Coming from another system - Nikon File editing best practices

[jtr27]

I don't see any reason not to use Nikon NX Studio.

My impression is that NX Studio is not as full featured as LR. There are some things that, while they can be done in NX Studio, are easier and faster to do in LR (or Capture One), and/or are better implemented.*

It's worth trying. Ignoring it and continuing with only Lightroom doesn't really sound like you are getting the best from the Nikon system.

If one needs ultimate fidelity to in-camera Picture Controls during raw processing, NX Studio is the way to go. However that is not of critical importance to everyone, and it is not difficult to get excellent results from LR, Capture One, or another raw processor. I suspect there are many serious hobbyists and working pros who shoot Nikon and do not use NX Studio, simply because for them, the advantages of using LR or some other product outweigh the disadvantages.

I found this review of NX Studio (from 2021) in which the author does a side by side comparison with LR.

https://reviews.andychuaphotography.com/nx-studio-review/

*For example the author describes how retouching is better implemented in LR:

When I tried the retouch brush, this feature only work well for removing sensor dust than doing any advance cloning work. The brush felt quite similar to the photoshop spot healing brush but in photoshop I could easily undo the action if I did not like the healing work done.

In NX studio, it doesn’t have any undo option or delete away any specific spot that was done by the retouch brush. You have to reset the feature back to original value if you do click any wrong spot in the image by accident.

In lightroom, they have a better spot removal tool where you can choose the source to sample from and the targeted area. If the removal work isn’t what I want, I could easily remove it as well without resetting everything.

And sharpening:

For sharpness adjustment, the adjustment value start from 0 all the way up to 10. Other than the usual sharpening, NX studio also include unsharp mask feature for RGB and other color channels. At this point of time, I don’t find it useful for their unsharp mask as my image looks over sharpen once I apply that feature.

I personally would prefer the details adjustment on Lightroom for this instance. On Lightroom, sharpness isn’t just apply to the overall image. There are more features like radius, details, masking for more precise sharpening. Under NR as well, there are also NR for color especially when shooting in high ISO situation.

Moving forward, I hope for more custom option in sharpening and noise reduction like Lightroom. For sharpening, I wish there is option such as masking to choose which area I want to sharpen and not just sharpening the whole image.

As I said earlier, I am not sure there is a "best practice." People have preferences, and for good reason, but there are numerous tools available to get excellent results. There is a lot of overlapping functionality between the various tools, but each one has its unique strengths and weaknesses.

--
Jonathan
https://www.flickr.com/photos/jtr27/

 

[DavidZihon]

I don't see any reason not to use Nikon NX Studio.

I found this review of NX Studio (from 2021) in which the author does a side by side comparison with LR.

https://reviews.andychuaphotography.com/nx-studio-review/

*For example the author describes how retouching is better implemented in LR:

I agree with the above revue, It depends on your needs as in level of skill.

 

[Kapiro]

Amen to everything you said.

To the OP: Since you are coming from Fuji land you may want to have a read of this entry by Thom Hogan, who offers a very rough but nonetheless useful comparison between Nikon picture control jargon and Fuji's.

Is One of Nikon's Problems Just Names? | Thom Hogan

Nikon's Picture Control names are not overly helpful

www.zsystemuser.com

As for RAW converters and PP software, everyone has their preferences and reasons for that. If you can spare the time, download trial versions of Capture One, Affinity, DXO, etc. (even the GIMP!) so you can get a feel about how they work with NEF files but also if you like how their tools fit into your style of working.

I left lightroom a few years ago. Tried everything and ended up settling on Capture One. While it takes time to learn it to unleash all its powers, I found that getting started with it was very straight forward. I do not have too many personal presets, just a couple for landscape, birds, portraits, nightscapes, dusk/dawn. For landscape I have two starting presets, one for lush green forests and one for semi area vegetation.

 

[monte12345]

First because it covers everything about the camera and there is a LOT of misinformation on Youtube for this camera.

Second because you can read the section of the Manual concerning Picture Controls which actually pre-dates Fuji's Film Simulations. Another widely circulated of a bit of Misinformation.

Once you have your feet wet with this particular feature then do a Google Search on "Nikon Picture Controls" and you'll find a wide range of resources for this feature.

I cannot comment on how Lightroom handles Picture Controls because I don't like how Adobe does it's businesses and I won't support any image thief that uses stolen images to enhance their AI Generation business. However if you were to ask specifically I expect you'll get a lot of answers.

My personal workflow starts with Nikon NX Studio (free to download) because Nikon knows more about handling Nikon RAW files than any other vendor. I will also note the high ISO Noise Reduction for the Zf is specifically tuned for the sensor in that camera and it is Amazing. Actually the High ISO NR is specifically tuned for the sensors fitted to each camera. It will also allow you to change the Picture Control to a different one at will. Take shots in the B&W mode on the Zf and decide later that color may have been a better choice and all you have to do is change to a Color Picture control such as "Standard" and you have your color. There is also a set of Custom Picture Controls that can be applied as a gradient on top of one like "Standard" to create a new Picture Control you can save. Needless to say NX Studio offers most of the standard editing options but one that is missing at present is Panorama blending. However Pixel Shift and Focus stacking are available.

For some of the AI features I use DxO Photolab 8 as a supplement and it works very well. However they do not offer any Customer Support so I am a bit hesitant to recommend them.

For Panorama's I am currently using Hugin which works very well and is rather simple to use once you have viewed the introductory video's. BTW I started shooting Panorama's with a 4x5 inch monorail and paper photographic prints so I have always swept the camera around the Nodal Point for the lens. Because with paper there was no AI blending, everything at the stitch had to line up perfectly. It's why I have a selection of Nodal Rails for the 38mm ARCA Swiss rail system. Because if you use the nodal point you get images that stitch together quickly and perfectly. BTW the Nodal Point is the focal length of the lens in front of the film plane. On the Zf the film plane mark is at the top left next to the "A" mode designation.

Finally for editing JPG files I use either Corel 2023 or Micrografx Picture Publisher 8 in a Windows XP Virtual Desktop.

 

[sirhawkeye64]

Have recently joined the Nikon System with a Zf and the praised 50mm 1.8 S

Yet to bring it to a real shooting session, have been learning these past days about Nikon Menus and how to do stuff in camera, took me a couple of days.

But just by shooting around the house and analysing the Raw in Lightroom, i am already noticing a big difference compared to my workflow with Fuji cameras. I would load my Fuji Raw into Lightroom, pick a Camera Built in Preset such as Astia, Provia, Std Neg, and continue with the editing on top of an already a solid color profile.

With Nikon i feel I they have their color science true to life, aiming for accurate colors, and as result the picture are more sterile. I am a film shooter as well, and i love how good the colors come out of the scans without any editing necessary. It is something Fuji doesnt replicate but they go in the right direction, you have a head start. Just to be clear, i am not talking about instagram like presets, I have tried so many, including purchased from popular sources, and they always feel cheap and artificial.

I would like to know what is the workflow Nikon users apply pre processing, to give a more pleasing artistic look, that will be suitable for further editing? Should I import straight to lightroom or is there another software that is recommended for any reason?

Thanks!

I think this really depends on the look you want...

If you use some features like Active D-Lighting at high levels (even with RAW) it will pre-set some sliders in LR, so for example, your Shadows slighter might set itself to +20 when you import a RAW file that has heavy Active d-lighting set (i honestly turn off Active D-lighting in my cameras since I prefer to set shadow adjustments by hand in LR and want a clean RAW file to start from).

What I've tried to do is create my own presets based on the OOC JPEGs ,but so far haven't gotten that far with this. But really I think when it comes to color, it just depends on your style and what you want. This is why I feel that color science isn't a big deal as people sometimes make it seem (at least for me it's not as I can shift colors around as needed and use presets if needed).

If you want to take advantage of the full potential of Nikon RAWs, you may want to look into their free NX Studio editor. it's not exactly the most elegant, and a bit clunky (the UI and editing process) but it does give you access to some proprietary functions within the RAW files that even LR and other RAW processors ignore or cannot interpret.

As a side note....

The only tip I have is if you want to use any of the special features in the Nikon software (NX Studio) save the NCFILLST.DAT file as that contains some proprietary feature information. Beyond that, I just use the RAWs as they come out of the camera (i do set the camera itself to Neutral picture profile so I start out with a "flat" looking image, since LR and many RAW processors use the embedded JPEG preview as a starting point to generate previews). You can use whatever preset you want, this is just my choice so I get a neutral starting point.

 

[Bob A L]

Have recently joined the Nikon System with a Zf and the praised 50mm 1.8 S

Yet to bring it to a real shooting session, have been learning these past days about Nikon Menus and how to do stuff in camera, took me a couple of days.

But just by shooting around the house and analysing the Raw in Lightroom, i am already noticing a big difference compared to my workflow with Fuji cameras. I would load my Fuji Raw into Lightroom, pick a Camera Built in Preset such as Astia, Provia, Std Neg, and continue with the editing on top of an already a solid color profile.

With Nikon i feel I they have their color science true to life, aiming for accurate colors, and as result the picture are more sterile. I am a film shooter as well, and i love how good the colors come out of the scans without any editing necessary. It is something Fuji doesnt replicate but they go in the right direction, you have a head start. Just to be clear, i am not talking about instagram like presets, I have tried so many, including purchased from popular sources, and they always feel cheap and artificial.

I would like to know what is the workflow Nikon users apply pre processing, to give a more pleasing artistic look, that will be suitable for further editing? Should I import straight to lightroom or is there another software that is recommended for any reason?

Thanks!

I just use Nikon sooc jpegs - that is all I need. :-D. ;-). They have it nailed.

 

[Alec246]

Thank you all once again.

NX Studio is on my list to learn how to use it and compare to Lightroom as I use it nowadays. It wont make me ditch Adobe, since i edit other camera files and film negatives there, but if I discover I can get more from Nikon Raw with NX, it Will become part of the workflow.

I am also planning going on specific locations to shoot with the Zf, my older XPro1 and also a Film Camera, which is the benchmark of how i want my colors to look like. This could give me very interesting data I hope, and i will write about it if it pays off. Will not be easy though, film takes dedication.

 

[Writern]

I shoot RAW+jpg in either FLAT or NEUTRAL profile in camera. Then import into Nikon Studio and do basic corrections/edits (def. the best RAW converter available). I sometimes apply Kodak Portra, Fuji Astia, Agfa Optima, Kodak T-Max 400 profiles to the RAW file. Then export file as TIFF 16 bit to Capture One 22 to do final edit. But with the new NX Studio that is not actually needed if you spend some time learning the SW.

 

[Alec246]

Yesterday I shot with Z f along side my F100 with Portra 160. Yet to send the roll to be developed. WIll be one of my references to help tune the colors to where I like them. I shall do the same with Portra 400 and Kodak Gold eventually!

I also took my time to compare NX Studio and Lightroom, exporting both files as Tiff and checking in Photoshop for differences. Adobe has got their Camera Profiles so close to the original Nikon Reference, I honestly can barely notice a color difference. The way sharpess is applied can be noticed if you zoom like 200%, maybe NX Studio does a better job in the micro contrast / detail, but you really have to get a loupe to notice that.

One thing I found that really makes a difference is that NX Studio uses Nikon Adobe RGB, which isn't the same as the standard AdobeRGB used by Adobe and other software. If I export in Lightroom with NikonAdobeRGB Profile, it will match much better than if I use AdobeRGB instead.

The facility of using Lightroom for me honestly doesn't make it worth learning NXStudio just for the micro differences I notice in the file. NX Studio is super sluggish, doesn't recognize my OneDrive folder where I Have all my photos backed up, no idea why, I have to transfer my Nikon photos just to open in NXStudio. And the workflow is very unique, which in the sum of things, makes me probably stay with Lightroom for now, maybe I can consider CaptureOne later, hear good things about it!

--
You can find some of my Photos here:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/alec246_photography/

 

[Suntan]

Yep. Similar to what I found. The difference in the results are subtle. But the difference in the workflow efficiency is large.

A guy can get good results in any of the editing packages, with a bit of practice. Some folks just have unending butthurt over Adobe's pricing, and feel they have to admonish every aspect of their products.

 

[vcxz]

If you want a more stylized look like Fuji film simulations, you can download third party Lightroom profiles. I have some from Really Nice Images.

Panasonic has a real time lut feature that lets you bake a lut into the jpg. But there isn't a big community like there is for Fuji recipes. It's powerful, but untapped.

 

[Alec246]

Try spotting the differences! BTW: So impressed with the Rendition of the Zf Sensor + 50mm 1.8S. Incredible!!!

--
You can find some of my Photos here:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/alec246_photography/

 

[Writern]

Sure. It’s not big differences, but they are noticable to me. Considering that NX Studio is free, you save money to get better quality.

Anyway, the reason I started to use NX Studio, was mainly as a test when I bought my Z8. Capture One 22 didn’t support Z8, so I thought I would wait until they had a rebate. (I would have to pay approx 300$ for an upgrade, and I think subscription is a very bad deal). But no rebates emerged.

NX did a great job with my z8 NEFs, so I decided to try edit some Z6 files too, and that was when I saw the difference. Now I have dropped the upgrade. I store all my files in the Capture One file structure as «Sessions», and have no problem editing them in the NX Studio from there. I agree that you need a complete tool like Capture One to do final edits on the 16 bit TIFF files and archiving etc.