NX Discussion, Hits ,Tips & Tricks

[Canis Vulpes]

Ollie, you are not strictly setting the black point incorrectly but Don is showing the use of black and white control points. These control points have the same effect of what you are doing but they are much faster and with the aid on double threshold allow the find a suitable black area.

I suggest looking again at black and white control points in post 28

Originally Posted by ollieholmes

Here are some screen captures from me working on a light coloured aeroplane from Old Warden. Am i setting my blackpoint wrong?

[ollieholmes]

And work on another photo:

[Don Hoey]

Originally Posted by Stephen Fox

Ollie, you are not strictly setting the black point incorrectly but Don is showing the use of black and white control points. These control points have the same effect of what you are doing but they are much faster and with the aid on double threshold allow the find a suitable black area.

I suggest looking again at black and white control points in post 28

Ollie,

I do not use your method in levels and curves as it is a rather coarse way of doing it. Maybe even a bit hit and miss. The method described in post 28 is far more precise and you have the added benefit of the control handle so allowing a high degree of adjustment.

You can compare the two methods by firstly checking the ' Double threshold ' box on your straight image and taking a screen capture. Now uncheck the ' double threshold ' box and apply the adustment using the droppers in curves. Again check the ' double threshold ' box and take another screen capture. You can now compare the two captures to see how much you have affected the black and white tones.

Don

[ollieholmes]

I will try that later.

[Don Hoey]

Ollie I have taken a crop of your base image and had a play, and attach 2 how I got there graphics and the end result.

Looking at the histogram shows that there is quite a bit of space towards the left side that has no info. Clicking the Double Threshold box shows a few black pixels but no white ones.

As the image contains white it is necessary to move the white point slider to the right until some white pixels appear. You have two options here. You can drag the left hand handle on the bottom histogram to the right until pixels appear or select the levels and curves and use that histogram. From the graphic you can see that the ' Levels & Curves ' one is larger and may be more convenient to use. Either way same result.

Ensure you have the Double Threshold box checked and only move the slider until the first few white pixels appear. At this point you can uncheck the box and see how the image appears. If OK then fine. If not quite then either tweek the slider or OK that operation and then select White point, and you can use the adjustment slider on that to fine tune the result.

Step 2 was to set the Black point. Again it is important to use the Double Threshold and magnify the image to ensure the point you set is on a collection of black pixels. If it is half on and half off you will have to use the adjustment slider to get the desired result as the result will be too dark.
As the image had a warm tone I magnified it and found a nice grey pixel in the corner of the number 5. I paced a Neutral point here to remove the cast.

It may not be quite the result you want, but it hopefully gives an idea of how go about achieving it.

No doubt my mentor Foxy will say if my method is not correct.

Don

[ollieholmes]

Thank you. I will now go and have a go and post my results tomorrow.

[Canis Vulpes]

I have to say I am now pleased with the performance of NX. My system is three years old and was a little slow for Capture 4 but managed because of the output quality. NX was heralded as much faster but in my system not much so.

If I use NX with nothing else running not even Outlook or Internet Explorer it runs nicely and if I save as TIFF before closing NX and opening CS2 the performance is satisfactory. No waiting or sloping off to do other things, it is now possible to save as TIFF and close NX, open CS and open TIFF file in a fraction of the time NX too to 'open with' or pass to CS as I refer. I am quite content with this mode of operation and has put the joy back into processing. To bench mark the speed I would suggest it is as fast to save as TIFF as Rawshooter (10-20 seconds)

I am looking forward to processing in the evening as I used to.

[ollieholmes]

I went to edit a photo tonight and i got the atached error message appear. Any idea how to reolve it? I have already uninstalled it and reinstalled it.

[Don Hoey]

Sorry I cannot help Ollie.
I have had no such problems and my version sits quite happily alongside NC4.4.

Don

[Canis Vulpes]

A warning to any NX users that it will not run on Microsoft Vista. Nikon are working on a Vista compatible version but its not here yet!