D200 NEFs look worse in Nikon Viewer than in Capture

Has anyone else noticed that some NEF files look pretty bad in Nikon Viewer?

These are screen-grabs of the same NEF displayed in Nikon Viewer 6.2.7 and then Nikon Capture 4.4, without applying any changes.

(Ignore the lack of sharpness; this is shot with a 300mm f/4 wide open and hand-held, and probably isn't quite in focus).

300mm 1/800s, f/4, ISO200.

NV 6.2.7:



NC4.4:



There seems to be something nasty going on with edges in NV. This shot was taken with sharpening set to medium-high. There was nothing done in Capture; it's straight from the camera.

Murray

--
I may be wrong.
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is this in just the preview? if you convert to a jpg and save it does the end file also look different?

are you viewing them both at 100% screen resizing can make a difference.

i too have noticed a huge difference when using bibble and capture one pro.. c1 pro is the best converter yet.. you get very smooth tones and noise free, just like a canon 5d image but at least the noise is very film like and when printed from the lab looks fantastic.

I'd noticed this last night. I was pixel peeping using Viewer and was a bit shocked to see what looked like lots of noise at high magnification, then compared this to the same jpeg version and the jpeg version looked much better. I've just checked in NC 4.4 and this "noise" isn't there. Also to be fair this was at a fairly high magnification, where the portrait picture was wide enough to fill my 24" monitor, so 100% and beyond.
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I have a problem with Nikon View 6.27, When I open a uncompressed NEF the image is on the screen instantly, much to quickly to put 15 Mb on screen ( my D100 NEF images were instant but not full res, this took approx a further 6 seconds before a full res image was built up ). The D200 images look soft but if I press the 1:1 button I get an instant large image but then the progress bar will take between 6 to 10 seconds to build up the full image resolution which is then full rich colour and extremely sharp. Selecting the normal view again ( as in fit to window view ) I now get a sharp image as if I am now using all the image data.

I have made enquiries ( I am waiting for a reply from Nikon Europe support dept ) and all that can be suggested is to uninstal View and re-install it to see if that cures the problem.
Anyone else noticed this problem ?

NoFunBen said:

is this in just the preview? if you convert to a jpg and save it
does the end file also look different?

are you viewing them both at 100% screen resizing can make a
difference.

Click to expand...

Sorry, should have mentioned that I was viewing at 100% in both programs. Also, I waited for NV to fully load and display the image.

Not sure about JPG - I haven't tried it.
--
I may be wrong.
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Art Jacks said:

I have a problem with Nikon View 6.27, When I open a uncompressed
NEF the image is on the screen instantly, much to quickly to put 15
Mb on screen ( my D100 NEF images were instant but not full res,
this took approx a further 6 seconds before a full res image was
built up ). The D200 images look soft but if I press the 1:1
button I get an instant large image but then the progress bar will
take between 6 to 10 seconds to build up the full image resolution
which is then full rich colour and extremely sharp. Selecting the
normal view again ( as in fit to window view ) I now get a sharp
image as if I am now using all the image data.
I have made enquiries ( I am waiting for a reply from Nikon Europe
support dept ) and all that can be suggested is to uninstal View
and re-install it to see if that cures the problem.
Anyone else noticed this problem ?

Click to expand...

I've always considered this to be standard NV behavior. It doesn't seem to display the true NEF until you go to 100%. I guess at 100% it applies the settings you applied in camera, like sharpening. But I noticed something interesting when I first got my D200 - the first few pictures I took loaded up instantly at 100%. No 10 second progress bar. I think this might be because I had the default color space set. Or maybe it was the color mode... I'm not sure what did it, but once I went through the settings in the camera and set everything the way I like it, NV went back to taking 10 seconds to load at 100% just like with my D70.

Murray
--
I may be wrong.
http://www.pbase.com/mmcculloch

I must be blind but I have difficulty in seeing any difference between the two pictures you posted.

When I open NEF images in Nikon View (whatever magnification they open up at) I get an almost instantaneous low resolution image, the timing bar at bottom right begins to track and when it completes I get a image with whatever settings for sharpness etc. were set in the camera applied. If you have no sharpening set in the camera you wont get any sharpening applied, if you have max you will get max. I have normal sharpening set so that I can assess sharpness etc in NV. I then go into capture, switch sharpening off in Advanced RAW and when I have finished colour correcting, re-sizing etc apply unsharp mask. Though I use a D1H I have got hold of a D200 NEF to play with and the behavior is exactly the same (just takes a bit longer.)

Remember that Nikon View (and Nikon Capture initialy) will apply the settings you have in the camera for sharpness, colour space, colour temperature etc to the NEF file when it is loaded into the application
--
Dave
http://www.rosser.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk
http://www.pbase.com/dgrosser

David Rosser said:

I must be blind but I have difficulty in seeing any difference
between the two pictures you posted.

Click to expand...

Look at the edges of the flower petals in the top picture.

I use an LCD screen, but I've just discovered that if you have a CRT, it's much less noticable.

--
I may be wrong.
http://www.pbase.com/mmcculloch

Murray McCulloch said:

David Rosser said:

I must be blind but I have difficulty in seeing any difference
between the two pictures you posted.

Click to expand...

Look at the edges of the flower petals in the top picture.

I use an LCD screen, but I've just discovered that if you have a
CRT, it's much less noticable.

Click to expand...

Still can't see difference on my 19 inch LCD screen.

Murray McCulloch said:

--
I may be wrong.
http://www.pbase.com/mmcculloch

Click to expand...

--
Dave
http://www.rosser.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk
http://www.pbase.com/dgrosser

You must be blind!
--
I may be wrong.
http://www.pbase.com/mmcculloch

David Rosser said:

Murray McCulloch said:

David Rosser said:

I must be blind but I have difficulty in seeing any difference
between the two pictures you posted.

Click to expand...

Look at the edges of the flower petals in the top picture.

I use an LCD screen, but I've just discovered that if you have a
CRT, it's much less noticable.

Click to expand...

Still can't see difference on my 19 inch LCD screen.

Click to expand...

Click on the "Zoom-In" button on each pic - then the difference is obvious.

David Rosser said:

David Rosser said:

--
I may be wrong.
http://www.pbase.com/mmcculloch

Click to expand...

--
Dave
http://www.rosser.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk
http://www.pbase.com/dgrosser

Click to expand...

When you open in Nikon View, the embedded large preview JPEG (same resolution as NEF) is shown, but when you open in Nikon Capture a conversion from NEF is done. That's why it's so fast in Nikon View.

Christer Lindh said:

When you open in Nikon View, the embedded large preview JPEG (same
resolution as NEF) is shown, but when you open in Nikon Capture a
conversion from NEF is done. That's why it's so fast in Nikon View.

Click to expand...

I'm not sure about that. When I view at 100% in Nikon View, it takes about 10 seconds to fully load the image. This is what I did before taking the screenshot. If it takes so long, I assume that it's no longer displaying just the embedded JPG.

--
I may be wrong.
http://www.pbase.com/mmcculloch

Following my previous post above I posed the same question to the Nikon Europe support site and their reply is below :

" To save time the D200 embedded's a large preview into the image (roughly a large JPEG basic sized image), hence the RAW+ icon shown next to NEF file in Nikon View. To save time and speed things up this thumbnail is displayed and the RAW data used only when viewed at 100% or 1:1 where you can start to see the actual pixel level. Otherwise you would be opening a 35mb image every time you view an image, which would take a lot of time.

The D100 had a much smaller thumbnail so would open the RAW data pretty quickly. "

At least now I know my camera and computer setings are OK but this might explain why images look a little soft and the colours look a little pastel when first opened in View.

FrankG said:

David Rosser said:

Murray McCulloch said:

David Rosser said:

I must be blind but I have difficulty in seeing any difference
between the two pictures you posted.

Click to expand...

Look at the edges of the flower petals in the top picture.

I use an LCD screen, but I've just discovered that if you have a
CRT, it's much less noticable.

Click to expand...

Still can't see difference on my 19 inch LCD screen.

Click to expand...

Click on the "Zoom-In" button on each pic - then the difference is

Click to expand...

OK I now see the difference but I don't normally look at pixle level, I compare prints if it is to be printed and normal size screen repros if it is for display on web. ;-) But I see Nikon confirm you are right from a later post. The only D200 NEF I have was downloaded off the web and lost its large pre-view jpeg so that confused me as well....

FrankG said:

obvious.

FrankG said:

FrankG said:

--
I may be wrong.
http://www.pbase.com/mmcculloch

Click to expand...

--
Dave
http://www.rosser.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk
http://www.pbase.com/dgrosser

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

--
Dave
http://www.rosser.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk
http://www.pbase.com/dgrosser

That's true - after a while a calculated version is shown, but first the preview is shown. At least my NV first displays the embedded JPEG when viewed 100%, RAW conversion starts in the background. After a while the newly converted image is shown, which usually is slightly better.

If you have the status bar enabled you can see the raw conversion progress at the bottom right. One could wish for a much more visible indication for what image is shown, and also a feature to force conversion even when viewed at say 50%.

An annoying thing is that if you edit the NEF in Capture, it can rewrite the embedded JPEG reflecting your changges but now the preview is max 1600 pixels wide (or high) - thus forcing RAW conversion when viewed at even 50%.

Murray,

I do notice the difference too and I also use an LCD monitor.. along with a CRT (both > 20"). I really dont know if it is worse though.
The differnces (self intuitive) I notice are (a D70 sample):
1. Chroma noise is higher in Nikon View (latest 6.2.7)
2. Nikon Capture (4.4.x) is slightly cleaner..
but..

3. Images are much sharper and have greater detail - especially in underexposed images in Nikon View, slightly more 3D-ish
4. Images are seem to be softer and lack punch like NV

Examples are:
nv - notice more chroma in water/body, and slightly more details (eye)



nc - noise is less, and the eyes are dull and image is a bit flat



noiseware slightly applied to nv.jpg



On a well exposed shot the difference is less noticeable after sharpening a bit in nc. pscs2 rendered it completely differently hence not worth mentioning.

PS: i am not a big fan of pixel peeping, especially of an useless underexposed shot, but it was interesting to notice the differnce, as it may have more impact a higher mp important image.

Murray McCulloch said:

Has anyone else noticed that some NEF files look pretty bad in
Nikon Viewer?

These are screen-grabs of the same NEF displayed in Nikon Viewer
6.2.7 and then Nikon Capture 4.4, without applying any changes.

(Ignore the lack of sharpness; this is shot with a 300mm f/4 wide
open and hand-held, and probably isn't quite in focus).

300mm 1/800s, f/4, ISO200.

NV 6.2.7:



NC4.4:



There seems to be something nasty going on with edges in NV. This
shot was taken with sharpening set to medium-high. There was
nothing done in Capture; it's straight from the camera.

Murray

--
I may be wrong.
http://www.pbase.com/mmcculloch

Click to expand...

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