I have changed my mind.

[justahack]

Even if ACR were as good as NX on IQ/technical/features (heck, even a bit better) - which in my experience it is not; NX still wins because Adobe's customer service (there's an oxymoron) really SUCKS big time IMHO. I have purchased $10K of software from those crooks and do ya think I can get some simple troubleshooting done like - gee wizz - Adobe Updater won't update itself...! What a JOKE. I'd rather deal with Microsoft...!
--
Cheers.

...Please don't rub up against my glass...

 

[jizzer]

my version 4 can't, so maybe the PSD is really just the same tiff file opened with a temporary name? Just saying...I don't the the tiff is an extra file created, I think it's the only one. But again I'm using older NX so it could have changed.
--
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jcovert

 

[Radu Tenenbaum]

No, the old Capture did not pass psd. I believe what it did was pass a TIFF, but that it stored it in RAM or a scratch file. Once the picture was in Photoshop, the default save file format was TIF.
--
Radu
http://www.pbase.com/raduray

 

[Alex_ny]

Interestingly, using Vista, the Adobe RGB picture looks the same in Windows Photo Gallery and View NX, slightly flatter in Safari and much flatter in Inernet Explorer. Clearly Safari 3.1 for Windows's color management leaves something to be desired.

 

[gollywop]

that you had some shots that showed no clipping in the camera's red channel histogram but which, when rendered in ACR, had red clipping that could not be dealt with without significant overall exposure reduction?

--
gollywop

-----------

 

[Phil_L]

I opened a couple of images - skin tones in bright late day sun - to
see the difference between NX and ACR. Out of the box the NX skin
tones were way too red compared to very natural looking skin in ACR.

The odd thing about this is that custom calibration of ACR results invariably shows a need to adjust the saturation of the red channel upwards!

Using the Fors script, this has been true for my D70, D300 and all combinations with my 8 lenses and two generations of ACR.

Calibrations with other scripts produce less saturated reds but the common denominator is increased sat vis a vis ACR afaik.

Use of these calibration results have invariably produced nicer pictures for me.
This is obviously gut feel and subjective but....
They are also easy to apply in large batches.

OTOH the few portraits I do are mainly candids and I am in no way refuting what you say.
--
Phil_L

 

[kovacj]

... and with much better "performance".

NX reminds me of ACR and Bridge as an integrated product, they really didn't stretch themselves on the interface. The control points are kinda cool in that you can see a mask of the targetted area, but one cool feature does not a good product make.

Cheers,
Jarek

 

[kovacj]

Seems to have generated a healthy amount of discussion. I would be interested in seeing what you are seeing, any chance you could post a NEF file of one of your outtakes?

Thanks,
Jarek

 

[Dan198196]

i use both Nikon Capture and ACR (CS3). I find the output of ACR is excellant. A few years back I didn't care for ACR, the color profile and white balance was always off (bad skin tones, color casts, stc), since the introduction of CS3, ACR has improved quite a bit (ok 10 fold IMHO) and after years of being a faithful Capture user, I have switched - the performance and output far exceeds what can be obtained in Capture. I no longer find I need to tweak things to get 'great output', the ACR defaults are quite good. With the introduction of tools such as highlight recovery, clarity, and vibrance - CS3 has become the 'one to beat' tool as it's capabilities far outperform that of Capture. I love Capture, but it's hard to go back to after using ACR. If you are having problems, do a little research and don't be frustrated - as someone who has used Photoshop for over 10 years now, it does take time to understand it, but once you master it the results are very rewarding.

 

[gollywop]

I've never had such troubles with ACR-> CS3, and indeed, quite to the contrary of many of the experiences posted on this forum, have found ACR conversion to be excellent and color accuracy to be superior (marginally -- and that's because I've calibrated ACR and use the Tindemans Action to preserve colors.)

I will readily admit that it takes more wiggling of the controls to produce a final product in ACR than in NX, but it is still pretty quick, and, to my mind, worth it. It's certainly not enough of an additional pain to put up with the laggardly speed of NX (a bigger pain) and its (to me) awkward interface.

It would be very interesting to have a sample NEF exhibiting the problems you are describing. Is this possible?

--
gollywop

-----------

 

[Jake Loves Good Glass]

Intel Core 2 Duo 6650 2.33ghz
Nvidia 9600 (actually worked fine with the old 8400 as well)
4 GB of Corsair gaming ram

Vista 32bit (although I will upgrade to 64 when I upgrade to quad core and want more ram. Still bummed that I only get 3.25gb with Vista 32)
Capture NX 1.3

If your computer can't handle it then maybe you should look at upgrading. You can build this system with a good gygabit motherboard and box for right about a thousand.

Don't blaim the program, blaim old technology. NX runs fine on my Mac Mini and Macbook as well.

Any new computer can run NX just fine if you have a proper graphics set up. The video card I am using is complete over kill but I'll admit that I game from time to time and wanted the better card for that purpose. The 8400 ran smooth as silk while I was using it.

Adobe runs smoother on older computers because it is written for older technology. I appreciate NX's ability to address both cores on my processor when the horsepower is needed. Adobe only uses multi threading for a couple features but otherwise is a single thread program. Most of the architecture is designed with this older tech in mind and thus is a little more polite to resources. The new programs that need better resources will use them well if you have them and if you don't then they will run poorly. In my experience, having a good quantity of ram and a program that addresses both cores is a good way to go.

Also, Vista has the advantage of utilizing resources more efficiently. I know there are a lot of people that bad mouth the program, but like many things it's usually pilot error. There were some bugs but with the new service pack and a properly built machine it runs like a dream.

I do love my Macs as well, but with the price and performance of this new box I'm in love with Vista and NX.
--
Wow...that's a pretty killer camera! Are you any good?

-Jake-

 

[Grzzl]

Fist you can put the cache on a second hard drive to speed up
performance

Thanks for the tip. It is really quite a difference even if the second drive is a partition.
--
http://bobreurink.nl

 

[Steve Bingham]

that you had some shots that showed no clipping in the camera's red
channel histogram but which, when rendered in ACR, had red clipping
that could not be dealt with without significant overall exposure
reduction?

Exactly.

--
gollywop

-----------

--
Steve Bingham
http://www.dustylens.com
http://www.ghost-town-photography.com

 

[Steve Bingham]

i use both Nikon Capture and ACR (CS3). I find the output of ACR is
excellant. A few years back I didn't care for ACR, the color profile
and white balance was always off (bad skin tones, color casts, stc),
since the introduction of CS3, ACR has improved quite a bit (ok 10
fold IMHO) and after years of being a faithful Capture user, I have
switched - the performance and output far exceeds what can be
obtained in Capture. I no longer find I need to tweak things to get
'great output', the ACR defaults are quite good. With the
introduction of tools such as highlight recovery, clarity, and
vibrance - CS3 has become the 'one to beat' tool as it's capabilities
far outperform that of Capture. I love Capture, but it's hard to go
back to after using ACR. If you are having problems, do a little
research and don't be frustrated - as someone who has used Photoshop
for over 10 years now, it does take time to understand it, but once
you master it the results are very rewarding.

You are correct. However, I have neen using Photoshop for 18 years (Feb 2000) and taught it at the local college. I pretty much know what it can do. :^) In fact, until this latest version of Capture it was my converter of choice. And, yes I still use it along with Capture.

--
Steve Bingham
http://www.dustylens.com
http://www.ghost-town-photography.com

 

[JMikes]

I'm willing to give NX a try, but it's brutally slow and tiresome to use. Besides, I don't want the camera settings imposed on me. I'd rather work with the RAW data.
--

John in Minnetundra
http://www.weekendshoot.blogspot.com/

 

[knickerhawk]

You are correct. However, I have neen using Photoshop for 18 years
(Feb 2000) and taught it at the local college. I pretty much know
what it can do. :^) In fact, until this latest version of Capture it
was my converter of choice. And, yes I still use it along with
Capture.

I guess those were dog years?!? ;-)

Anyway, I agree with you and am only surprised that it took you this long to discover the IQ advantages of NX. Julia/Illiah and others have periodically posted side-by-sides and other definitive examples of where ACR trips up compared to NX (and some other converters). As you discovered, it particularly comes out in microdetail and more headroom in the channels. Color profiles, curves etc. don't overcome the fundamental differences in the algorithms being used.

Workflows, user interface, speed etc. may push some users back to ACR/CS3, but if you want to squeeze out the best base image possible from the RAW, then you should be looking at other converters than ACR...and you should be looking very hard at NX.

--
My photos: http://www.pbase.com/imageiseverything/root

 

[KHous]

I had the opposite experience when trying to install CS2 on a new computer last fall. Although it took me several (read: 20) minutes to get to the correct level of tech support, I got a satisfactory telephone answer on how to install the upgrade version of CS2 when the new computer wouldn't recognize PS 6 as the original full retail version. I guess everyone's experience varies, but patience and a pleasant attitude are always helpful.

--

Photography deals exquisitely with appearances, but nothing is what it appears to be. Duane Michals

 

[David Chin]

... edits for huge volumes of pics, my preference is to use Nikon Capture NX where I can concentrate on each image.

The reason I use NX can be summed up in the tutorial videos at http://www.niksoftware.com/viveza/usa/entry.php especially the videos titled Introduction and Adding Depth to an Image.

It would be difficult to perform those edits in PS3.

I use Adobe Lightroom to manage the printing workflow to my HP all-in-one printer. Lightroom has some cool features for managing printing which I find very useful (stuff like sharpening for print, adding captions below the image, printing multiple photos to a sheet of paper, etc).

I'd also use Lightroom if I don't need optimal RAW conversion quality and just need to print lots of 4 x 6 photos pronto.

Photoshop CS3? I haven't used it in ages. I only fire it up when I need to add text to a photo or create before-after comparisons.

CS3 would be indispensable though, to those running plugins to give a special effect to their pics - wedding photographers, for instance.

--
Regards, David Chin
Digital photography notes and stuff:
http://www.dpnotes.com/

 

[kovacj]

... edits for huge volumes of pics, my preference is to use Nikon
Capture NX where I can concentrate on each image.

The reason I use NX can be summed up in the tutorial videos at
http://www.niksoftware.com/viveza/usa/entry.php especially the videos
titled Introduction and Adding Depth to an Image.

It would be difficult to perform those edits in PS3.

SNIP

Given that Viveza is a Photoshop plugin (did you notice the title bar, top left, in the video you referred to?), it would be hard not to do that edit in PS3 (or at least PSE).

Far as I know, Viveza is not working on the RAW image, but on the interpretation of the RAW image as provided by ACR (egads!) and so, far as I know, Viveza has nothing to do with RAW conversion.

The default results from various RAW converters are certainly different, but I am not sure how you would qualify one as "better" than the others? My "preference" is for Lightroom/ACR conversions that are calibrated with the Fors script, yields very natural skin tones to my eyes. On the handful of images that I tried, I found nothing "special" about the NX conversion.

What was interesting about Steve's original post, is that he claims that he can do something in NX that he cannot do relatively easily in ACR (I am paraphrasing). Steve is a respected long-time poster, so I would be interested in seeing what he is seeing, but alas it does not appear that he is willing to share an image (too bad).

Kind regards,
Jarek

 

[Dan198196]

Anyway, I agree with you and am only surprised that it took you this
long to discover the IQ advantages of NX. Julia/Illiah and others
have periodically posted side-by-sides and other definitive examples
of where ACR trips up compared to NX (and some other converters). As
you discovered, it particularly comes out in microdetail and more
headroom in the channels. Color profiles, curves etc. don't overcome
the fundamental differences in the algorithms being used.

Workflows, user interface, speed etc. may push some users back to
ACR/CS3, but if you want to squeeze out the best base image possible
from the RAW, then you should be looking at other converters than
ACR...and you should be looking very hard at NX.

As someone who has worked on the development process of actual RAW converters and understands what happens under the hood let me state that as of Adobe Camera RAW 4.0, the difference better Capture NX and ACR are mute as far as the interpolation process is concered (though I think ACR does a slightly better job if you pixel peep) Trust me I didn't care for ACRs bayer interpolation approach in older versions (at least for Nikon based capture) ACRs approach is a little more conservative, as it does not produce artifacts and the like - Capture by default has a little more contrast added in the default tone curve and a little more sharpening is added during the demosaic process to counterbalance the impact of the AA filter, however while Capture does have a bit more 'pop', ACRs output is cleaner (and as result is better defined) delivering better tonality and color graduations as a byproduct. Combined with better tools (the highlight recovery algorithm is fantastic, you can recover highlights without modifying the white point), fast performance and a streamlined workflow, i feel ACR is the best converter on the market at this time (but the tables can always turn). Again, i stress people really need to learn and understand these tools before 'jumping the gun', otherwise JPEG might be a better alternative.

NX does have some cool tricks up it sleeve with things like U point, and these are great for beginners who are not as comfortable using masks, selective color tools, adjustment layers, etc. I think NX is a wonderful RAW converter and is a better choice for newbies - in the same token I think ACR is better suited for advanced users.