New D70S arrived---Use Picture Project or other software????

[Jessitt]

I just received my new Nikin D70s, It's quite a step up from my Nikon Coolpix 3200!!! I am so freakin psyched!!! The camera came with Picture Perfect 1.5 and I don't know if it's worth installing and learning it, or should I use another program. I don't want to get into a program and in a few months outgrow it. If I should use something else, what would be some recommendations?? I have used Picassa with my little Coolpix but I know there are alot of other programs for fine tuning and downloading.

Any help would be greatly appreciated,
Rich

[jcon]

Congrats on your new purchase! I strongly suggest you use Nikon Capture NX for your digital editing and enhancements. You can download a free trial directly from the website. Another choice, much more expensive, would be Adobe Photoshop CS2. If you choose CS2 you will need to download the NEW/RAW plugin from Adobes website.

In my opinion Capture NX is the best out there for NEF files.

Capture NX download link......

http://www.nikondigital.com/main.htm...oft_capture_nx

[murrays]

Any help would be greatly appreciated,
Rich

Read this: http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/d70/d70-settings.htm

[wh0128]

Nikon's Capture is really nice as I've only used it for the trial period, but it is good with Nikon's NEF(RAW) images. Photoshop does probably have alot more features that the Capture doesn't have, and Capture with features Photoshop doesn't have as well. In my opinion, I'd try out both Capture and PhotoshopCS2, as both have free trials. The Capture is signifacantly less expensive, PhotoshopCS2 runs around 649$ online straight from Adobe. One other thing is what type of computer do you have because Capture doesn't require as much RAM and CPU speed as PhotoshopCS2 does. And in order to run PhotoshopCS2 smoothly you need atleast 1gb of RAM. So all this ties into what program you choose as well.

[tcadwall]

Just started using Bibble. Seems to be good. But I haven't used it enough to really swear by it yet. I can tell you that it is much FASTER than I expected. Even though reviews claimed it was fast, I was not expecting much seeing that I am using it on a Pentium M 2.0Ghz with 1 GB RAM. But I am quite pleased with the speed. I have found it a bit quirky when switching modes, but might just be unfamiliarity with the workflow options.

http://www.bibblelabs.com/

Obviously I am using this for NEF images. It has correction settings for Nikon cameras and lenses. Supposed to fix distortion, CA, vignetting. However, I rarely even see CA on my 18-200VR. It does a decent job repairing the barrel distortion, but I haven't done any TRUE tests with brick walls or anything yet.

I am going to try out the trial version of NX myself to compare with this. Just haven't gotten that far yet. (Not to hijack the thread - but should I save myself the time?)

[wh0128]

As I'm only familiar with CS2, my opinion would be why not try NX? I hear its vary capable of doing what CS2 is capable of doing. If you can find a software program that is cheaper and does a way better job that Photoshop CS2 then why not use the other program. I have used the trial version of NX for a couple of days, and it didn't seem to be that complicated, even for a beginner. I don't think it wouold be a waste of time

[jcon]

D-Lighting and Control Points make NX well worth the $150(US).

[wh0128]

jcon, could you explain the D-Lighting and Control Points. I have read the mentioning of D-Lighting but can't grasp what exactly it does to your image. And I don't know what Control Points are

[K1W1]

The best thing that you could do if you do not understand Control Points and D-Lighting is go to the Capture web site and look at the online tutorials.

http://www.capturenx.com/

[rawpaw18]

jcon, could you explain the D-Lighting and Control Points. I have read the mentioning of D-Lighting but can't grasp what exactly it does to your image. And I don't know what Control Points are

The D-Lighting allows you to lighten up the shadow areas of your photo.
You have a stripped down version on Picture Project that came with your camera. It has three choices versus NX having sliders so the choices of degree that you lighten are numerous. Very nice feature.

The control points are more specific to the areas of your photo. The tutorial that K1W1 mentioned would explain this much better than I could.

My trial version is set to expire in two days, bummer. Anybody want to spot me $150.