Hi--I see that Nikonians is offering a deal for Capture One (half off). I just did a quick search and I don't know what the difference between these two programs is (admittedly, my search was quick). Both are image converters (RAW) and both are image editors. Both claim to use Nikon camera settings. So what's the difference? I already (happily) use NX2 and have grown quite proficient with it. What's the value proposition of changing to Capture One?

Thanks.

Melinda

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Melinda

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Capture NX2 was developed by Nikon and is owned by Nikon. The Nikon programs - Capture NX2 and View NX2 are Nikon developed and supported products. Both programs are RAW converters, but they are more than that as they are full blown editors that allow you to change camera settings during the editing process. Capture NX2 was developed in conjunction with Nik Software and contains a number of additional capabilities - including U Point technology developed by Nik. There are a number of other features "baked in" to the Nikon programs such as lens correction for Nikon lenses.

Capture One is a separate company and completely unrelated to Nikon. Nikon provides the information to the developers of camera software so that camera settings can be interpreted while rendering the RAW image. Some companies use those settings while others ignore camera settings and allow you to use your own custom settings. Capture One does not allow you to change camera settings in post processing - only the Nikon programs have that capability.

Now Capture One is a very good program in its own right. Capture One is owned by Phase One, the developer of some very high end high resolution cameras and camera backs for medium format cameras. The software is used by a number of professionals including Nikonians Academy instructor Michael Mariant. It is predominantly for those with an Adobe based workflow but there is no reason why you could not still use Capture NX2 as your editor. Capture One supports a wide range of cameras other than Nikon. The shadow recovery and color rendition capabilities are quite good.

Capture One is a separate program that can be used for editing just like any of the other programs on the market but it has no connection with Nikon or Capture.

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"Capture One does not allow you to change camera settings in post processing - only the Nikon programs have that capability. "

Well, a little clarification. Only Nikon products let you change settings that exactly replicate the look of changing those same settings in the camera. Other products will either attempt to replicate those same types of changes (some very closely, others not as closely) or will forgo that with their own scheme.

>"Capture One does not allow you to change camera
>settings in post processing - only the Nikon programs have
>that capability. "
>
>Well, a little clarification. Only Nikon products let you
>change settings that exactly replicate the look of changing
>those same settings in the camera. Other products will either
>attempt to replicate those same types of changes (some very
>closely, others not as closely) or will forgo that with their
>own scheme.


Wow really? So in Lightroom3, you can't change stops, white-balance or D-Lighting which is in ViewNX2? There is probably a similar slide but not quite the same? Can you explain more? I was thinking about getting Lightroom but did not know what to expect since I've only used ViewNX.

You can replicate almost all looks in Lightroom. The only in camera setting that it doesn't have an equivalent for is the d-lighting controls. Lightroom has its own camera profiles for vignettes, chromatic aberrations, distortion, etc. It also emulates the Nikon picture controls. It lets you modify the exposure and white balance, etc. I recommend downloading the 30 day trial version and see if it works for you.

There will be many opinions on this as you will hear other programs do attempt to mimic the Nikon settings and will give you a fairly close approximation as to what you will get from View NX2 or Capture NX2. BUT none of the other programs can read any of your camera setting that you used to take the picture, with the exception of white balance,so picture controls are useless unless your post processor is using the Nikon SDK, which most don't, including Adobe Products. Within Picture controls are your settings of sharpening, brightness, contrast, saturation, hue, and noise reduction. No other post processor can properly handle a file if you set ADL in camera, as Nikon uses a proprietary algorithm to apply to the image. So the other programs not knowing exactly what you set provide you with their own tools to mimic the Nikon settings and they come close, but if your intention is to start with exactly what you saw on your camera screen, than only the Nikon SW will do that. The people who use the Adobe products as their main processor are happy with the trade off as they consider the power and speed of the Adobe tools to outweigh the fact that they will not start with the final Nikon image and in many cases they believe because they intend to make major changes anyway, that it does not matter. So the best thing to do is to download trial copies of whatever SW you want to use and see what works for you. I have many years of Photoshop under my belt, but I use CNX2 for all my Nikon RAW processing as I feel it gives me a better quicker result as I try my best to get my images as good as I can right out of the camera, and do minimal post processing. I do use Photoshop when I want to do things like blend two images or do Pano's, etc. But in general CNX2 is much easier to use.

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