rawshooter to convert them and up the saturation. I now think i will use this software.