- Joined
- May 1, 2006
- Messages
- 2,414
So, I never could get my head around Lightroom and was as happy as Larry when I discovered Nikon NX2. Took to it like a duck to water.
Often read people moaning about its UI and UX but I thought the UI was perfect and the UX (slow speed) was actually improved by Nikon with each iteration until they finally fully cracked it with a 64 bit release. It never was for mass rapid edits which was fine with me.
Could be something to do with how my brain is wired but I hated Lightroom's UI. Nikon Capture NX2 served me well until Nikon pulled the plug on it. Took a look at NX-D and just couldn't connect to that and so began my round of torment.
First up was DXO Optics Pro. A fine tool that cost me a fair wedge of cash but again, just wasn't quite right for me.
Took a look at CaptureOne. Really loved the output but again, couldn't quite get my "NX2" head around it. Suppose I could have done with some time and effort and I also suspect I am peeved off with PhaseOne for totally ruining IView/Expressions Media Pro. Users thought it was bad when Microsoft had the program but PhaseOne has been an absolute disaster for that program. In the nine years or so years since the original developer put out IView Media 3, the program has actually regressed, first at the hands of Microsoft and catastrophically at the hands of PhaseOne .... I digress.
I then saw the slick promos for ON1 PhotoRAW and jumped on it mid 2016. No catalogues? Sign Me up!
The beta that came out late 2016 as "ON1 PhotoRAW 2017" was a disaster but fair play to ON1, they brought things up to speed with a series of updates.
The main issue I had was that ON1 PhotoRAW 2017 turned what may have shown as slightly "hot" areas in an image into irretrievably blown out patches on my D500 (I had finally put my D200 to pasture after 10 sterling years of service).
However, as hot areas were not an everyday thing and as it actually seemed to have been cured with later releases, I became a fan of ON1 PhotoRAW. I do also use Luminar as it has the same NX2 like attributes. no catalogues and even better that ON1, no preview thumbnail generation.
Anyway, it turns out that my sticking with the D200 for a decade was not due to being immune to GAS, but purely down to simple pragmatism. I don't like my workflow being messed up. D200 to take images, NX2 to process them and MediaPro to catalogue them. Each one is meant to do one thing, only one thing and to do it well.
PhaseOne has done its best to destroy the cataloguing part but I could still function. Nikon hit me hard on the processing part but that was still workable as long as my computer held up. A change to the camera would screw the whole thing up and so I stuck with it.
Once I found a potential plug in replacement for NX2 that simply allowed me to process my images without trying to import it anywhere, the full force of my pent up GAS was unleashed and in short order, I had a D500 and now a D850!
But alas! ON1 PhotoRAW 2017 blows out D850 shots with a vengeance!
Here is an import of a shot of Bertha, our dog, into ON1 PhotoRAW 2017 as rendered
Nikon D850 @ ISO 200
AF Nikkor 85mm f/1.8D
1/90 @ f/3.3
After reduction of exposure by 1.5 stops along with max highlight recovery etc, the best output I could get was:
Good news is that with ON1 PhotoRAW 2018, currently at beta, things look much better even without any highlight recovery or exposure reductions
Bad news is that I will have to shell out 80 US Dollars for the privilege!
Trying to find out whether they will update the RAW engine in ON1 PhotoRAW 2017 as a free update so that those that do not need the HDR and Pano and other features offered in ON1 PhotoRAW 2018 can get decent D850 conversions.
Actually would be great if the RAW engine, if updated as seems to be the case here, is offered to older versions of the program. Perhaps the last two of three major versions or something like that.
Would be interesting to see what ON1's take is.
This is what Luminar did (I chose the look/feel - important is that not blown out):
And NX-D (No Edits)
Often read people moaning about its UI and UX but I thought the UI was perfect and the UX (slow speed) was actually improved by Nikon with each iteration until they finally fully cracked it with a 64 bit release. It never was for mass rapid edits which was fine with me.
Could be something to do with how my brain is wired but I hated Lightroom's UI. Nikon Capture NX2 served me well until Nikon pulled the plug on it. Took a look at NX-D and just couldn't connect to that and so began my round of torment.
First up was DXO Optics Pro. A fine tool that cost me a fair wedge of cash but again, just wasn't quite right for me.
Took a look at CaptureOne. Really loved the output but again, couldn't quite get my "NX2" head around it. Suppose I could have done with some time and effort and I also suspect I am peeved off with PhaseOne for totally ruining IView/Expressions Media Pro. Users thought it was bad when Microsoft had the program but PhaseOne has been an absolute disaster for that program. In the nine years or so years since the original developer put out IView Media 3, the program has actually regressed, first at the hands of Microsoft and catastrophically at the hands of PhaseOne .... I digress.
I then saw the slick promos for ON1 PhotoRAW and jumped on it mid 2016. No catalogues? Sign Me up!
The beta that came out late 2016 as "ON1 PhotoRAW 2017" was a disaster but fair play to ON1, they brought things up to speed with a series of updates.
The main issue I had was that ON1 PhotoRAW 2017 turned what may have shown as slightly "hot" areas in an image into irretrievably blown out patches on my D500 (I had finally put my D200 to pasture after 10 sterling years of service).
However, as hot areas were not an everyday thing and as it actually seemed to have been cured with later releases, I became a fan of ON1 PhotoRAW. I do also use Luminar as it has the same NX2 like attributes. no catalogues and even better that ON1, no preview thumbnail generation.
Anyway, it turns out that my sticking with the D200 for a decade was not due to being immune to GAS, but purely down to simple pragmatism. I don't like my workflow being messed up. D200 to take images, NX2 to process them and MediaPro to catalogue them. Each one is meant to do one thing, only one thing and to do it well.
PhaseOne has done its best to destroy the cataloguing part but I could still function. Nikon hit me hard on the processing part but that was still workable as long as my computer held up. A change to the camera would screw the whole thing up and so I stuck with it.
Once I found a potential plug in replacement for NX2 that simply allowed me to process my images without trying to import it anywhere, the full force of my pent up GAS was unleashed and in short order, I had a D500 and now a D850!
But alas! ON1 PhotoRAW 2017 blows out D850 shots with a vengeance!
Here is an import of a shot of Bertha, our dog, into ON1 PhotoRAW 2017 as rendered
Nikon D850 @ ISO 200
AF Nikkor 85mm f/1.8D
1/90 @ f/3.3
Subscribe to see EXIF info for this image (if available)
After reduction of exposure by 1.5 stops along with max highlight recovery etc, the best output I could get was:
Subscribe to see EXIF info for this image (if available)
Good news is that with ON1 PhotoRAW 2018, currently at beta, things look much better even without any highlight recovery or exposure reductions
Subscribe to see EXIF info for this image (if available)
Bad news is that I will have to shell out 80 US Dollars for the privilege!
Trying to find out whether they will update the RAW engine in ON1 PhotoRAW 2017 as a free update so that those that do not need the HDR and Pano and other features offered in ON1 PhotoRAW 2018 can get decent D850 conversions.
Actually would be great if the RAW engine, if updated as seems to be the case here, is offered to older versions of the program. Perhaps the last two of three major versions or something like that.
Would be interesting to see what ON1's take is.
This is what Luminar did (I chose the look/feel - important is that not blown out):
Subscribe to see EXIF info for this image (if available)
And NX-D (No Edits)
Subscribe to see EXIF info for this image (if available)