The photo below shows a typical example of a landscape photography situation with challenging dynamic range. Taken at ISO100, f/8, and 1/180sec, the multi-pattern (matrix) metering on the Nikon D200 choose to expose the clouds properly but most of the scene below the sky was under exposed. Should I blame Nikon for making such a bad camera? Nope, you may get similar result, if not worse, from just about any camera. Thanks to the camera’s decision not to properly expose the field instead, or I would be left with over exposed sky that I could not fix with post-processing. It is really a easy fix in Nikon Capture NX. Follow the link below the photo to read more.
D-Lighting can be used to reveal details in both shadows and highlights. The nice part of the function is that it won’t touch properly exposed areas or introducing undesired artifacts. In the example here, I will show you how easy it is to bring out more details from the shadows.
- First, open the image in Capture NX. You can expect better quality from a RAW image than a jpeg image.
- Second, open the D-Lighting dialog box, Adjust->Light->D-Lighting. A dialog box similar to the following will appear. It is rather straight forward to use the D-Lighting function. Begin by selecting the high speed (HS) or better quality (HQ) mode. In HS mode, the software will allow you to quickly enhance the shadow areas and reveal additional detail in the highlights of the current image with a single adjustment slider, as well as increase the color saturation of the entire image. In HQ mode, the software gives you the option to adjust shadow and highlight separately.
- Finally, I finished the adjustments by clicking the OK button when I was happy with the result.
The photo already looks a lot nicer compared to the original. Since some people really likes the sky to be deep blue, I used a color control point (Capture NX’s patented U Point technology) to selectively darken the sky.
Since I am a Nikon shooter, I use Capture NX quite a lot. However you should be able to achieve similar results with your favorite photo editors or raw work-flow software, such as Photoshop, Lightroom, etc.
Keywords: Capture NX, D-lighting, dynamic range, Exposure, Nikon, Photo editing
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Really useful stuff – perhaps you can get Nikon to hire you to re-write the manual?
Pete,
Thanks for the comment. I would not want to work for Nikon though. That would limit what I can say on my blog.
Max
I am a long-time NX user, but only recently discovered the utility of the D-Lighting feature. However, I have found that depending upon the amount of D-Lighting applied, this process can cause color shifts. For example, this can occur when trying to recover shadow details in pictures involving skin tones, as application of D-Lighting can sometimes result in a reddish cast. Accordingly, I often add an additional “color balance” step to take this into account. Just a thought.
– Randy
By the way, thanks for preparing and posting your tutorials. I shoot in NEF format exclusively, and find NX to be the best editor for Nikon raw files. Unfortunately, there are number of techniques and treatments that I had to leave for Photoshop (after converting to a TIF) because I simply wasn’t proficient enough or knowledgeable enough about NX to perform these edits. Your site is helping to change that.
Randy,
Thanks for your comment and the great tip. More tutorials (and likely a book) will be coming.
Max
Your tutorial make me save the money which I have prepared to replace my D70 with D80.
Thanks a lot !