What Software do you use?

[danclem]

Hi dvleemin & eskasi:

I shoot with Nikon gear and have not issues with colors using LightRoom, Photoshop, etc. It might be worth checking to see if all the color management schemes are consistent and calibrated. I have not used Nikon Capture for several years.

With respect to non-destructive editing, LightRoom and Camera RAW create a "side-car" file (*.XMP) that contains edits. The RAW file is never touched, hence non-destructive editing. One thing to be careful about is moving files around. If you move the RAW file without the side car file, changes will be lost. In classes where we had PC's and Mac's, Windows users could see the side car file, Mac users could not. I suspect there is a toggle somewhere in Leopard to show all files in a directory.

Good Luck,

Dan

 

[Eskasi]

Hi dvleemin & eskasi:

I shoot with Nikon gear and have not issues with colors using LightRoom, Photoshop, etc. It might be worth checking to see if all the color management schemes are consistent and calibrated. I have not used Nikon Capture for several years.

With respect to non-destructive editing, LightRoom and Camera RAW create a "side-car" file (*.XMP) that contains edits. The RAW file is never touched, hence non-destructive editing. One thing to be careful about is moving files around. If you move the RAW file without the side car file, changes will be lost. In classes where we had PC's and Mac's, Windows users could see the side car file, Mac users could not. I suspect there is a toggle somewhere in Leopard to show all files in a directory.

Good Luck,

Dan

Hi Dan,

From what I know, Nikon does not share it's RAW conversion information with Adobe. As such, for NEF's it's a "best guess" by Adobe. Settings such as Nikon's "Active D Lighting" will not be reflected properly too. There are some plugins you can get so that colors and lighting are more accurate during import to Lightroom (especially if you change in-camera settings like color or saturation). However, this is almost never accurate and certainly does not reflect what you see in the camera's review screen if you check carefully.

Lightroom is indeed so much more user friendly. I use it for almost all my work and further export to CS3 if more complicated touchups are necessary. However, for all my keepers, I simply have to use NX2, if anything, just to save to TIFF before importing to Lightroom or CS3. If done this way, the true colors will show up in the Adobe products.

Below, I have attached two photos converted with NX2 and Lightroom 2.0. Each was converted from the NEF (Nikon Raw) file directly to jpeg with the respective programs. No touch ups or any other changes in export settings were done whatsoever. You can see the difference. Greater saturation, sharpness and accurate color reproduction in NX2.

NX2

Lightroom 2.0

 

[H2O Photo Pros]

Lightroom all the way. If you are shooting RAW, then Lightroom is a must have. Photoshop is a great program and still needed for some editing purposes, but Lightroom will give you the ultimate freedom in RAW editing. If you can pick up last month's issue of Outdoor Photographer, there is a great article on Lightroom vs. Photoshop for RAW image editing.

 

[danclem]

Hi Ekasi:

Thanks for the information. I went back and checked out some of my recent photos with NX2, and I don't see improvements. This might be because I my shots are underwater in the Pacific Northwest, and regardless of which program they need to be white balanced and color corrected. As soon as I finish my book I will start shooting above the water line and see if there are any differences.

Also, I think I might have not worded how LightRoom saves edits clearly. Edits are saved in LightRoom's data base, and are not automatically saved to the sidecar *.XMP files unless the Automatically write changes to XMP box is checked.

Cheers,

Dan