NX 1.1 - Beware of HQ D-Lighting

Just a "heads-up" for anyone using D-Lighting's HQ option on NX 1.1...

Besides the intermittent black line in the corner problem when opening RAW files, there is another issue to be on the look out for... several black pixels about a 5th of the way down from the top of the image, spaced apart horizontally by about the same distance they are from the top.

You need to zoom to 50% or greater and have an image which has little detail in the upper half to see them e.g. typical shot with sky in it.

The trouble with these black pixels is that they do get exported to TIFF files and if you use the "Open with" option. Thankfully, switching off D-Lighting or using normal D-Lighting gets rid of them.

I've replicated the problem on two machines now and reported the issue to Nikon for their comment.

--
Graeme

Thanks. I see what you mean. I did notice two of the black spots in the upper left part of one image.

I haven't seen the line problem yet.

Gene007 said:

Thanks. I see what you mean. I did notice two of the black spots in
the upper left part of one image.

I haven't seen the line problem yet.

Click to expand...

Odd i dont see it, i use NX on a MAC

--
James Grove
http://www.eventdigital.co.uk

James Grove said:

Gene007 said:

Thanks. I see what you mean. I did notice two of the black spots in
the upper left part of one image.

I haven't seen the line problem yet.

Click to expand...

Odd i dont see it, i use NX on a MAC

Click to expand...

Ahh - I'm using Windows... perhaps it's just a Windows version NX problem!

--
Graeme

Is that what is causing those lines... damn thing has been driving me crazy for a day now trying to figure out what gives ?????.

Thanks for the heads up on this issue, now I can stop ripping my hair and my system out

--

• GlenG

'Have you been seen lately?'
http://www.glenegrant.com
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GlenGrant said:

Is that what is causing those lines... damn thing has been driving
me crazy for a day now trying to figure out what gives ?????.

Click to expand...

Unfortunately, It's not the D-Lighting causing NX to show the line in the left corner - they can turn up at any time for no apparent reason!

With a fresh install of NX on a newly built PC, it happened on the second time I opened the same unaltered image. The third time I opened it, the lines were gone!

Sadly I've witnessed both issues on several machines (PC) so far - I can't get it to behave on any machine I've tried.

It's interesting that Gene007 hasn't seen the black line problem yet; perhaps a sign that NX is interacting badly with other installed software on some machines (like mine!)

Nikon's asking me for machine specs at the moment but haven't mentioned one way or the other if they have had other reports of similar problems. If they have any solutions or useful information, I'll report back.

--
Graeme

Graeme Davidson said:

GlenGrant said:

Is that what is causing those lines... damn thing has been driving
me crazy for a day now trying to figure out what gives ?????.

Click to expand...

Unfortunately, It's not the D-Lighting causing NX to show the line
in the left corner - they can turn up at any time for no apparent
reason!

Click to expand...

I found out the black line appears when I crop a photo in NX 1.1. Disabling the crop made the black line disappear.

I too don't see it on my NX conversions (mac as well).

--
Alberto T., PPA

I just batch processed around 1000 NEFs from my trip to the Bosque del Apache - almost all had at least some sky in them, ranging from grey to blue to orange - yellow - red. Did not see any indication of black dots/pixels or lines. My 1st pass batch is usually DLHQ - 25 - 1 - 60 and USM 50 - 5 - 4.

To confrim what I saw (or didnt see) on these images, I just ran the following experiment using a D2X raw file of a light grey cloudy sky - landscape orientation - had taken the shot to check for sensor dust bunnies.

Opened image in NX 1.1
Applied HQDL - 50 - 1 - 60
Zoomed to 100% and examined upper left corner - no black dots or lines

Transferred to PS CS1 Zoomed tiff file to 100% and examined upper left corner - no black dots or lines

Back to NX
Applied USM 100 - 5 - 5
Zoomed to 100% and examined upper left corner - no black dots or lines

Transferred to PS CS1 Zoomed tiff file to 100% and examined upper left corner - no black dots or lines

Back to NX
Applied different color points (R-G-B-Cyan) in the four corners of the image
Zoomed to 100% and examined upper left corner - no black dots or lines

Transferred to PS CS1 Zoomed tiff file to 100% and examined upper left corner - no black dots or lines

Back to NX
Cropped this really ugly image to 4x6 portrait kept left hand side of the image
Zoomed to 100% and examined upper left corner - no black dots or lines

Transferred to PS CS1 Zoomed tiff file to 100% and examined upper left corner - no black dots or lines

I wonder what the difference is? Have you had any meaningful response from Nikon tech support?

Using P4 Northwood 3.2GHz OC to 3.5GHZ - 2GB DDR2 - 2 - WD 34GB Hard drives in Raid1 for working disk. NX & PS cache files on seperate HD.

Windows Home XP SP2 - Adobe Creative Suite CS, Nixon CaptureNX 1.1 and Capture 4.4.2 installed on root drive.
--
Conrad
---------------------------------------------------
Show Low, Arizona

I have seen it, and it is indeed spurratic. Opened this image, and there it was, made an edit by turning off Auto CA correction, and it was gone. Without saving the file, I closed it, and re-opened, Blackline was no longer there... Closed NX, restarted NX, no line. Cleared NX cache, closed, and restarted NX, opened image, still not there...

With line:



Without:



All I have is more questions now than when I started, will have to investigate more later

Best regards,
Thomas

--
Website: http://www.photosbytom.com/
Gallery: http://www.photosbytom.com/gallery/
Oregon Amateur Photographic Expressionist
Member OAPE: http://www.oape.net/
Irc: #Photography on Rizon and Undernet

--
Website: http://www.photosbytom.com/
Gallery: http://www.photosbytom.com/gallery/
Oregon Amateur Photographic Expressionist
Member OAPE: http://www.oape.net/
Irc: #Photography on Rizon and Undernet

Conrad,

It's interesting that you aren't experiencing the black pixel problem on a PC. Nikon hasn't come back to me with any further information yet but it would be useful to be able to tell them for sure that not all PCs are affected.

Here's what I see - pixels are circled by me (excuse the low quality jpg but I don't know if I have the bandwidth to cope with posting an image here!)



--
Graeme

I also have the black line problem. It's seems totally random. I can open an image in NX and the line appears right at the end of reading the RAW file. It bothered me enough to go back to my initial release version of NX until the issue gets fixed.

Here's something significant though... I just disabled Hyperthreading via the motherboard BIOS settings on a P4(HT) 3Ghz machine I had trouble with and the D-lighting black pixels reduce in number to just one!

Also, I have not seen that black line since...

Perhaps others having the same problems could try disabling Hyperthreading to see if the black line stays away and if the number of black pixels with HQ D-Lighting reduces to just one?

It could be that part of NX's code is not "thread safe" and Hyperthreading / multi-cpu machine expose this.

--
Graeme

Thanks for th info Graeme. I am also running a 3Ghz P4. I'll try that tonight when I get home.

Gary Sprowls said:

Thanks for th info Graeme. I am also running a 3Ghz P4. I'll try
that tonight when I get home.

Click to expand...

You're welcome! I've just got back home myself and tried disabling hyperthreading on the home workstation with interesting results...

The home workstation is a true dual Xeon machine; each CPU supporting hyperthreading (shows up as 4 CPUs in task manager). Well, after switching off hyperthreading, I see two CPUs in taskmanager and in capture NX I now get two pixels (as opposed to the 4 previously seen) with D-lighting

I still get that Black line when opening an image after applying HQ D-lighting to the previous image! However, the presence of a second real CPU might make the machine look like the P4 (HT) machine as far as NX is converned. It is almost as if every CPU contributes to a black pixel!!

Actually, at the moment, I find that if you apply HQ D-lighting to an image, close that image and then subsequently open another image, that is when the black line appears !!

I'm sorely tempted to go back to NX1.01 until they fix the bug )

--
Graeme

I have the black line problem as well. It happens ocasionally. Usually in darker portions of the image, mostly at the left side.

It is not NX, Capture 4+ gave this problem also sometimes.

What Capture also did was strange colour shifts on parts of the image when shooting in low light situations with long exposures.

I can cure the problem often by:
changing the saturation
changing the tone compensation
just save tghe file again also sometime helps

I though for a moment that it was my camera, it is not.

~ Light is eveything ~
Curiosity is the key to creativity - Morita Akio
http://www.fotopropaganda.com

I am working with a couple of folks trying to track this down further and one thing that has been found, at least by some, has been that the "black line" disappears if you clear the cache. The test would be to have an image with the black line, clear your cache, shutdown and restart NX and then open the file again.

I have seen images with this problem, although I have not personally had one yet, where I can take the image into Capture 4.4, after seeing the line in NX, save it out of Capture, and have the line gone then when I reopen in NX.

If anyone would like, and I'd be happy if some did, to contact me off DPReview, email is in my profile, the more I can gather the more I can provide to try to get this resolved.

Thanks,

--
Bill Dewey
http://www.deweydrive.com

I'll do, if I get a file again which shows the problems I had, i'll mail it to you.

Michel

--
~ Light is eveything ~
Curiosity is the key to creativity - Morita Akio
http://www.fotopropaganda.com