David Joyce Photography Blog: Using Nikon Capture NX2 + Nik Color Efex Pro 3

Nikon Capture NX2, appears to have lost favour with many photographers recently, particularly with Adobe Lightroom 6, becoming available; but I would like to extol its virtue. It's designed to edit Nikon RAW photo image files, either NEF or NRW. The former being generated by Nikon Digital SLR cameras, like the Nikon D7200 and the later by top of the range Nikon cameras, like the
Nikon 1 J5 and P7700 In addition to processing RAW files, it can also be used to edit TIFF and JPG's. So images can be edited, from many other camera manufacturers.

The main advantage of the software, is apart from basic processing of a photo image, it can also improve fairly flat photo images into dynamic, vibrant and contrasty pictures. In addition, very advanced editing functions can be easily done with Nikon Capture NX2. See the photo image below, taken in the Autumn, at Stourhead Gardens, owned by +National Trust .

Although the colours of Autumn are beautiful in the original shot, taken early in the morning; the resulting image was not as pictured in the scene at the time, due to the slight haze and flat lighting.
The sky is natural, because I always use a graduated neutral density filter whenever working on landscapes. In many of my pictures I like to include the sun, so B+W, MRC (multi coated) high quality glass filters are used, These reduce the effects of flare.

Shown Below; the Nikon Capture NX2 + Nik Color Efex Pro 3, user interface : -

My workflow to produce the photo image is as follows : -

1. First, use the "Distortion Control" - this corrects lens distortion, particularly on zoom
    lenses.

2. Then adjust light, to "Auto Levels" - this is remarkably good to correct for everything
    including light balance. In many cases you don't need to do anything else, to the photo image.

3. Next, we use "Color Control Points" in parts of the picture that it's required - this is
    built into Nikon Capture NX2 and was developed by Nik Software (Now owned by Google) It's
also available via Adobe Photoshop CC 2015 & Lightroom 6, using Nik Viveza 2. This allows you
    to set a variable circular area, in which you can increase or decrease brightness, contrast,
    saturation, and primary colors. The Nik "U Point Control function" is a photographer's
    dream and if no other adjustment was available, I would want this!

4. If there are people or small objects that detract from the overall photo image, they are edit
    out with the "Auto Retouch Brush".

5. I rarely crop a photo image, because I used transparency film for many years and still try to
    take the final picture, in the camera. But if required, use the "Crop Control".

6. Finally, because I like photo images with punch, we use the Nik Color Efex Pro 3, "Tonal
    Contrast Filter". This gives a slight HDR image effect and enhances fine detail.

I would like to address the reasons why it appears that Nikon Capture NX2 is losing favour, with many Nikon stalwarts. Most of the complaints are about speed and this is usually because it's used on a poor spec PC; although this is not so critical on a Mac. Despite what Nikon say and I might add, the other photo processing software suppliers; the minimum requirement in my experience is, an i5 or i7 processor (or equivalent) with at least 8Gb of RAM. I have tested all the other "favorites" and they all suffer from the same lack of speed, if used with a low spec PC. Also, run it as the 64 bit version.

There are ways to improve its speed performance, like keeping the cache regularly cleared. Also putting the cache file, on a separate drive, from the Nikon Capture NX2 program. This can be a USB hard drive, or a flash drive.

I made mention of the Nik Color Efex Pro 3 plug-ins. These are no longer supplied by Nik (Now owned by Google) or Nikon and were a special version to integrate with Nikon Capture NX2. They can still be downloaded free, from the Nikon USA in both PC and Mac versions.

Website: www.davidjoycephotography.com