Nikon NX Studio - Lightroom alternative for Nikon users?

[AM Chang]

I am not a Nikon user, but for those who are it may be interesting.

One more option for editing. Need to register but is free.

 

Nikon NX Studio

https://www.nikonusa.com/en/Nikon-Products/Imaging-Software/nx-studio.page

 

Stay safe,

andre

Edited March 5, 2021 by AM Chang

[Roadrunner]

42 minutes ago, AM Chang said:

I am not a Nikon user, but for those who are it may be interesting.

One more option for editing. Need to register but is free.

 

Nikon NX Studio

https://www.nikonusa.com/en/Nikon-Products/Imaging-Software/nx-studio.page

 

Stay safe,

andre

Thanks for this. I use ViewNX2 for quick browsing once in a while, this looks like it could be better🙂

[MDM]

I had a quick look at this earlier and it seems better than the previous Capture NX-D (which I only had a brief look at some time back) and certainly a lot better than the version that came before Capture NX-D which was incredibly slow. I know there are those who used to say that Capture NX-D and earlier Nikon raw converters could do better raw conversions than any other program simply because Nikon knows its own technology.

 

However, in comparison to Lightroom/ACR, Nikon NX Studio has several limitations. One of these is in its local adjustments features. For these it uses something similar to the DxO U-Point technology but is limited and extremely slow on the computer I tested it on. There are also far fewer options available for local adjustments. It is slower to respond generally to the global adjustment sliders. It does however have a lot of good features including perspective and lens corrections. The one thing I discovered that is not available in  ACR (unless I have missed something) is an option to show the focus point in an image. I can imagine where this might be occasionally useful in post - it is possible to set this in camera where it can be useful as a check while shooting. 

 

The browser is quite fast but it is fairly basic and has a limited search facility as far as I can see. Unless I am missing something, Lightroom is ordes of magnitude faster. In fact, Adobe Bridge (also free) is far better as a file browser not least because it has an advanced search facility.

 

So my conclusion is that Nikon NX Studio is light years away from competing with Lightroom. That said,  I don't think Nikon intend it to to be an Adobe competitor - more a very decent free offering from Nikon most useful to keen hobby photographers shooting raw images and with relatively small image collections (because the browser is limited for searching). For A Nikon user who does not do a lot of editing of the raw files, then it may be a useful raw converter. Thinking of the recent Affinity Photo threads, it would be worth it for any Nikon user to compare the raw converters. As far as raw converters that I have used, aside from ACR/Lightroom, then the best I have come across to date is DxO Lab. I have not tried Capture One. 

 

Finally this was a quick look so apologies in advance if I have missed anything that would put it closer to Lightroom than my estimation.

 

Edited March 7, 2021 by MDM

[Chuck Nacke]

I have an old saying, "You get what you pay for." I tried NX years ago when it was packaged with a DSLR and threw the

CD in a drawer,  I received notice about the latest version and disregarded it as well,  I subscribe to Adobe for less than

$10.00 a month USD and have what I need.

 

PS  Michael,  I photographed a 2 1/4 chrome with one of my D800's using an old 105 f4 Micro with a M2 extension tube.

shot at f9.  Alamy image ID: 2ETE9E7.  It worked OK, but I do not think it would work well with a 35mm chrome, just my

opinion.  The image on Alamy shows just a bit less than 1/2 of the chrome.

 

As a test I will try photographing a 35mm chrome that I have already scanned and really compare the difference.

 

Don't mean to hijack the thread.

 

Chuck

[sb photos]

9 hours ago, MDM said:

So my conclusion is that Nikon NX Studio is light years away from competing with Lightroom. That said,  I don't think Nikon intend it to to be an Adobe competitor - more a very decent free offering from Nikon most useful to keen hobby photographers shooting raw images and with relatively small image collections (because the browser is limited for searching). For A Nikon user who does not do a lot of editing of the raw files, then it may be a useful raw converter.

 

I agree with your comments. I downloaded and installed Nikon NX Studio last night. I played with it for around 1 - 2 hours, then deleted it. I installed it on a 2015 13" 8GB 256GB MBA. I can use Photoshop on a 13" screen, but not NX Studio, to me it requires a much larger display. Adjusting sliders seemed very cramped, lacking fine movement. Considering any learning curve over what I regularly use, it's not worth the loss of time when I currently have a working routine that quickly process good images.

[MDM]

8 hours ago, Chuck Nacke said:

I have an old saying, "You get what you pay for." I tried NX years ago when it was packaged with a DSLR and threw the

CD in a drawer,  I received notice about the latest version and disregarded it as well,  I subscribe to Adobe for less than

$10.00 a month USD and have what I need.

 

PS  Michael,  I photographed a 2 1/4 chrome with one of my D800's using an old 105 f4 Micro with a M2 extension tube.

shot at f9.  Alamy image ID: 2ETE9E7.  It worked OK, but I do not think it would work well with a 35mm chrome, just my

opinion.  The image on Alamy shows just a bit less than 1/2 of the chrome.

 

As a test I will try photographing a 35mm chrome that I have already scanned and really compare the difference.

 

Don't mean to hijack the thread.

 

Chuck

 

I agree Chuck. In fact I think with the Adobe Photography package you get an awful lot more value than with any other package. Lightroom and Photoshop are by far the best available and $10 or £10 a month is more than well worth it. 

 

As for the image, I think that one is a lot better than your scans for one simple reason - the white balance is way better so the skin tones look correct. I mentioned it before but some of your scans (e.g. 2EGP7C0,  2E3AN0J) have strong magenta casts which are really evident in the skin tones. Anyway not intending to open up any further arguments about all of that. Peace 😀.

 

Edited March 7, 2021 by MDM

[MDM]

1 hour ago, sb photos said:

 

I agree with your comments. I downloaded and installed Nikon NX Studio last night. I played with it for around 1 - 2 hours, then deleted it. I installed it on a 2015 13" 8GB 256GB MBA. I can use Photoshop on a 13" screen, but not NX Studio, to me it requires a much larger display. Adjusting sliders seemed very cramped, lacking fine movement. Considering any learning curve over what I regularly use, it's not worth the loss of time when I currently have a working routine that quickly process good images.

 

Yes I thought well I can't really comment unless I try it and it is certainly an improvement over the last few offerings but not something I would consider using or recommend as an alternative to Lightroom.

[Phil Robinson]

I have always used ViewNX2 for captioning and keywording before doing any image work in Photoshop. This new version seems better and I will be using it (thanks for the link) unless I find anything negative in the next day or two.

[Sultanpepa]

I use Transfer 2, View NX-i, Capture NX 2 and Capture NX-D, I also have Elements 12 and Lightroom Classic none of which I find intuitive to use. I jump between the Capture editing programs in my workflow and only use Elements and Lightroom for the odd job that they can't handle.  The capture programs are simple to use which suits my luddite tendencies. I shall have a look at NX Studio to see what it offers. Thanks for posting this. 👍

[Phil Robinson]

I have now downloaded and tried the NX-Studio. I like the look, it does a few things better than the old version and I thought I was going to stick with it.

BUT

I like captioning and keywording RAW files so I don't have to start from scratch if I reuse the file.

This new version makes a point of not changing the RAW file in any way and instead produces a separate file that sit along with the RAW with any extra information like captions. 

This is fine until you save the RAW file to another location, like an external drive, when the new file goes missing, along with your captions and any other additional data.

I remember this happening with a previous 'update' which is why I am still using the now rather old ViewNX2

Edited March 15, 2021 by Phil Robinson

[Phil Robinson]

1 hour ago, PAL Media said:

I always thought you would be using Photo Mechanic for importing, captioning, etc.

If you are talking about the .xmp file created with the raw, then you can reuse the .xmp and create iptc data from that?

ViewNX2 is free and does everything I want it to do.

It's not an .xmp file, its a .NXFLJFNX or something, and it seems to be invisible to browsers so you can't move or copy it with the original RAW file.

[Harry Harrison]

4 hours ago, Phil Robinson said:

This is fine until you save the RAW file to another location, like an external drive, when the new file goes missing, along with your captions and any other additional data.

I remember this happening with a previous 'update' which is why I am still using the now rather old ViewNX2

I wonder how other alternatives to Adobe products deal with this. the Adobe 'xmp' sidecar file works well within the Adobe universe but I don't think it is much use outside, it would be good to know from those that use any of them. I've just checked Affinity Photo and although you can enter IPTC metadata as far as I can see you can't export the original RAW file anyway. You can export a choice of 16-bit Tiffs, 'RGB 16-bit' & 'Tiff LAB 16-bit' and of course the metadata is embedded in those.

 

Edit: Should add that there are various PSD export options as well - Preserve editability, preserve accuracy and Final Cut Pro X.

Edited March 15, 2021 by Harry Harrison

[Harry Harrison]

Capture One Pro also uses a separate file, so-called Enhanced Image Package (EIP).

 

https://support.captureone.com/hc/en-us/articles/360002640118-Exporting-RAW-files-settings-and-metadata-in-self-contained-EIP-files

 

Support for DNG files is patchy:

 

https://support.captureone.com/hc/en-us/articles/360002640058