NIKON CAPTURE NX2 USER MANUAL Pdf Download | ManualsLib

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Capture NX-D is a non-destructive RAW image processing application that utilizes a sidecar system to save adjustments for Nikon photographers looking to edit and process Nikon. NEF or. NRW files. By using a sidecar file, instead of storing changes in the original file, Capture NX-D is non-destructive. This means you can always reprocess an image without having to undo all of your previous changes.

NEF and. NRW files from all Nikon digital cameras—current or older. Photographers who are used to working with their. Capture NX-D uses the same genuine Nikon RAW processing engine that you’re already used to working with so migration to the new software will be seamless and consistent from image to image. If you backup your images to an external hard drive, removable media or the cloud, you will need to make sure that this folder stays with the original images. If this folder or the image adjustment file is deleted, changes will be lost.

Once the. You can also save images as JPG files. Floating palettes can be arranged in a workspace that best supports your workflow style and needs—even positioned on a second monitor—and you can choose from seven different display styles. Images can be viewed as thumbnails, double clicked as full image previews, or with the current image preview and thumbnails combined.

You can also view images in a side-by-side comparison if you want to see before and after views, and compare various images in 2-up and 4-up layouts.

Features of Capture NX-D include batch processing, levels and curves adjustments, adjustments to Nikon Picture Controls including the latest Picture Control styles as well as with RAW files from older cameras, white balance, noise reduction, unsharp mask and camera and lens corrections.

Other features of Picture Control Utility 2 include finer adjustments of each parameter, expandable window size, flexible size of the preview screen, larger display for easy setting of fine-tuning and more. And, you can also create custom Picture Controls to upload to your camera. Click here to download Capture NX-D software. By clicking Sign Up, you are opting to receive educational and promotional emails from Nikon Inc.

You can update your preferences or unsubscribe any time. Search Articles. Glossary Off On. View a large image with thumbnails visible as well. View images as thumbnails only. Using the Bird’s Eye view, you can view a zoomed in area of your image, and see exactly which part of the image is being zoomed in. The floating palettes can be placed on a second monitor, left floating on top of an image or docked for ease of use.

Featuring Diane Berkenfeld. More Like This More articles like this. Article Collections. Articles like this, right in your inbox. First Name required. Last Name required. Email required. Popular Topics. More from Nikon. Close Window Share this article by email. Your email has been sent. We like sharing articles, too!

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Nikon capture nx2 manual pdf free download

 

Base Mask has Selection Control Point added. Base Mask added– overridden by Selection Control Point. You can link multiple adjustments into a single Edit Step. This technique is very handy with local adjustments if you want to apply more than one effect to the same selection area.

A common trick in the field to even out high-contrast scenes was to use a graduated neutral-density filter. The overlay view will disappear. In this image, the sky and mountains can be darkened. After you created the Dodge and Burn tools on the previous page, you might want to use the same effect on other images. Rather than manually adjusting the Edit Steps each time, it is a tremendous time saver to create a Settings File of your Edit Step s and apply it using the Batch tool.

This is the only step you want to save. When you are finished, the new setting will be stored in the batch settings list under the Batch icon. Make sure that only item checked in the Save Adjustments dialog is the setting you want to save. The Control Point approach to making selections is fast and intuitive. Creating a selection that would normally require several minutes or more of mask work in Photoshop can be done with a single mouse click in Capture NX2 using a Control Point.

Color Control Points and Selection Control Points both use the same technology, and so both create selections in the same way. The difference between these two tools is that while Selection Control Points simply define a selection in an Edit Step, Color Control Points have a suite of tools built into them for adjusting local color, brightness, and contrast.

A simple rule is that if you are making adjustments to light and color that require a complex selection, Color Control Points should be your first choice. One last thing about Control Points: not every image needs them, and those that do often only need a small number of Control Points.

It can be very tempting to start adding Control Points in all your images. Remember, sometimes less is more. Each slider controls a different adjustment parameter. The most commonly used controls are the Brightness, Contrast, and Saturation sliders, which are visible by default. Selected areas are shown in white. The main slider attached to a Control Point adjusts the size of the effect. The size slider determines the relative distance from the control point that the effect is spread over.

This will give you a feel for how the tool is making selections. Put the control point on a diverse area of the image, and the selection changes dramatically. Notice how the moon top was not selected, as it did not match the pixel information in the sky. You can add more than one Color Control Point to your image, but it is important to know how multiple Control Points interact. When you place two Control Points in the same Edit Step, they will act to cancel each other out in areas of overlap.

This property of Control Points is actually quite useful. Notice that the face turns black. If you want to create additive effects with multiple Color Control Points where effects are not cancelled out , then use separate Edit Steps A second Color Control Point placed on the face chooses the skin tones, and for your Control Points. Then the effects will overlap. Control Point behaves as though all its sliders are set to zero. While you cannot add to the area selected by a Color Control point, you can use the minus brush to remove the effect from parts of your image.

These are the protected areas that the Color Control Point can no longer affect. Rather than adding another Color Control Point and trying to manually adjust each slider to match the settings of the original point, you can use the Duplicate command to make exact copies of your Control Points. Place a Color Control Point on your image and adjust the sliders to your liking. As an alternative, you can right- click on the Control Point and choose the Duplicate command from the contextual menus.

Move the duplicate point to where you want to place it in the image bottom. Color Control Points are my go-to tool to recover shadow detail in photos taken of people wearing baseball caps where the face is in the shadows.

The best part about using a Control Point for this effect is that it looks totally natural when applied correctly– and it is ridiculously easy to apply it correctly. The unfilled circle on the triangle represents the current color of your control point. Turn the wheel to adjust hue, or place the dot wherever you want in the triangle. You can use the eyedropper icon to pick out a color point from anywhere on your image. Click the eyedropper icon and then click an area on your image that has the color you desire.

It is very easy to get unnatural looking results. Click and drag the edge of the color The eyedropper icon lets you pick a wheel to change hue. Opening the Swatches Panel gives you access to commonly used colors. No longer do you need to use a separate pixel editor program to edit your image simply because of a dust spot. The Red Eye Control Point is used to remove the red-eye effect sometimes seen in indoor flash photos. Of course, not all my images will need these tools, but it is nice to know that they are there when the situation presents itself.

It makes removing dust spots absolutely painless. Auto Retouch Brush in 1 Open the image action Notice the dust spots in this image. Adjust the size of the Auto Retouch Brush using either the size slider that appears beneath the toolbar, or by After Auto Retouch Brush using the keyboard shortcuts [ or ].

Repeat for additional dust spots, offending seagulls, or anything else that is small and distracting. Tip: Keep your sensor clean One way to get rid of dust spots is to have a clean sensor. I recommend the Copper Hill method. Before We all have shots where our subject looks like the devil with red eyes.

Use them in the situations where they are warranted. Obviously, if your horizon is level in the image then using the straighten tool makes little sense. Use the Straighten tool to correct tilted images. Drag the Straighten Tool across the horizon line or other reference point.

Some lenses, especially super-zoom lenses and wide-angle lenses, will produce images with slight distortions. You can use the Distortion Control Tool in Capture NX2 to correct distortions in your images caused by lens aberrations.

Note that white areas appear around the image. You can change the fill color using the Fill color tool in the Edit Step.

Drag the slider to the right to correct barrel distortion. One way to use the Crop Tool is to help improve your compositions. Remember, the Crop Tool does not resize your image. Use constrained cropping to maintain a particular aspect ratio for your image. Use the in your image. As anchor points on the corners and sides of the crop frame to resize it.

Click the Enter key on your keyboard or double- click inside the crop area to set the crop. You can remove a crop at any time by deleting the crop step from the Edit List.

Not to worry; the effect will stay applied in exactly the same place you originally put the Control Point. Warning: Placing Control Points after cropping If you place a Control Point on your image after you have cropped it, and then later decide to delete the Crop Edit Step, the Control Point will not only move in your image, but its effect will be replotted, as well. I strongly encourage you to crop after all Control Points have been added to your image to avoid issues.

In addition, if you install 3rd- party filters, like Nik Color Efex Pro, these items will be displayed in the Filter Menu. This of course allows you to apply Filter Effects globally or locally. This filter will darken the complementary color to the color you choose. For example, a yellow filter will darken blues in your image and lighten yellows.

This is a filter that I use very little, if at all. Colorize Use the colorize filter to overlay colors onto the image. Use the color selector or eyedropper tool from the Colorize tool to choose the desired color. Black and White Conversion Use this filter to convert color images to black and white.

The filter option works in the same way as the filters in the monochrome settings in Picture Control. These filters will show up in the Filter Menu, and are also applied in Edit Steps. The filter options you see will depend on the version of Color Efex you have installed. By now, you have probably noticed that when you disable in-camera sharpening in Picture Control, your image looks quite soft. In Capture Sharpening, you need to consider our camera. Second, you must also consider our subject matter.

Output Sharpening happens as the very last step in the output stage of your workflow and takes into consideration the size and destination of your image. A small image destined for the web will be sharpened much differently than a 16×20 inkjet print. Capture and Output Sharpening are applied as global adjustments. In between the two sharpening steps, it is an option to perform some selective sharpening or blurring of our image to get a desired effect. Noise Removal Depending on your camera and how you use it, noise may or may not be an issue.

Every camera manufacturer has its own approach to noise removal, but one thing is constant; removing noise can cause a loss of fine detail in images. Your sharpening settings will be impacted by any noise removal settings you use, because these two processes are effectively working against each other. Therefore, it is important to be able to adjust sharpening settings in the context of noise removal. In my opinion, leaving noise removal up to the photographer is a good thing.

If you plan on using any of these programs some of which are quite good , do not sharpen your image at all, and do all your noise reduction and final output sharpening in Photoshop or Photoshop Elements. First, it provides excellent control over image sharpness. Second, Capture NX2 automatically applies USM only to the luminosity channel of your image, reducing the appearance of color shifts and other artifacts.

The third, and possibly nicest feature of sharpening in Capture NX2 is the fact that sharpening becomes a non-destructive process.

While there are ways to sharpen non-destructively in Photoshop, those techniques are far more complicated and require bitmap layers that can easily double the image file size. Think of it as a master volume control for USM. Radius: This slider changes the distance over which the USM effect is applied. A small radius sharpens fine detail, a large radius sharpens overall shape. Threshold: The threshold slider adjusts the sensitivity of the USM tool to differences in tone values between adjacent pixels.

The value you enter is the number of tonal steps that any two adjacent pixels must differ by in order to be affected by the tool. A threshold of 0 would sharpen just about anything in the image; a threshold of would sharpen almost nothing. Make sure Picture Control sharpening is set to zero 0. Clockwise and then adjust the from top left: No sharpening applied; over-sharpened image; proper Capture intensity slider to get Sharpening.

That to your hard drive and way, I can quickly choose between Neutral, Standard, and then use the Manage Vivid presets from the batch icon and turn off sharpening at Settings tool from the NX2 preferences options to the same time. Settings files can only be opened from within Capture NX2 when an image is active in the Edit Window. Another sharpening technique uses the High- Pass filter to enhance image contrast.

To apply high-pass sharpening: 1 Open an image file. Your image will turn gray. NR blurs noise, sharpening enhances noise. Noise starts to appear in images as you increase the ISO setting in your camera. Different sensors have different noise qualities, but in general, noise can occur in either the chrominance color part of your image or the luminance detail part of your image. Note the mild chrominance color noise and moderate luminance noise grain.

The quality setting will greatly impact the amount of time it takes to process the Noise Reduction filter. The two adjustment sliders seem simple enough: Intensity and Sharpness.

The sharpness slider works by restoring detail in the luminosity channel, while the Intensity slider blurs both color and detail. People obsess about noise and noise reduction. I suggest that Noise Reduction be applied sparingly. Consider that just about every digital camera on the market today provides images that are significantly cleaner than film ever was, even at high ISOs.

When should you use Noise Reduction? When can you skip Noise Reduction? If you apply NR to your image, consider using a lower amount of USM, with a higher radius and threshold than you would normally use. This setting will help prevent your USM step from re-sharpening all the noise you just tried to remove! Intensity is on the left side of the table, and sharpness 5 settings are listed at the top.

The intensity slider functions to blur image data, especially in the chrominance color channels, which helps to 10 remove the appearance of noise.

The sharpness slider reduces the blur from the intensity slider, but it does so primarily from the luminosity channel. The trade off of most NR tools is that it is easy to remove color chrominance noise 25 without harming image sharpness; if there is luminance noise grain , removing it destroys detail significantly.

Usually, there are areas in images that have detail we wish to preserve, and other areas which are out of focus or where sharpness is not critical, like skies.

Make sure sharpening is turned off and that you have not performed any sharpening on the image. Adjust the intensity slider so that the color noise is removed. The image will look smeared. Optional: Selection Control Points are very useful for adding NR to skies at a strong level Use the Opacity Mixer to reduce Luminance opacity until the while leaving the rest of image has detail again.

Note the chrominance and luminance noise. Sharpening will tend to counteract this blur. You may want to reduce the radius slightly if you get major halos in the image. Adding noise reduction is always at the expense of some image detail, so use it sparingly. Nikon D2Xs, For more on versions, refer to page Typically, that means making a print, but sometimes it means making a small JPEG for the web, or an image that I can send to friends or clients via email.

How you optimize your image for its final output depends on the size and quality of the image, as well as its final destination. Most often, I resize my images for printing them without cropping them first. That is, I keep the image in its native aspect ratio and either make the image smaller or larger, depending on the print size.

There are two methods for resizing images: resizing while resampling and resizing without resampling. Resampling allows you to set the image resolution by interpolation while also scaling the image. When you use resampling, the dimensions of the image, in pixels, changes and the file size will increase or decrease. Resizing without resampling will keep the pixel dimensions and file size constant; resolution will change depending on the size you make the image.

The method that you choose will depend on the final output size and destination of your image. The other side of the image will be adjusted proportionally. Resizing without resampling will change the image resolution but keep the file size in pixels the same as the original.

Resizing with Resampling will allow the File Size to grow or shrink, depending on the image size. Note that the original The most common use of the Crop Tool is to produce an image that has a particular aspect ratio.

Common picture frames, however, come in the aspect ratio 8×10, 16x Set the aspect ratio to 8x Use portrait orientation for vertical shots; landscape orientation for horizontals. The other field will scale to 8 inches. This is why you need to combine a crop with a resize step in Capture NX2. Before you try this technique, it is critical that you have a calibrated monitor and you have installed the paper color profiles for your printer. The toughest part about soft-proofing is remembering out what the original image looked like.

This technique is a great way to ensure the best possible soft-proofs. This creates a copy of your image. At least I can be ready for that when I go to print the from the Target Profile image! Choose either relative colorimetric or perceptual rendering whichever you think looks best. Make sure black- point compensation is enabled. Understand that in some cases, a perfect match may not be possible due to the gamut color space of your printer. To overcome the sharpness loss when printing, I recommend another round of sharpening, often referred to as Output Sharpening.

As a general rule, an image properly sharpened for print will appear to be over-sharpened on the screen. This will add a High Pass filter into the open Edit Step. When you are saving an image for the Web or email, you need to make it smaller and convert it to the sRGB color space.

This procedure will do just that. Use relative colorimetric intent and black point compensation checked. The print dialog will open. Otherwise, Capture NX2 will try to scale the image to fit the paper. This will allow Capture NX2 to control the color settings. Higher quality settings result in a larger file size.

In the JPEG save options dialog, you can set the compression amount to vary file size. You can change this directory in the Capture NX2 preferences. Use the Open With Certainly, Capture NX2 puts a tremendous number of tools at your disposal. The other way to speed up image processing in Capture NX2 is to take advantage of its automated presets.

Other images require special handling, but the majority of my editing steps happen in mere seconds. In just one or two clicks of my mouse, I can apply Edit Steps that contain my most commonly used adjustments. The Save Settings dialog box will open.

I save my settings to the default location. Check the box next to the step you want to save. Make sure all the other steps are unchecked. This is useful for making changes to Picture Control Settings without having to expand the Develop Section. Make sure this is the only option selected, unless you want to save other parameters. You can access all your saved settings from the Batch Icon in the Edit List. All you need to do then is make the adjustments to the Edit Steps as you see fit.

The Settings preferences dialog will open. Note: If you move the location of a Settings File, it will no longer appear in the list. This will permanently delete the file from your computer, so use this option with care!

By using the versions tool, you can store multiple instruction sets for each NEF. For example, you can save different crops, different image sizes, or different processing effects into a single NEF.

Look for blue text to link you back to pages in Section I where you can refresh the use of a particular tool or technique. Portraits usually require soft lighting and low contrast. Colors should be slightly muted in formal portraits. These settings accomplish that. Control Points will let you easily add fill lighting effects.

After 7 Drag the point created on the chroma curve downward, and the widen it with the width slider. This links a second blur step along with the first one. The skin softener effect works by linking two different Gaussian Blur effects into the same Edit Step. Note: Perform this step after Capture Sharpening. Move up 4 Click two points on the Master Lightness Curve as shown in the illustration.

Then keep moving the slider to the right about 5 more units. Boost the saturation of reds and greens in the Chroma channel editor. Widen them with the width slider. Move the master chroma slider up to an output level of 5. If the image appears over- sharpened, reduce the Amount slider. To selectively remove haze from a scene, you can use a Color Control Point.

Even greater detail is provided by the service manual, which is not typically shipped with the product, but which can often be downloaded from Nikon service. If you want to help expand our database, you can upload a link to this website to download a user manual or service manual, ideally in. Your e-mail will not be displayed or otherwise used in any way. When you are finished, the new setting will be stored in the batch settings list under the Batch icon. Make sure that only item checked in the Save Adjustments dialog is the setting you want to save.

The Control Point approach to making selections is fast and intuitive. Creating a selection that would normally require several minutes or more of mask work in Photoshop can be done with a single mouse click in Capture NX2 using a Control Point. Color Control Points and Selection Control Points both use the same technology, and so both create selections in the same way. The difference between these two tools is that while Selection Control Points simply define a selection in an Edit Step, Color Control Points have a suite of tools built into them for adjusting local color, brightness, and contrast.

A simple rule is that if you are making adjustments to light and color that require a complex selection, Color Control Points should be your first choice. One last thing about Control Points: not every image needs them, and those that do often only need a small number of Control Points. It can be very tempting to start adding Control Points in all your images. Remember, sometimes less is more. Each slider controls a different adjustment parameter.

The most commonly used controls are the Brightness, Contrast, and Saturation sliders, which are visible by default. Selected areas are shown in white. The main slider attached to a Control Point adjusts the size of the effect. The size slider determines the relative distance from the control point that the effect is spread over. This will give you a feel for how the tool is making selections.

Put the control point on a diverse area of the image, and the selection changes dramatically. Notice how the moon top was not selected, as it did not match the pixel information in the sky. You can add more than one Color Control Point to your image, but it is important to know how multiple Control Points interact. When you place two Control Points in the same Edit Step, they will act to cancel each other out in areas of overlap. This property of Control Points is actually quite useful. Notice that the face turns black.

If you want to create additive effects with multiple Color Control Points where effects are not cancelled out , then use separate Edit Steps A second Color Control Point placed on the face chooses the skin tones, and for your Control Points. Then the effects will overlap. Control Point behaves as though all its sliders are set to zero. While you cannot add to the area selected by a Color Control point, you can use the minus brush to remove the effect from parts of your image.

These are the protected areas that the Color Control Point can no longer affect. Rather than adding another Color Control Point and trying to manually adjust each slider to match the settings of the original point, you can use the Duplicate command to make exact copies of your Control Points. Place a Color Control Point on your image and adjust the sliders to your liking. As an alternative, you can right- click on the Control Point and choose the Duplicate command from the contextual menus.

Move the duplicate point to where you want to place it in the image bottom. Color Control Points are my go-to tool to recover shadow detail in photos taken of people wearing baseball caps where the face is in the shadows.

The best part about using a Control Point for this effect is that it looks totally natural when applied correctly– and it is ridiculously easy to apply it correctly.

The unfilled circle on the triangle represents the current color of your control point. Turn the wheel to adjust hue, or place the dot wherever you want in the triangle. You can use the eyedropper icon to pick out a color point from anywhere on your image. Click the eyedropper icon and then click an area on your image that has the color you desire.

It is very easy to get unnatural looking results. Click and drag the edge of the color The eyedropper icon lets you pick a wheel to change hue. Opening the Swatches Panel gives you access to commonly used colors. No longer do you need to use a separate pixel editor program to edit your image simply because of a dust spot. The Red Eye Control Point is used to remove the red-eye effect sometimes seen in indoor flash photos.

Of course, not all my images will need these tools, but it is nice to know that they are there when the situation presents itself. It makes removing dust spots absolutely painless. Auto Retouch Brush in 1 Open the image action Notice the dust spots in this image. Adjust the size of the Auto Retouch Brush using either the size slider that appears beneath the toolbar, or by After Auto Retouch Brush using the keyboard shortcuts [ or ].

Repeat for additional dust spots, offending seagulls, or anything else that is small and distracting. Tip: Keep your sensor clean One way to get rid of dust spots is to have a clean sensor. I recommend the Copper Hill method. Before We all have shots where our subject looks like the devil with red eyes.

Use them in the situations where they are warranted. Obviously, if your horizon is level in the image then using the straighten tool makes little sense. Use the Straighten tool to correct tilted images. Drag the Straighten Tool across the horizon line or other reference point. Some lenses, especially super-zoom lenses and wide-angle lenses, will produce images with slight distortions.

You can use the Distortion Control Tool in Capture NX2 to correct distortions in your images caused by lens aberrations. Note that white areas appear around the image.

You can change the fill color using the Fill color tool in the Edit Step. Drag the slider to the right to correct barrel distortion. One way to use the Crop Tool is to help improve your compositions.

Remember, the Crop Tool does not resize your image. Use constrained cropping to maintain a particular aspect ratio for your image. Use the in your image. As anchor points on the corners and sides of the crop frame to resize it. Click the Enter key on your keyboard or double- click inside the crop area to set the crop.

You can remove a crop at any time by deleting the crop step from the Edit List. Not to worry; the effect will stay applied in exactly the same place you originally put the Control Point. Warning: Placing Control Points after cropping If you place a Control Point on your image after you have cropped it, and then later decide to delete the Crop Edit Step, the Control Point will not only move in your image, but its effect will be replotted, as well.

I strongly encourage you to crop after all Control Points have been added to your image to avoid issues. In addition, if you install 3rd- party filters, like Nik Color Efex Pro, these items will be displayed in the Filter Menu. This of course allows you to apply Filter Effects globally or locally. This filter will darken the complementary color to the color you choose. For example, a yellow filter will darken blues in your image and lighten yellows.

This is a filter that I use very little, if at all. Colorize Use the colorize filter to overlay colors onto the image. Use the color selector or eyedropper tool from the Colorize tool to choose the desired color. Black and White Conversion Use this filter to convert color images to black and white.

The filter option works in the same way as the filters in the monochrome settings in Picture Control. These filters will show up in the Filter Menu, and are also applied in Edit Steps.

The filter options you see will depend on the version of Color Efex you have installed. By now, you have probably noticed that when you disable in-camera sharpening in Picture Control, your image looks quite soft.

In Capture Sharpening, you need to consider our camera. Second, you must also consider our subject matter. Output Sharpening happens as the very last step in the output stage of your workflow and takes into consideration the size and destination of your image. A small image destined for the web will be sharpened much differently than a 16×20 inkjet print. Capture and Output Sharpening are applied as global adjustments. In between the two sharpening steps, it is an option to perform some selective sharpening or blurring of our image to get a desired effect.

Noise Removal Depending on your camera and how you use it, noise may or may not be an issue. Every camera manufacturer has its own approach to noise removal, but one thing is constant; removing noise can cause a loss of fine detail in images. Your sharpening settings will be impacted by any noise removal settings you use, because these two processes are effectively working against each other. Therefore, it is important to be able to adjust sharpening settings in the context of noise removal.

In my opinion, leaving noise removal up to the photographer is a good thing. If you plan on using any of these programs some of which are quite good , do not sharpen your image at all, and do all your noise reduction and final output sharpening in Photoshop or Photoshop Elements. First, it provides excellent control over image sharpness. Second, Capture NX2 automatically applies USM only to the luminosity channel of your image, reducing the appearance of color shifts and other artifacts.

The third, and possibly nicest feature of sharpening in Capture NX2 is the fact that sharpening becomes a non-destructive process. While there are ways to sharpen non-destructively in Photoshop, those techniques are far more complicated and require bitmap layers that can easily double the image file size. Think of it as a master volume control for USM. Radius: This slider changes the distance over which the USM effect is applied. A small radius sharpens fine detail, a large radius sharpens overall shape.

Threshold: The threshold slider adjusts the sensitivity of the USM tool to differences in tone values between adjacent pixels. The value you enter is the number of tonal steps that any two adjacent pixels must differ by in order to be affected by the tool. A threshold of 0 would sharpen just about anything in the image; a threshold of would sharpen almost nothing.

Make sure Picture Control sharpening is set to zero 0. Clockwise and then adjust the from top left: No sharpening applied; over-sharpened image; proper Capture intensity slider to get Sharpening. That to your hard drive and way, I can quickly choose between Neutral, Standard, and then use the Manage Vivid presets from the batch icon and turn off sharpening at Settings tool from the NX2 preferences options to the same time.

Settings files can only be opened from within Capture NX2 when an image is active in the Edit Window. Another sharpening technique uses the High- Pass filter to enhance image contrast. To apply high-pass sharpening: 1 Open an image file. Your image will turn gray. NR blurs noise, sharpening enhances noise. Noise starts to appear in images as you increase the ISO setting in your camera. Different sensors have different noise qualities, but in general, noise can occur in either the chrominance color part of your image or the luminance detail part of your image.

Note the mild chrominance color noise and moderate luminance noise grain. The quality setting will greatly impact the amount of time it takes to process the Noise Reduction filter. The two adjustment sliders seem simple enough: Intensity and Sharpness. The sharpness slider works by restoring detail in the luminosity channel, while the Intensity slider blurs both color and detail.

People obsess about noise and noise reduction. I suggest that Noise Reduction be applied sparingly. Consider that just about every digital camera on the market today provides images that are significantly cleaner than film ever was, even at high ISOs. When should you use Noise Reduction? When can you skip Noise Reduction? If you apply NR to your image, consider using a lower amount of USM, with a higher radius and threshold than you would normally use.

This setting will help prevent your USM step from re-sharpening all the noise you just tried to remove! Intensity is on the left side of the table, and sharpness 5 settings are listed at the top. The intensity slider functions to blur image data, especially in the chrominance color channels, which helps to 10 remove the appearance of noise. The sharpness slider reduces the blur from the intensity slider, but it does so primarily from the luminosity channel.

The trade off of most NR tools is that it is easy to remove color chrominance noise 25 without harming image sharpness; if there is luminance noise grain , removing it destroys detail significantly. Usually, there are areas in images that have detail we wish to preserve, and other areas which are out of focus or where sharpness is not critical, like skies. Make sure sharpening is turned off and that you have not performed any sharpening on the image.

Adjust the intensity slider so that the color noise is removed. The image will look smeared. Optional: Selection Control Points are very useful for adding NR to skies at a strong level Use the Opacity Mixer to reduce Luminance opacity until the while leaving the rest of image has detail again.

Note the chrominance and luminance noise. Sharpening will tend to counteract this blur. You may want to reduce the radius slightly if you get major halos in the image.

Adding noise reduction is always at the expense of some image detail, so use it sparingly. Nikon D2Xs, For more on versions, refer to page Typically, that means making a print, but sometimes it means making a small JPEG for the web, or an image that I can send to friends or clients via email.

How you optimize your image for its final output depends on the size and quality of the image, as well as its final destination. Most often, I resize my images for printing them without cropping them first.

That is, I keep the image in its native aspect ratio and either make the image smaller or larger, depending on the print size. There are two methods for resizing images: resizing while resampling and resizing without resampling. Resampling allows you to set the image resolution by interpolation while also scaling the image. When you use resampling, the dimensions of the image, in pixels, changes and the file size will increase or decrease.

Resizing without resampling will keep the pixel dimensions and file size constant; resolution will change depending on the size you make the image. The method that you choose will depend on the final output size and destination of your image. The other side of the image will be adjusted proportionally. Resizing without resampling will change the image resolution but keep the file size in pixels the same as the original. Resizing with Resampling will allow the File Size to grow or shrink, depending on the image size.

Note that the original The most common use of the Crop Tool is to produce an image that has a particular aspect ratio. Common picture frames, however, come in the aspect ratio 8×10, 16x Set the aspect ratio to 8x Use portrait orientation for vertical shots; landscape orientation for horizontals. The other field will scale to 8 inches.

This is why you need to combine a crop with a resize step in Capture NX2. Before you try this technique, it is critical that you have a calibrated monitor and you have installed the paper color profiles for your printer. The toughest part about soft-proofing is remembering out what the original image looked like. This technique is a great way to ensure the best possible soft-proofs. This creates a copy of your image.

At least I can be ready for that when I go to print the from the Target Profile image! Choose either relative colorimetric or perceptual rendering whichever you think looks best.

Make sure black- point compensation is enabled. Understand that in some cases, a perfect match may not be possible due to the gamut color space of your printer.

To overcome the sharpness loss when printing, I recommend another round of sharpening, often referred to as Output Sharpening. As a general rule, an image properly sharpened for print will appear to be over-sharpened on the screen. This will add a High Pass filter into the open Edit Step.

When you are saving an image for the Web or email, you need to make it smaller and convert it to the sRGB color space. This procedure will do just that. Use relative colorimetric intent and black point compensation checked.

The print dialog will open. Otherwise, Capture NX2 will try to scale the image to fit the paper. This will allow Capture NX2 to control the color settings. Higher quality settings result in a larger file size. In the JPEG save options dialog, you can set the compression amount to vary file size. You can change this directory in the Capture NX2 preferences. Use the Open With Certainly, Capture NX2 puts a tremendous number of tools at your disposal.

The other way to speed up image processing in Capture NX2 is to take advantage of its automated presets. Other images require special handling, but the majority of my editing steps happen in mere seconds.

In just one or two clicks of my mouse, I can apply Edit Steps that contain my most commonly used adjustments. The Save Settings dialog box will open.

I save my settings to the default location. Check the box next to the step you want to save. Make sure all the other steps are unchecked. This is useful for making changes to Picture Control Settings without having to expand the Develop Section.

Make sure this is the only option selected, unless you want to save other parameters. You can access all your saved settings from the Batch Icon in the Edit List. All you need to do then is make the adjustments to the Edit Steps as you see fit. The Settings preferences dialog will open. Note: If you move the location of a Settings File, it will no longer appear in the list. This will permanently delete the file from your computer, so use this option with care!

By using the versions tool, you can store multiple instruction sets for each NEF. For example, you can save different crops, different image sizes, or different processing effects into a single NEF. Look for blue text to link you back to pages in Section I where you can refresh the use of a particular tool or technique. Portraits usually require soft lighting and low contrast.

Colors should be slightly muted in formal portraits. These settings accomplish that. Control Points will let you easily add fill lighting effects. After 7 Drag the point created on the chroma curve downward, and the widen it with the width slider. This links a second blur step along with the first one.

The skin softener effect works by linking two different Gaussian Blur effects into the same Edit Step. Note: Perform this step after Capture Sharpening. Move up 4 Click two points on the Master Lightness Curve as shown in the illustration. Then keep moving the slider to the right about 5 more units. Boost the saturation of reds and greens in the Chroma channel editor. Widen them with the width slider. Move the master chroma slider up to an output level of 5.

If the image appears over- sharpened, reduce the Amount slider. To selectively remove haze from a scene, you can use a Color Control Point. Use duplicate Control Points to fill in other areas as needed. This is a very subtle effect, but it can add some clarity to images that have large, distant objects in them.

This is the basic formula for adjusting images of wildlife. I treat wildlife images as sort of a hybrid between landscapes and portraits. I usually want my wildlife shots to have rich colors, but I also need to retain detail in fur and feathers.

This is the basic routine I use for processing wildlife images. The Black and White Conversion filter allows you to change your color images into powerful black and white images. Leave the black luminance at 0 and the white luminance at Apply Capture Sharpening. Add duplicate Control Points as needed to cover the sky and trees. You further consent to service of process in any action arising from this Agreement by regular mail or other commercially reasonable means of receipted delivery.

If any provision of the Agreement shall be determined invalid for any reason, the remaining provisions shall not be invalidated and shall remain in full force and effect. This Agreement sets forth the entire agreement and understanding between you and Nikon, and supersedes and replaces any other agreements relating to the subject matter of this Agreement. The failure of any party to insist upon strict performance of any of the terms or provisions of this Agreement, or the exercise of any option, right or remedy contained herein, shall not be construed as a waiver of any future application of such term, provision, option, right or remedy, and such term, provision, option, right or remedy shall continue and remain in full force and effect.

The headings of the sections of this Agreement are inserted for convenience only and shall not constitute a part hereof or affect in any way the meaning or interpretation of this Agreement. Except as otherwise expressly provided herein, the provisions of section 3 and section 4 together with any provisions that by their express terms apply to periods after termination of this Agreement, shall survive termination of this Agreement for any reason.

Other products.

 

Nikon capture nx2 manual pdf free download. NIKON Capture NX2 Guide

 
Doing so will disable the Contrast Slider.

 
 

Capture NX 2 – Full Version (Boxed) | Nikon

 
 

One slight shortcoming is that while keyboard shortcuts are supported — for example, the F key toggles full-screen mode — there’s no list of shortcuts to be found in the otherwise-excellent user manual, and nor are they listed in the app’s settings.

We’ve sent a query over to Nikon about the keyboard shortcuts, and will update this article if and when we receive a response. There are relatively few downsides to the new UI. You can no longer undock and float panels to place them wherever you like on the screen, nor can you dock them in different locations to their defaults, other than for the film strip.

This defaults to a horizontal bar at the bottom of the screen, but can be switched to a vertical column at screen left instead. The navigation panel, folders and albums controls are all fixed at screen left, while the histogram, adjustments, EXIF information and keywording tools sit at the right of the screen.

Both of these side panels can easily be resized, or hidden with a single click on their centrally-located arrow buttons. The film strip lacks a similar button to allow it to be hidden, but you can hide it by dragging downwards when resizing.

In most respects, NX Studio’s editing controls are identical to that app, although it does add the Color Booster control from ViewNX-i alongside NX-D’s saturation tool, giving you access to other method. But what else do you gain by switching from NX-D? If your images are geotagged, you can also add location-based tags semi-automatically, choosing from a list of app-selected location name suggestions, or even from place names suggested via Wikipedia.

Confusingly, though, this functionality is available only when in map view, even though the ‘Set from location data’ button remains visible — albeit grayed out — in other views. I’d like to see Nikon correct that to be clickable regardless of your chosen view. Speaking of the map view, that’s another new addition, and it allows you to see geotagged images from your currently-selected folder or album on an interactive world map. You have a choice of map, satellite, hybrid or physical views provided by Google Maps.

Each individual image shows up as a yellow pushpin on the map, with the currently selected image being shown in red. If your camera recorded a compass bearing at capture time, that direction is also indicated on its pushpin when selected as shown in the screenshot above left, but not otherwise.

If you have an NMEA or GPX track log recorded by the camera itself or a compatible device, these can be imported and shown as a red track line. And once imported, they can be used to approximately geotag selected images based on their capture time as compared to the times recorded in the track log. Another new addition is support for movies, both in terms of playback and basic editing.

The editing functionality allows you to quickly trim the start and end of clips, or splice multiple files together. You can also combine multiple movie clips and images to make a new file complete with titles, captions, and overlaid music.

There are, however, only three transition effects, three still image durations with optional motion effect , and three brief music samples provided. You can also add your own music in. WAV or. M4A formats, and process movie clips to remove autofocus noise. Unfortunately, you’ll need quite a beefy processor and GPU for smooth playback if you shoot in 4K, let alone editing.

On my Dell XPS 15 laptop running Windows 10 version , I found p clips from the Nikon Z5, for example, played smoothly but those at 4K resolution stuttered badly. And that’s not down to the hardware, as VLC Media Player played them perfectly smoothly on the same computer, while Windows’ own Media Player and Photo apps only dropped a handful of frames. For one thing, you can now upload images and movies directly to Nikon’s Image Space service and YouTube, respectively.

You can also view slideshows with optional, user-provided background music, and the new program adds support for more obscure file formats such as 3D Multi Picture Object files or voice notes recorded on older Coolpix cameras. Really, I can only find a couple of omissions. As mentioned previously, you can no longer undock interface panels, nor can you change whether they appear in the left or right-side palettes. Other than that, I couldn’t find any other missing features this time around.

However, on testing the program I’ve found its results with identical settings to be visually indistinguishable from those of NX-D, even though precise file sizes do differ fractionally at the same compression level. With that being the case, I’ll refer you to the second page of my earlier article , instead, for a more detailed analysis. NX Studio is capable of delivering good image quality with very pleasing color and impressive shadow recovery, but feel Adobe still has a slight edge when it comes to fine detail at low sensitivities, which increases at higher sensitivities thanks to significantly stronger noise reduction from Nikon.

The good news is that with no noticeable change in image quality, and with all the same controls on offer as in both predecessors, NX Studio will read and apply all the same tweaks as did either earlier application, meaning you can upgrade without fear of having to rework all of your adjustments. As for performance, which was already a strong point of Nikon’s software compared to that provided by many manufacturers, things are also pretty similar to before.

Adobe still has a small but noticeable edge in the speed of final output processing, and a more substantial advantage in terms of preview performance. Using the same six comparison images as for my previous article, it took 28 seconds to complete the batch.

By way of comparison, performance leader Adobe still holds the crown with a time of In my time with Nikon NX Studio, I’ve found it to be very stable, but that’s not to say it’s perfect, nor would I expect a brand-new app to be. I’ve run across a couple of bugs, although only one strikes me as particularly significant. And both are related to issues I found with the previous apps, as well.

Firstly, there’s still an issue with detecting dragging of the right-panel scroll bar, regardless of whether the program is running maximized or not.

But where this only happened with my Dell Active Pen, it now also happens with both the touch screen and even when dragging with the mouse. Simply using the scroll wheel or a two-fingered touchpad swipe works around this, however.

The program also ignores Windows’ scaling settings entirely in mixed-resolution monitor setups when running on an ultra high-def screen. That makes it extremely difficult to use on a 4K display unless you either lower the resolution or disable your lower-res screen s. The good news is that Nikon is aware of this problem and working on a fix. In the meantime, desktop users with mixed-resolution displays can work around it using a scaling setting built into NX Studio, but notebook users will find that they constantly have to change this setting — which also requires an app restart — every time they disconnect or reconnect a display of differing resolution.

I have to say that it’s a big step in the right direction, giving photographers that use Nikon cameras a powerful editing application where they can perform most of the edits they’d want to. The most important thing here is that the new program provides basically everything of any significance from its two predecessors, allowing you to ditch one of them altogether. Its new interface is noticeably better and easier on the eye, and its performance and image quality are just as good as before.

I think this first iteration of NX Studio is a great replacement for Nikon’s earlier apps. I really do like the current version of NX Studio. I went back to it the other day just to see how it would handle some images I had just shot. Normally everything I do goes thru Lightroom and Photoshop. NX Studio displayed my shots so well and I could make very useful and effective adjustments basic adjustments. I I am always blending multiple exposures image bracketing and often make panos.

The other main issue is slow response. When I change color temp, for example, it takes at least three seconds for the change to appear with NX Studio. In Lightroom it’s almost instant. If only Nikon could continue filling out the program, but I doubt they will, sadly. Just not enough profit from trying to match LR and PS. But the program is an extra draw to use Nikon cameras, for sure. I like NX Studio a lot. I do my selections and most of the editing here.

I want to see the difference between pictures, and before and after editing changes. But this is really difficult because between viewing the two results, the screen blacks out for several seconds. By then it’s hard to see the difference. There is a before and after function where photos are side by side with a scroll function, both showing at the same time.

No black out. A 12 MB file gets shrunk to about 1. That should be addressed, as it is a real drawback. No dual display support? Everything else seems so far to be an improvement, or at least an equivalent to ViewNX-i, but not being able to open the selected image on my second display is very disappointing indeed.

I run it with dual displays with no issues. I did have to figure out the settings to make it happen however. Do a search on-line and you will find the directions to make it happen.

What I was after was menus on one smaller screen and image alone on the other. How have the fixed menu locations on Studio affected the dual screens?

For people with large numbers of files, should offer the option of showing file names in a compact format rather than thumbnails taking up huge amounts of the screen. The results are excellent and the software is quite speedy and the new workflow is much quicker.

Thanks Nikon for a great professional grade, free, software. So far, it has crashed on my Win 10 PC several times, and it often refuses to actually execute things like Retouch. Convoluted to say the least. Nice freebie for a light user but definitely not in the same league as a professional tool like Lightroom, either cloud or classic. I have a decent setup, recent i7, 16GB ram, but NX studio runs kinda slow and my computer is churning away just to go through photos.

Strangely, when accessing photos via memory card, it’s much faster, so it doesn’t like pulling from my folder on the computer. Wondering if I set it up wrong or something I have set up the colours spaces so they are identical in NX and Affnity. When I export a tiff file to my harddisk and then open it in Affinity, the colors are spot on.

I have never had this problem when exporting from Capture One Pro 10 to Affinity. Any ideas? Other than that I really like the programme. But if I have to go the tiff route every time, I have to transfer a raw-file to Affinity that is definitely a “deal breaker” even though the programme is free. Finally figured out what happened. NX studio simple throws the raw-edit, I have done, away when it sends the raw-file to Affinity. Nice work Nikon or something Bye Bye Nx Studio.

I am used to that possibility in ViewNX Yes but you cannot specify the required file type. If you edit a raw file in studio and then open in something else from studio, the raw file is passed to the other program.

NX-D allowed one to specify 16 bit for example. I’ll stick with NX-D for now, hopefully they will fix this. Would not consider it a deal breaker, but agree that it complicates the workflow. I already posted it to Nikon and hope for an update in a not so far future. Another issue I found is noise reduction. The advanced settings which I could apply for my D files are not available. I hoped for an update within NX-D or at least enhanced settings in NX Studio, but regrettably this has not been remedied yet.

Come on, Nikon, you can do better Looked good for a couple of days but now constantly crashing my Windows 10 machine with ‘Page Fault in non-paged area’ – very disappointed :. Yes, I’ve experienced similar issues and others as well posted below.

I don’t think this is ready for use yet. I’ll be sticking with NXD for now for my initial processing of nature photos. One challenge I’m going to have is figuring out how to revert back to View NX-i, which I find easier for tagging and meta data. With all the problems with NX-Studio, I can’t trust that it won’t mess up my edits if I try to use it for geotagging. Anyone know of a way to have something similar to the Photo Tray with this new program?

I used it to sort out “keepers” then edited and exported them. Expected focus stacking in NX studio so that a paid application altogether could be done away with. Using it, and colour me impressed! Needs fine-tuning. One important note for me is that when it first opens the unedited the RAW files, I find that edges and details especially on fabrics and faces are not as good as Lightroom. Is it because Lightroom uses Sensei as a demosaic method?

The processor was struggling on the MacBook Air but the new M1 processor on makes it a breeze. After I downloaded and installed the new NX, my Photoshop stopped working. Does anyone else have that problem too?

I downloaded NX Studio not expecting much — not a fan of Capture. But Studio is pretty impressive. It loads quickly and has a good range of basic tools. I see myself using it a lot. So I notice the Photo tray is gone. Is there any way to do the same thing? I used it to hold all the images I wanted to edit.

It looks good, but I don’t think I understand the color management options. Without getting weird results. ViewNX-i was quite sluggish on my system. ViewNX-i would take a few minutes to start up on my system, which is a i7 3. Perhaps it was the size of my photo library that it was taking a long time to load. But NX Studio is quite snappy. Oh its also great to see that data and edits can be placed directly into the raw file rather than side car.

Its actually really good, I am pretty impressed with it, much better than having separate software for separate tasks. I noticed one bug, if you make edits and then quit the app MAC it was ask to save the edits, select yes and it returns back to the software rather than quitting. Good to see this and great for Nikon owners who don’t want to pay for additional software.

I’ve tested it, and it works well, very well given that it’s free. Compared to the predecessor, usability is considerably better. However, I gain better and more flexible results with DxO Lab. That’s worth the price for me, and it’s actually much more affordable than the incumbents. It’s part of the package when you buy a Nikon camera.

To be fair comparing NX Studio with other tools make sense it they ar free too. NX Studio is a nice gift to Nikon users, with some limitations.

If lens correction is important to you, and if you use non Nikon lenses on your camera body, there is an interesting alternative.

Rawtherapee free can read the database of Adobe DNG converter free. The list of Nikon compatble lenses from Adobe is pretty extensive, That way if I share the file or whatever, or ingest it into another program, like LR, the coordinates wouild already be there. And I don’t think this could be too difficult. I mean I assume that whether the GPS coordinates are there or not, the overall structure data fields are probably there in the file they’re just probably blank so adding this after that fact shouldn’t be too hard.

I know that there are some tools people can use, but this is an OEM piece of software, and sometimes third-party apps writing back into proprietary RAW files can cause corruption. You can put the location information by clicking on the location on a map or you can use a gpx track and the software can automatically extract the location information for all images in the folder.

This is why i use it. No but I’m talking about NX saving it back into the RAW file so that other programs can ingest the data by simply reading the file. I think NX stores it in a separate file or a database on the computer. Ah my mistake then. You could try to change the ‘Save Type’ setting to save adjustments to the original file instead of the sidecar file.

That might work but i didn’t try it. At this point it’s not a big deal. In reality it’s also not a huge issue either as you can usually just give people a name of a place and let them find it on their own — the only times it’s helpful is if you’re off the beaten path a bit. I would like to see the ability to add watermarks upon export in a future update in this program. I am transitioning to a phase where I might be sharing more of my photos on social media, where I would like to protect my best pictures through watermarking.

Lightroom has a good system for adding watermarks, but I detest having to struggle through its catalog system to edit one picture. There are a few things that were not carried over from CNX-D. Much has been mentioned about a loss of a convenient feature for exporting TIFFs to Photoshop and I noticed they removed an icon under the Adjustments tab for reverting back to your original image. This revert back icon should be restored. Unfortunately again not thought to the end: – do not display more than 4 images at the same time – no simultaneous resizing of the selected images in the viewer – no catalog for quick display with reduced image size like Media Pro.

Thanks for another great review Mike. Wasn’t even aware this existed, downloaded it and I’ll be giving it a fair chance. Any chance of a Silkypix review? Very good results with that one, if you can get used to the clunky interface. I know AKH. Hopefully they will fix all the missing things in the next version found several things that didn’t work. Can you make any localised edits via selections or brushes?

Is there a healing brush? Well that was an interesting surprise Will need to try it out a bit. The killer though will probably be a lack of plugins as publishing to my zenfolio site is something that just works from LR I rarely use photoshop though, I almost exclusively work in lightroom Ever notice that almost everything is compared to the Adobe products?

Sylvain C, A lot has changed in Lightroom in 4 years! I find that most of the Adobe haters will spend thousands on useless gear, like lenses they don’t need or use, filters they don’t use, etc etc, and then go cheap on processing software which they would use. You might not use everything every time you sit down at the computer, but it’s sure nice to have it when you need it.

After all, to put it in perspective, it costs less than 1 good quality UV filter per year. Not really, it’s very tough to find clients that are willing to pay, I get the very odd paying job, mostly real estate photography, but for the most part I just do it for fun, it’s a great hobby.

I installed NX studio over the weekend, and played with it a bit. I can definitely see functionality gaps between it and lightroom, and some are deal breakers for me, that is not to complain on this new initiative from Nikon, as I understand its in its early days, and will undergo transformations. Still I agree with munn1 that I will be sticking with LR for now, as it is pretty good value, and I’m in a similar position of sometimes paid work corporate events , mostly hobby.

I will definitely be keeping an eye on the Nikon software though. Very interesting. Unfortunately NX-Studio can’t open these files. I bake changes into ‘developed’ tif files and leave the original raw files alone.

There’s comfort in knowing that the raw file is always there, pristine and unchanged, whatever I might do to bugger things up.

Also, Highlights recovery and Shadow Brightness tool is great. I recommend. For videos I use other applications. I agree. Got the free manufacturer-specific version with my Lumix and eventually paid for the all-format license.

It’s not a slick product from the UI point of view but very powerful in terms of image manipulation. Page Color Management Options Color Management Options Once the setup wizard has installed the files onto your computer, you will be provided with options to set up your color management preferences.

Support for computer related issues is free for either six or twelve months from the date of your first call to Nikon, depending on your product. Please ask our customer service representative for details. Also, visit6 our technical support web site at www. Using the Browser To open an image using the browser, follow these steps: Open the Folders palette, the Browser palette will automatically open.

Click on the pull-down menu for the Open destination folder with other application after transfer option. The NEF file format saves the complete contents of the Edit List palette along with the original image. All changes made to the image are stored separately within the file, enabling a non-destructive image editing workflow. This file format enables you to save a greater number of images using the same amount of hard disk space as the other file formats.

To create such a small file size, a form of compression is used that irreversibly affects the quality of the image. Page 23 Next, modify elements that affect only localized areas, such as blemishes and small distracting elements.

Then, apply effects that add a style or mood to the image. Finally, prepare the image for output by resizing and sharpening. Following these simple guidelines can help improve the quality of your images and provide a more structured approach to enhancing your images.

The print function is both easy and powerful, enabling you to create high quality, fully color managed prints. You can select Print… from the File menu at any time to print the current image, or you can select multiple images from within the Browser palette to create a print package. If desired, check the Crop Photos to Fit option to ensure the entire printable surface is utilized.

Page 27 Check the Use Output Resolution option. If the image is larger than the page, click on the Page Setup button and select the appropriate paper size that the image will fit upon. Page Printing Contact Sheets Printing contact sheets To print a series of images as a contact sheet, follow these steps: Open the Browser palette and select the images you would like to print.

To select multiple files, hold either the Shift key and click on the first and last images of a range, or hold the Ctrl Windows or command Macintosh keys while single-clicking on each additional file you want to add.

Page 29 Click on the Select Layout option, and then in the provided pull-down menu, choose the number of images you would like to display on a single page. Alternatively, you can use the Select Picture Size option and select the size of each picture.

Capture NX 2 will automatically tile the available images to fit onto one or more pages. Page Batch Processing Batch Processing Batch processing is the automatic application of one or more enhancements to a series of images.

Typically, a photographer will use a batch process to apply a predefined series of adjustments to several images at once. Capture NX 2 contains even more methods of batch processing than before. You will then be presented with the Batch Process dialog. Click on the Browse… button in the Source section and locate the folder of images you wish to process. Page 32 Check the Rename box if you would like to change the name of the processed files. Click on the Edit… button to call up the File Naming dialog and determine the naming convention for the processed images.

Use the Select File Format pull-down menu to select the file format for the processed images. To select all of the images in the current folder, navigate to the Edit menu and choose Select All. For the Destination option, choose where the new JPEG or TIFF files should be placed by using the Select folder option to place them in a new folder or using the Use source folder option to place them in To select multiple files, either hold the Shift key and click on the first and last images of a range, or hold the Ctrl key Windows or command key Macintosh while single-clicking on each additional file you want to add.

The Advanced section provides you with options for the selected file format. Start Click to begin converting the files. Page General General Open With Application Choose this option to select the application you wish to use when opening files with the Open With… command in the File menu. Page Intent Intent Use this preference to set the default rendering intent for the various color management features throughout Capture NX 2. The different rendering intents control how colors from your image are made to fit into the colors that your printer can produce as indicated by the printer profile.

Please note: different printer and paper combinations, as well as the different software used to create printer profiles, benefit from different rendering intents. When Point Sample is selected, a single pixel will be sampled when a dropper is used. Grid Color Click on the color patch to bring up the color picker and select the color for the gridlines displayed on top of the image when the Show Grid option is enabled. Both cache systems speed up the interaction of Capture NX 2 by storing processed information on the hard disk, enabling Capture NX 2 to use the cached information instead of reprocessing the files.

The browsing cache is used for the thumbnails created and displayed in the Browser palette, while the editing cache is used for NEF files saved during editing. Page 49 With the default settings, Capture NX 2 will utilize up to 2 gigabytes of hard disk space to store cache files. If all 2 gigabytes of allocated space are utilized by cache files, Capture NX 2 will begin to replace the oldest cache files with new cache files. You can click on any of the available presets to display the contents in the field editor, duplicate the preset using the Duplicate button, or delete the preset using the Delete button.

Page Labels Labels Label Compatibility Use the Label Compatibility pull-down menu if you use another digital asset management software application to tag and sort your images.

Capture NX 2 supports a number of digital asset management software applications. If you select the appropriate option from the pull-down menu, Capture NX 2 will be able to read the label and rating information added by that application.

Page Available Labels Available Labels The maximum number of labels available depends on the selection in the Label Compatibility pull-down menu. You can choose the number of labels to display by clicking on the radio button next to the desired number of labels. Manage Settings The Manage Settings section enables you to determine which settings are displayed within the Load Adjustments sub-menu of the Batch menu.

By default, Capture NX 2 provides you with four different workspaces. Within this tab, additional workspaces can be added or removed and you can determine the shortcuts to assign each available workspace.

Please note that, you cannot delete a default workspace. Chapter 7 — Preferences Workspaces Page 56 Chapter 7 — Preferences This section contains a brief overview of each of the main elements that make up the Capture NX 2 interface, as well as information about the new workspaces, working with multiple screens, using the image window, and working with palettes and menus. Page Workspaces Workspaces Workspaces are new in Capture NX 2, enabling you to quickly change tasks while displaying only the palettes and windows necessary for that task.

Capture NX 2 comes with four different default workspaces and provides you with the ability to create custom workspaces. Selecting a particular workspace will arrange all of the palettes and windows according to the stored settings for that workspace including the position, state of the palette maximized or minimized , as well as other settings that affect what is displayed within a palette or window. Page Metadata Metadata The metadata workspace is designed to provide you with optimum workspace to review and add metadata to your images.

Within this workspace only the Browser and Metadata palettes are displayed. Page 61 To create a custom workspace, follow these steps: Arrange the palettes and windows according to your taste.

Navigate to the Window menu and select the Workspaces sub-menu, then select Save Workspace. Alternatively, click on the workspace selector and select Save Workspace. Type in the name of the new workspace and click You can then assign a shortcut to this new workspace by following these steps: Navigate to the Edit menu Windows or If you select a shortcut already in use by another workspace, the shortcut for that other workspace will automatically be set to None. Page Desktop Please note: Only default workspaces can be applied in this manner.

Custom workspaces always are applied to all available screens. Please note: Some workspaces cannot be used in conjunction with another. The following table shows the available combinations. Page Image Window Image Window Image windows are the frames that contain your images and provide you with important data which can help you enhance the image. Image windows are displayed as long as Capture NX 2 is not in the full screen or presentation modes. Page Soft Proof Soft Proof The soft proof feature enables you to preview the effect of an output profile on your image, approximating the results you can expect from your printer.

The soft proof function provides you with controls to preview the use of different profiles. Page 66 Soft proof offers the following options: Target Profile Select the color profile from the list to view the result of the color management system and to preview how the different color management settings will affect your image.

Intent Choose from four different rendering intents. The different rendering intents control how colors in your image are mapped to the colors that your printer can produce as indicated by the printer profile.

Page Finding Palettes Finding Palettes Undocking many palettes can sometimes make it difficult to locate that palette. All palettes and windows can be located using the Window menu. The most frequently used palettes and windows are listed directly in the Window menu, while less frequently used undocked palettes and windows are listed in the Undocked Palettes section of the Window menu.

To open a folder of images in the browser, double-click the folder icon in the browser or use the Folders palette, the Open Folder in Browser command in the File menu, or Nikon Transfer. Using the Folders Palette Using Nikon Transfer You can also use Nikon Transfer to open a folder of images transferred to your computer.

Page Navigating Within The Browser Navigating Within the Browser At the top-left of the Browser palette are three buttons that help you choose which folder to display within the browser. Page Filter By Rating To display all images again, click on the checkmark next to the filter by label tool. Sort By The Sort section determines the primary sorting method for the current folder. After selecting the primary sorting method, choose to have the images sorted in either ascending or descending order using the Ascending and Descending options.

This section provides information about the current folder as well as control over the size of the thumbnails displayed within the folder. On the left side of the browser header is the number of images within the current folder and the number of selected images. To rename the current file, click once on the file name to highlight it and a second time to change the file name.

Page Thumbnail List Thumbnail List The thumbnail list places important information about each image in a column and enables you to sort by each of the columns. In thumbnail list view, the thumbnail size selector offers a choice of three thumbnail sizes. You cannot sort images by this column. The voice memo icon is displayed for images that have a voice memo attached Voice Memo Icon to them.

Page Opening Images From The Browser Opening Images from the Browser Images in the browser can be opened in the editor either by double-clicking on the desired image, or selecting multiple images and use the Open Image command from the File menu. Alternatively, you can press the enter key on your keyboard to open the selected images.

If the Capture NX 2 is open on a single screen, opening an image will cause the browser to automatically minimize. Alternatively, you can click on the batch menu located to the left of the labeling and rating toolbar and select Paste IPTC Info.

Chapter 12 — Activity Toolbar Print Page Chapter 13 The Toolbar Chapter 13 The Toolbar Tool Options Bar The tool options bar can be found directly beneath the toolbar and provides access to controls specific to a tool. Select this tool when viewing an image that does not fit in the image window. Click and drag to reposition the contents of the window.

Double-click this tool to fit the current image to the editor so that the entire image fits into the space available. Page 94 To straighten your image using the straighten tool, follow these steps: With an image open within the editor, click the straighten tool in the toolbar. Locate a line within the image that should be either vertical or horizontal and click on the start of the line.

Page Crop Tool If you are satisfied with the straightening effect, continue editing your image using the other tools available within Capture NX 2 or perform a save. The straightening effect is now applied to your image. To cancel the straightening effect, click on the Delete button found at the bottom of the Straighten step within the Edit List palette or click on the Straighten step and press the delete key on your Page Crop Method Double-click within the crop or press the enter key to apply the crop.

This will cause the image information outside of the crop to be hidden and a new Crop step to be added to the Edit List palette. If the image is saved in the NEF format, you will be able to remove the Crop step to display the hidden information again. Page Black Control Point Black Control Point The black control point enables you to place a control point directly on your image, and to cause that targeted color to not only become black, but also to neutralize the dark tones of your image.

Black control points are normally set on what should be the darkest point of the image and are used to set one end of the dynamic range of the image. The values set for the selected black control point are displayed enabling you to enter a new value directly to adjust the effect of the control point. Page Neutral Control Point Neutral Control Point Neutral control points enable you to correct a color cast in your photograph by forcing the targeted color to become neutral.

In its default operation, the neutral control point will change the color values in the targeted color so that the red, green, and blue values for that color are equal. Equalizing the red, green, and blue values for a specific color causes that color becomes neutral, or without a specific color or hue.

Page To add a neutral control point to your image, follow these steps: Click on the neutral control point icon in the toolbar. The cursor will change to a crosshair. Identify an object that should be neutral and click on that object to place a neutral control point. Page Neutral Control Point Method Neutral Control Point Method Use the neutral control point method pull-down menu to switch between controlling only the color balance of the Neutral Control Point or affecting the luminosity, or brightness, as well.

RGB Method The RGB method of the neutral control point affects only the color balance within the image while maintaining the same brightness. The values set for the selected neutral control point are displayed enabling you to enter a new value directly to adjust the effect of the control point. Click on the Reset button to reset the selected color control point to the default values.

Page White Control Point Method To add a white control point to your image, follow these steps: Click on the white control point icon in the toolbar. Identify the object you would like to be the lightest object in the image and click on that object to place a white control point. Page Advanced RGB Method The RGB method of the white control point enables you to set the individual red, green, and blue values of the lightest color in the image. This option is helpful if your printer requires a non-neutral white.

Within this mode, you are presented with individual red, green, and blue sliders on the white control point and red, green, and blue entries within the white control point sub-step of the Edit List palette. Page Each color control point that is placed on an object in your image identifies the characteristics of the color as well as the level of detail of that object, enabling you to make adjustments to the color of that object.

With the use of the size slider, you are able to increase the reach or scale of the current color control point so that it affects similar colors of the objects which are farther away from the color control point. Page Color Control Point Mode Adjust the remaining sliders connected to the color control point to adjust the color and light of the selected object.

Additional color control points can be added to the image by repeating the steps listed above. To delete a color control point, click on the color control point in the image or in the Edit List palette and press the delete key on the keyboard. Page Show Selection Show Selection The Show Selection checkbox enables you to see where the current color control point is affecting the image.

Areas inked in white are being affected by the color control point, while areas inked in black are not being affected by the color control point. You can quickly access the Show Selection option by right- clicking Windows or control-clicking Macintosh on the color control point and selecting Show Selection.

Page Red-Eye Control Point Advanced The Advanced method provides superior results when lightening shadows or working with images with a high level of noise or grain. The values set for the selected color control point are displayed enabling you to enter a new value directly to adjust the effect of the control point. Page Auto Retouch Brush Auto Retouch Brush The auto retouch brush enables you to automatically repair unwanted details found within the image.

Use this tool to remove dust spots, blemishes, or distracting objects, with a unique blending algorithm that matches the surrounding structure, color, and tonality. To use the auto retouch brush, follow these steps: Click on the auto retouch brush icon in the toolbar. Page Size The auto retouch brush provides you with the following controls: Size Changing the Size option increases or decreases the size of the brush.

You can use a selection control point to selectively apply any enhancement found in either the Adjust or Filter menus. To use a selection control point, follow these steps: Add an enhancement to the image from the Adjust or Filter menus. Page Lasso And Marquee Tools Lasso and Marquee Tools The lasso and marquee tools enable you to create a selection on your images that will limit where an enhancement affects your image.

Page Edge Softness Click and draw a selection around the objects that you want to affect in the active image window. To subtract from the selection, select the — icon and draw within the selection. Page Selection Brush Tool Selection Brush Tool The selection brush enables you to selectively paint in or paint out the enhancements found in the current step.

You can use the selection brush to selectively apply any enhancement found within the Adjust or Filter menus, as well as the color, black, neutral, and white control points.

Page Opacity Opacity Changing the Opacity option increases or decreases the opacity of the brush strokes that are applied. You can use the selection gradient tools to selectively apply any enhancement found within the Adjust or Filter menus, as well as the color, black, neutral, and white control points.

Page Gradient Range Click and draw a line within the active image window. When zoomed-in, the areas visible within the active image window are shown as a rectangle superimposed on top of the entire image.

The Edit List palette was greatly improved, with the position of many tools and features moved to provide better access. The Edit List palette can be used as a history that allows you to go back and modify any of the adjustments that you have previously made to your images.

Click on the triangle to toggle between showing and hiding the Triangles contents of the associated section or enhancement. Apply checkboxes are used to turn enhancements on or off. Adjustments to an w Apply Checkbox enhancement automatically enable the corresponding Apply checkbox; Page Version Version The Version menu can now be found at the top of the Edit List palette, providing you with direct control of this powerful feature.

Versions represent an advanced way of working with and maintaining a number of different versions of the same image within one image file. Two different types of versions are available, and access to these versions is provided within this menu.

Chapter 15 — Edit List Batch Menu You can further modify the setting with the Fine Adjustment slider. Page Select this option if your image was shot using a Nikon Speedlight as the light source. You can further modify this setting with the Fine Adjustment slider. Note that any optional Picture Controls used on the camera must also be installed on the computer. Move this slider to the left to decrease the Sharpening, Contrast, and Saturation sliders.