I know a few people use Nikon Capture NX2 and rave about it. I’m a Lightroom fanboy though and my workflow is quite tied into it.
I know how to get from A to B in it rather well. However, I am a sucker for sharp images and people have been telling me that nx2 is amazing for Nikon users. So I got the trail and had a play. My initial thought was eugh. Icons didn’t have a tooltip so I had no idea what was going on. Total trial and error. Oddly the auto-white balance setting was incredibly bad. I couldn’t believe how wrong it got things. I realise that slating a product I’ve only spent 5 minutes using isn’t the best thing to do. I’ve been using Lightroom since it came out so its 2 years knowledge vs 5 minutes. I just didn’t like the interface all that much. Anyway, that aside would a quick 5 minute play yeild a sharper result than Lightroom? In all honesty I didn’t see anything that screamed surpreme sharpness. Good yes, but eye poppingly sharp?
The end result is that I’m not leaving Lightroom any time soon. I saw some samples that made me think about Capture One but the interface on that is hideous. I think the level of sharpness I’m getting now is good enough. (Click the images to view them full size)
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Out of the two I like the colour and texture of the blue wool in the Nikon Capture version – but as you say nothing much better overall to switch programs. And yeah Phase One’s Capture is such a steep learning curve I gave up after about 6 hours of playing with a trial!
Which is which Pete?
Says if you click on them. Probably should have made it clearer. Lightroom is #1. NX2 is #2.
You need to spend several hours with NX2 before you can really understand and use the program effectivly. I have a D90 and it works great with it. But the first 2 hours in using it, I was not crazy about it. Now I know where the things I need are and can get done things quickly.