Digital Photography Tips and Techniques

The English version of Nikon’s Asian support site has posted the latest update (Version 1.3.2) to Nikon Capture NX. It fixed a well know bug we reported in last December and also included the support for the recently announced Nikon D60 Digital SLR camera. The changes are: Read More…

If you are Linux user, the choices of good RAW editors are limited. LightCrafts announced the beta version of its Lightroom-Aperature-hybrid-looking raw editor LightZone for Linux for your evaluation (not for sale yet). You may also want to read the impressions of LightZone beta for Linux by Scott Gilbertson on Wired Blog.

The all-new Flickr uploader 3.0 is available for download. There are numerous  improvements from the previous version.

• You can now add titles, tags and descriptions to photos, add them to multiple sets and adjust each photo’s privacy settings.
• You can reorder your photos before uploading by simply dragging and dropping them.
• By selecting multiple photos, you can replace the titles of the selected photos, add to existing individual photo descriptions, add to existing individual tags.
• You can work offline. You can close the application in the middle of the process and restart from where it is left.
• You can start an upload and immediately add more photos and start to tag and organize them, all while the first batch of photos is being sent to Flickr.

Many people are happy with the new Flickr uploader and I am one of them. However there are also some reports of errors and bugs in this official Flickr uploader 3.0 discussion thread.

Some people are reporting a weird bug in Nikon Capture NX software. Enter a small value for the exposure compensation (e.g. 0.01) and the photo becomes less sharp. I had trouble reproducing this bug on my own using Capture NX 1.3 and NEF from my D200. So it appeared to be related to specific circumstances.

I then downloaded a D300 NEF file and to my surprise, it happened! I also found that if you change the exposure compensation in Raw Adjustment, you will no longer be able to change the sharpening setting in the Picture Control: dragging the sharpening slider will have no effect. If you do not perform the exposure compensation adjustment, you can adjust the sharpening level using the sharpening slider in Picture Control. As soon as you do any exposure adjustment, the sharpening will disappear. You can get the sharpening back by unchecking the Apply checkbox next to Exposure Compensation.

I think this is related to the Picture Control system in the D300. According to Nikon, the unique Picture Control system makes it possible to share image processing settings among compatible devices and software. It is likely that there is a bug in Capture NX related to the Picture Control. Nikon D200 does not have Picture Control system and is therefore not typically affected. However if you turn on the Picture Control on a NEF file from D200, you can experience the same bug! It doesn’t seem possible to turn off the Picture Control for NEF files from a D300.

Nikon has released the update to its ViewNX photo viewer and browser software. It has a long list of fixes and improvements to its glaring weaknesses in the previous versions, mostly related to user interface usability. Finally I can delete a photo in full screen mode! Read more and find the download links after the jump. Read More…

I shoot 100% in RAW and use Nikon Capture NX for NEF raw file editing most of the time. Until recently, I have been uploading photos to Flickr by first saving the photo as JPEG to a folder, start Flickr Uploader, add the photos, then hit the upload button. I just found out that it could be much easier by cutting off the unnecessary steps.

First, download and install Flickr uploader here if you don’t have it already.

Read More…

Nikon just made the Capture NX 1.3 (direct download link) available on its US website. This version is an upgrade-only installer, which will upgrade previous installation of Capture NX version 1.00 - 1.20 to version 1.30.

The major changes from previous versions are:

• Support for RAW NEF images taken with the D3 and D300 has been added.
• Support for Picture Control has been added.
• A Picture Control item has been added to Camera Adjustments in the Base Adjustments. The Color Mode, Tone Compensation, Saturation and Sharpening items have been moved to the new Picture Control item.
• An Active D-Lighting item has been added to RAW adjustments in the Base Adjustments, and Sodium Vapor Lamps and High Temperature Mercury Vapor (7200K) settings have been added.
• RAW images can now be saved with lossless compression. Images captured in lossless-compressed RAW format can now be saved in lossless-compressed RAW format, regardless of camera model. (Limited to use with images captured with Nikon digital-SLR cameras).
• The Vignette Control function, which was previously for use only with RAW images, is now supported with JPEG and TIFF images. (Limited to use with images captured by Nikon digital -SLR cameras).
• The function for modifying images captured with a fisheye lens, available in Lens Adjustments in the Base Adjustments, is now compatible with images captured with the AF Fisheye-Nikkor 16mm f/2.8D.
• Features for editing RAW images, previously available in the Camera Settings palette, have been eliminated.

If you have not heard it before, the Image Doctors have a detailed hands-on preview of Nikon Capture NX 1.3 podcast. I also have some Capture NX tutorials on creating LOMO effect, selection brush, high-pass sharpening, and D-lighting.

Nikon shooters with Vibration Reduction (VR) lens may be interested in knowing if the lens VR function was on or off for a particular photo. It is recorded by the camera in the photo but many if not most software do not report this information. The one that works is the new Nikon ViewNX. Nikon ViewNX is rumored to be the replacement of the old Nikon View but the exact status is unclear.

Another option is the more powerful software ExifTool, which was featured earlier. This is mostly a Perl library and a command-line application for power users. It can report a lot more information than a typical software. You can find an example after the jump. Read More…