Capture NX, PS CS2, or both?

ACR in PS CS2 is a different animal than the Elements 3+ version. See above.
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Steve Bingham
http://www.dustylens.com

As just starting out I shoot mostly in J-PEG. Does both photo shop and NC work in the J-PEG format? I am just wanting to touch up photos for a better look and not trying to spend a lot of time with them and somthing easy to learn. Picture Perfect came with my D-200 and have been using that but has been told that it is "junk" compared with all others out there. I do like the how easy it is though! Thanks
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Jim

Elements 4 is the perfect choice - a great place to start!
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Steve Bingham
http://www.dustylens.com

Steve Bingham said:

Elements 4 is the perfect choice - a great place to start!
--
Steve Bingham
http://www.dustylens.com

Click to expand...

--Where and how can I get Elements 4? Who produces elements 4?
Jim

Going back to the original questions, I think if I could have only one, it would definitely be CS2, because it can do many things that NX cannot do. Among the things NX can't do is to take two different exposures of the same scene and combine them using layers and layer masks, to increase dynamic range, something the original poster asked about. NX also can't do cloning or cut and paste type edits.

On the other hand, while it may be true that CS2 can do everything or most everything that NX can do, NX can do some things very easily and very well that are difficult to do in CS2. NX can make a wide range of adjustments non-destructively that are saved in the NEF file (not possible in CS2). NX can fade the luminance and chrominance effects of a filter or adjustment independently of one another (difficult in CS2). NX can make control point adjustments (something that can only be approximated in CS2). If you haven't used and become at least somewhat proficient with control points, it is difficult to appreciate how much of the work of image enhancement can be accomplished in just a minute or two in NX--results that would take much longer in CS2.

For those reasons, I use both because each has its strengths and weaknesses. If my budget precluded using both, I would pick CS2.

jatnip said:

--Where and how can I get Elements 4? Who produces elements 4?
Jim

Click to expand...

Jim, Elements 4 is made by Adobe Photoshop; it's more or less a "cut-back" version of the complete PS CS2. It is fairly powerful version in it's own right but nowhere near as powerful as the full version CS2. However, from what you said in your post, it should work just fine.

Elements 4 has it's own version of ACR to read RAW format and I that was what I was not pleased with - and I stopped using it. NX is a much better option and is what I now use after trying out a couple of the others. As Steve said above, the full version ACR for PS2 is very complete but it's more complex to use, in my opinion, and of course you have to own PS2 to use it.

You can download Elements 4 from the Adobe web site. But it's available everywhere - online and in retail stores. I bought my copy at Costco of all places.

Good luck with whatever you decide to do! Doug
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http://dougs.smugmug.com/

Jim, I just re-read your first post above and noticed you said you shoot in jpg format, not RAW. Sorry, but part of my comment doesn't apply. I should have read more closely. But to answer your question, yes, Elements does work fine with jpg files. That's how I processed files until recently when I started usoing the RAW format.
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http://dougs.smugmug.com/

Doug S said:

Jim, I just re-read your first post above and noticed you said you
shoot in jpg format, not RAW. Sorry, but part of my comment doesn't
apply. I should have read more closely. But to answer your
question, yes, Elements does work fine with jpg files. That's how I
processed files until recently when I started usoing the RAW format.
--
http://dougs.smugmug.com/

Click to expand...

Doug

Since you have used both would you suggest Element 4 or NC for me? I have never used anything so am totally new. Does NC support jpg files also? Thanks
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Jim

NX gives the best colors from your files. In some cases there is a considerable difference that is very difficult to reproduce with CS2.

The workflow for NX however is APPALINGLY BAD. The control points are great but everything else is SLOW.
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Mike Hayes

jatnip said:

Doug
Since you have used both would you suggest Element 4 or NC for me?
I have never used anything so am totally new. Does NC support jpg
files also? Thanks - Jim

Click to expand...

Since you are using jpg format, my suggestion would be to get Elements 4. I think that would give you everything you might need and give you plenty of room to learn and grow. I started with Elements 2 and then got 4 when it came out. Without a doubt PS will upgrade E4 into more powerful software programs in the next few years.

However, I need to say this: depending on how serious you are about photography and your willingness to embrace postprocessing, you should consider moving to RAW. It took me a couple years to reach that point myself but did (thanks to urging of folks in this forum) three or four months ago. My biggest hesitation simply was that I was learning the D200 and wasn't sure I wanted to take on another learning curve. Well, I just can't tell you how RAW photography has helped me move to the next level. Okay, maybe I'm not all the way to that next level yet but I'm learning and I'm taking steps every week. If you decide to take that step too, now or sometime in the future, get NX. If you do it now, you might want to skip the E4 and get along with only NX. That's not to say NX will do it all - it won't. But based on your earlier post - saying you just want to enhance your photos to improve them visually, NX is, in my opinion, the quickest and easiest route to where you want to go. I tried a couple other programs before settling on NX. It's far from perfect but it's powerful and it's easy to use. Prior to NX, I used E4 for all my post processing needs. Now I use it on maybe 10% of my photos. Good luck! doug
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http://dougs.smugmug.com/