Image Dust Off is a very useful feature supported by Nikon Capture NX and NX2 NEF raw converter/editor. You can take a reference photo (feature-less white wall) in supported cameras and used it to automatically retouch subsequently taken photos in Capture NX/NX2 to remove the spots in your photos caused by dust particles on the image sensor. Dust spots tend to show up more clearly if you shoot small apertures (high F numbers). Macro and landscape photographers probably find this more of a problem than portrait photographers. If you’d like to learn more about Image Dust Off, please check your Capture NX/NX2 user manual or the help file.
In order for this automatic process to work as expected, the photos you want to edit should have the same dust pattern as the reference photo. To make sure, you need to take a reference photo for each shooting session. For Nikon DSLR cameras that has sensor-shake dust removal function, it gets tricky. You cannot use the dust reference photo taken before sensor cleaning to retouch the photos taken after sensor cleaning. Nikon recommends you to take the dust reference photo after each sensor cleaning. If you have setup the camera to clean the sensor automatically at each startup/shutdown, you may not realize that the dust reference photo is rendered invalid each time you switch off/on the camera. This is clearly documented in the instruction manual of your camera but how many of you actually read the manual throughly?
Posted in
Tips and techniques on September 22nd, 2009.
1 Comment.
Our friend totographe was kind to stop by and let us know that his signature tool NXSignature (original post in French) for Capture NX is now version V1.1. The new version allows you to specify the color of the selection for the ‘Colorize’ step so you don’t need to use Capture NX to change the color of the signature. This makes it more efficient for batch processing.
Posted in
Software on September 10th, 2009.
1 Comment.
You may want to add a signature (or logo, copyright, etc) to your photos for many practical reasons. If you shoot Nikon NEF RAW, Capture NX is the top choice for getting the best image quality. However Capture NX does not have a built-in tool to add signature to photos. You typically have to relay on a third party editor such as Adobe Photoshop.
Not any more! NXSignature (original post in French) is a Java application written by a French blogger by the ID totograph. In a comment posted to our Ultimate Capture NX Resource Guide, he (or she) brought to our attention the existence of this useful utility. Read More…
Previously, I wrote a tutorial about a quick and easy landscape enhancement workflow in Nikon Capture NX using a snowy landscape photo as an example. The tutorial demonstrated the use of Black and White Control Points, Color Control Points (CCP), and Selection Brushes. With the release of Nikon Capture NX2, there has been a very important addition to control point tools: the Selection Control Point (SCP). In this tutorial, I will show you a very simple but effective landscape workflow that can save a dull image within minutes. Instead of CCP, I will use SCP to selectively enhance the sky without affecting the rest of the image so there is no more need to use Selection Brush to remove the effect from unwanted area. Read More…
We covered the book last December. After a long wait, the book is finally available from Amazon
, just a few days before the scheduled release date of May 11th. Instead of 288 pages as originally described, the book is now listed as 320 pages.
The author of the book is Mike Hagen of Out There Images, who is also the author of the well received book The Nikon Creative Lighting System: Using the SB-600, SB-800, SB-900, and R1C1 Flashes
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The Wiley “After the shoot” series books target on-the-go photographers who want the ability to edit photos on a laptop wherever the shoot takes them. The book should provide effective references on the location. Another book in the series is the Photoshop CS4 After the Shoot
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Book details
- Paperback: 320 pages
- Publisher: Wiley
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0470409266
- ISBN-13: 978-0470409268
- Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.8 inches
- Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
Posted in
News,
Photo editing on May 5th, 2009.
2 Comments.
Nikon’s Senior Product and Software Manager, Michael Rubin, has been touring US cities to show people how to use Nikon Capture NX and how to establish a RAW workflow using Nikon Transfer and Nikon ViewNX. Now one of the places he gave classes, B&H, puts a complete set of the class videos online. The total length of the video is approximately 2 hours. So make yourself comfortable and enjoy!
Our friend from Nikon has posted a note in the Nikon Capture NX user group about the training videos available on NikSoftware.com. If you haven’t heard, Nik Software, not Nikon, created the Nikon Capture NX software.
The two new Capture NX2 videos show you how easy it is to touch up photos using Capture NX2. You can watch the flash videos online, or download the videos in mov format to watch offline on your computer or the m4v format to watch on an ipod.
There are bunch of other videos as well. They are nice to watch but probably useless unless you have the software. If you really like Capture NX2, you may want to consider the excellent but expensive photographic filter package Color Effect Pro 3.0 for Capture NX 2.
The videos have been added to our Capture NX Resource Guide.
Posted in
Online Resources on February 20th, 2009.
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Previously I had a post about how to create Orton Effect using Nikon Capture NX. Although it was written for version 1.x of Capture NX, the basic steps should work fine for NX2. So I didn’t rewrite it for NX2. I did, since I am having fun making videos, create a quick (less than 2 minutes) video tutorial on how to create the Orton Effect in Capture NX2. For best clarity, please view the HD version. Read More…
Posted in
Tutorials on January 14th, 2009.
3 Comments.
