NX for JPGs?

[vanillastring]

While its clear NX is aimed at RAW shooters, I'm curious if it would provide any benefits over Photoshop CS for editting D200 JPEGs?

Any input is most welcome.

Btw, I decided to shoot in JPEG mode since editting hundreds (even thousands) of RAW images is painfully tedious. When shooting extraordinary subjects, I try to shoot in RAW/JPEG Fine mode, but 90% of the time I find JPEGs to be more than satistactory. Recent shots from Costa Rica taken with D200 & 17-55DX - ALL taken in JPEG mode with little post-processing in PS CS.

Thanks!
Alex

 

[vanillastring]

Forgot the link - the Costa Rica D200/17-55DX (JPEG mode) photos are here: http://www.gallerama.com/view/gallery/?gid=534

 

[Pradipta Dutta]

I think it boils down to what your workflow is. Personally, I would not use NC or NX for editing JPEG files in general.

However, there are some significant advantages that NX would provide even in editing JPEG. You can actually convert the initial JPEG into RAW and that way you can ensure that whatever subsequent edits you make, they would not lead to any further data loss. This is because JPEG use a lossy compression and every time you save it back even after making a minor adjustment, you technically lose some data. Editing in NEF would prevent from such data loss.

--
Speed is significant and interesting but accuracy is downright fascinating
http://www.pbase.com/pradipta

 

[Just Shoot Me]

Agreed but you can do basically the same in PSCS2 by first saving the Jpeg as PSD. Although I do find the NX control points to be very usefull once you get to understand how they work and how to work with them.

I think it boils down to what your workflow is. Personally, I would
not use NC or NX for editing JPEG files in general.

However, there are some significant advantages that NX would
provide even in editing JPEG. You can actually convert the initial
JPEG into RAW and that way you can ensure that whatever subsequent
edits you make, they would not lead to any further data loss. This
is because JPEG use a lossy compression and every time you save it
back even after making a minor adjustment, you technically lose
some data. Editing in NEF would prevent from such data loss.

--
Speed is significant and interesting but accuracy is downright
fascinating
http://www.pbase.com/pradipta

 

[Pradipta Dutta]

Agreed but you can do basically the same in PSCS2 by first saving
the Jpeg as PSD. Although I do find the NX control points to be
very usefull once you get to understand how they work and how to
work with them.

And that is precisely why I said that personally I would never use NX or NC for editing JPEG. But as you said, using control points is much easier than abstract concepts of masks. So, relatively newer users, they would find using NX to be easier. However, if one is used to the flexibility of selective editing using masks in photoshop, it would be tough to give up control.

--
Speed is significant and interesting but accuracy is downright fascinating
http://www.pbase.com/pradipta

 

[Ed_C]

I have been using Photoshop for photo editing since literally 1.0. I am very familiar with masks, layer masks, channel manipulation, layer blending modes, etc. There are times that Control points work just as well for me and much much faster than the same result in Photoshop.

Saving as a nef is kind of interesting but overall not as functional for my money as saving as tif which you can also open in Photoshop and other editors. I just tried to open a jpg saved as a nef in Photoshop ... no luck.
--
Ed C.

 

[Just Shoot Me]

Saving as a nef is kind of interesting but overall not as
functional for my money as saving as tif which you can also open in
Photoshop and other editors. I just tried to open a jpg saved as a
nef in Photoshop ... no luck.
--
Ed C.

That is because NX saves NEF in kind of it's own format. I edited a NEF with NX and saved it as NEF and then opened that NEF in Capture 4.4 and all of the editing I had done was totally gone. Even the rotation I did.

So I doubt the Photoshop RAW file viewer/converter, ACR, can read the NX header info properly.

I'll try doing a change to a NEF in NX and save it as NEF and then see if ACR can open it.

 

[Just Shoot Me]

ACR opened it OK but without any of the changes made in NX

 

[jayblue]

I use Rawshooter Premium and save as TIFF. Capture NX works great to make the localized corrections with control points. I either print in NX or open in PS2 if I need to do anything else. I love RSP and have some issues with processing speed of NX. But the two together work great. I haven't found a downside yet.

 

[Ed_C]

It still completely baffles me why Nikon changes the file name completely when you bring the file directly into Photoshop. I still use Photoshop for the sharpening workflow in all cases and sometimes for noise. Having to change the file name is a pain. I know I could perhaps do a batch, saving to TIF then bringing them into Photoshop but that isn't very good workflow for the types of images I use NX for.
--
Ed C.

 

[kohkhoking]

I use NX to edit my Olympus digicam Jpeg file. The control point feature is really amazing, save me hours of work.

Yeah...I only use the control points of the NX at the moment. After editing with control points, I save the file and continue to edit using my favorite Paint Shop Pro program.

--
KOH KHO KING
http://www.ShaShinKi.com

 

[sfisher]

It still completely baffles me why Nikon changes the file name
completely when you bring the file directly into Photoshop.

It's standard space economics.

NX isn't passing the original file it's passing your edits (that are still open in NX) to PS. To do this it must create a new tiff file to pass. If they created a new tiff file with just any name then your hard drive would soon fill up with all these temp files at 70 MB a piece for a D2X. By using the same filename to pass the tiff one overwites the previous file so there is only ever one tmp file on the HD

It not like PS removes the temp file passed to it, and how would NX know what you did in PS? And even when you save it with your corrected filename in PS the original temp file is still left behind.

--
-Steve
===================

Dodging and burning are steps to take care of mistakes God made in establishing tonal relationships. Ansel Adams

 

[Ed_C]

I was talking about them changing the name of the file for no reason. That's why I started the sentence "It still completely baffles me why Nikon changes the file name completely ..."

--
Ed C.