NikonGear'23
Gear Talk => Processing & Publication => Topic started by: Rich lane on October 17, 2016, 20:52:54
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I have always used lightroom for my raw editing and looking after my files etc
Having just upgraded my computer I decided to install Capture NXD as well to see what it is like .I have had a little play with a few D500 files already, but was Interested in what other peoples thoughts were about using it as part of their editing process.
Many thanks In advance Rich
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I slowly changed from Capture NX2 to Capture NX-D over a period of months. I use Capture NX-D almost 100% to develop and finish up in Photoshop CS2.
Nikon changed over from CNX2 to CNX-D in a panic. CNX-D was very much a beta program when it was released as a finished program and the interface is very different from CNX2 so many people despised it. Also it lacked features owned by Nik a software company bought by Google.
I've gotten used to CNX-D and although I don't own a camera that is not supported by CNX2 I'm using CNX-D 100% now. It does a great job and its interface is different not bad. CNX-D allows me to use the latest Nikon Picture Controls. PC(s) are presets that one can apply in camera and change in post if needed.
That's my ha' penney on the subject.
Dave Hartman
I tried developing D300 NEF(s) in Photoshop's Camera RAW (not sure of name) and did not care for the results. Maybe if I had used it more I'd have gain skill and received better results. A friend's cockatoo bit the screen and the person who gave me the computer wasn't able to transfer CS3 to me so I haven't used Photoshop to develop NEF(s) since.
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I still can't get used to it!
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Nikon changed over from CNX2 to CNX-D in a panic ...... Also it lacked features owned by Nik a software company bought by Google.
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I don't think that the traditional and ubiquitous brush tool is a feature owned by Nik, so it's absence in NX-D is one of intrigue!
Things I don't like(in no particular order)
Can't tag the raw file directly. I prefer the old way of adding keywords to the actual NEF file so that once each file is indexed, you can search or simply just see what it contains from the keywording embedded in the NEF file.
Again, no localised editing tools to speak of. LCH can help a little, but it's not really enough. Especially problematic for stuff like sharpening tho. Sometimes all you may want is a small spot of sharpening on the detail and not to sharpen blurred out or single solid colour areas as well. Major backward step from CNX2.
Slow, Slow as hell, tediously glacial and pretty much unusable in terms of speed.
I never really had issues with either VNX or CNX2 in terms of speed.
I recently updated my PC to modern-ish standards, and it's plenty fast for my uses.
In fact the old PC was too, but I felt a need to update at a reasonable cost.
CNX2 and VNX2 are now blistering! just about anything I do is instant thanks to very fast SSDs for cache and main system.
Images stored on the SSDs just happen instantly now in CNX2/VNX2, where they may have been a 1-2sec delay in CNX2 previously.
(note that my HDD speed has jumped from 100MB/s to 500-1600MB/s .. which explains it).
It's not coded well to run on a 4K screen. It works, but is difficult to view.
But CNX-D still refuses to play quickly. It feels(although I haven't yet tested) the same as it did on my old PC. New PC hardware specs are at least 4-8x faster/more in most respects than the old one.
I thought RAM may help so that it could cache more data into ram and operate more efficiently .. but NUP! .. nada! still slow.
I still persevere with it tho, mainly in the hope that one day it may actually become useful.
I do remember the old days when VNX was totally useless in many ways until they morphed it into VNX2 too .. so here's hoping.
OH! and I'm not being hard/harsh on CNX-D either! .. just truthful I think.
But I recently had this mad idea to have a peek at Sigma's SPP(v 6.something).
I was curious on their Fovenon sensor and X3F files.
it makes CNX-D look slick by way of speed comparison! :D
In browser mode SPP is OK-ish but does display some interesting anomalies(I'm going to look into one day).
A little convoluted tho when it comes to edit mode. it's not obvious how to get there or do it!
You need to open an new window and then another step to click on the Adjustments tool to reveal the necessary tools.
It's something you need to see to believe! .. and then we're talking a new level of speed restrictions here!
So if viewed from one perspective CNX-D is awfully hopeless(coming from CNX/VNX 2's) .. but when viewed from an outside perspective(ie. having now tried SPP!) .. it's amazing!
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I find it an excellent raw converter with mild amount of editing function that makes the best of NEF files. Also, it has more Nikkor lens data than ACR for the correction of aberrations. Yes, it is very slow, but it only allows simple editing anyway, so I could live with that.
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I do not like side car files so I use the "Save all settings" feature and treat the side cars as CNX-D's temporary files.
I'm confused by those who find CNX-D slow. I'll have to fire up CNX2 again to see what fast is. I'm doing my post processing on a 3.5 gHz quad core i7 Intel. Windows 7 and programs are served up from an SSD. I have 16GB of RAM with room for expansion.
I also have 24" 2.4 gHz duo core iMAC. CNX-D is pretty slow on that. I copied VNX2 on to the iMAC and it runs fine. I had problems with VNX-i so I deleted it from the MAC.
Dave
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I have a Mac w/16gb RAM, i7 2.8GHz quad core and SSD. NX-D is too slow to use.
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I upgraded to the latest version of CNX-D and ViewNXi, ver. 1.45. Editing went fairly well in CNX-D - that is until I tried converting my files. After pressing the start button the list of files to be converted comes up but nothing more happens, no signs of any activity. :o Am I missing something here using the wrong procedure? I would be interested if this behavior can be reproduced by someone else running Windows 7. Luckily the edits were fairly simple and ViewNXi was able to convert the files...
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I upgraded to the latest version of CNX-D and ViewNXi, ver. 1.45. Editing went fairly well in CNX-D - that is until I tried converting my files. After pressing the start button the list of files to be converted comes up but nothing more happens, no signs of any activity.
I would be interested if this behavior can be reproduced by someone else running Windows 7.
I can't answer for a Win7 pc, but had no troubles making similar conversions with my MBP13 &CNX-D 1.4.5
Did you try clearing any cache for CNX-D? Did you try restarting your pc.
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I upgraded to the latest version of CNX-D and ViewNXi, ver. 1.45. Editing went fairly well in CNX-D - that is until I tried converting my files. ~~~
I only updated to CNX-D v1.4.5 a day ago. I'm running a batch conversion now to JPG. It's running as it should. My OS on this computer is Windows 7 Professional, Service Pack 1. I haven't tried my iMAC since updating.
Now I've tried a single conversion to TIF and an Open With to Photoshop and everything is normal.
If you just updated and it worked fine before something must have going wrong with the update. I would try deleting the cache folder as just recommended. The cache is located where it's set in Edit> Preferences> General>. If that doesn't work I'd try uninstalling the program and reinstalling it. I would download a fresh copy of CNX-D from Nikon first.
Dave Hartman
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Thanks for confirming, David. When you say batch conversion, is that done though the convert files dialog or the batch dialog?
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I use C NX-D on my Surface 4 laptop (SSD drive), and it is fast enough there. However, for quick-and-dirty RAW editing, I'd use View NX-D that is much quicker. Generally speaking I like the rendering, probably more that LR6 at low ISO.
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Thanks for confirming, David. When you say batch conversion, is that done though the convert files dialog or the batch dialog?
It looks to me like the same code at work for both batch and single conversation. I used batch for NEF(s) to JPG(s) and single shot for NEF to TIF.
If there is a utility to completely clean the registry of CNX-D I'd run that and then download a new copy of CNX-D and install it. That's if blowing the cache didn't work. There seems to be a lack of error code here.
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It looks to me like the same code at work for both batch and single conversation. I used batch for NEF(s) to JPG(s) and single shot for NEF to TIF.
If there is a utility to completely clean the registry of CNX-D I'd run that and then download a new copy of CNX-D and install it. That's if blowing the cache didn't work. There seems to be a lack of error code here.
A thought: Did you install from the CNX-D installer only or the combined ViewNXi & CNX-D installer?
Edit: I see that you likely mean ViewNXi for the quick conversions so answer would be both.
BTW the conversion in ViewNXi is rather silent. No message or anything showing the progress as far as I can see, just working in the background and doing the job.
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BTW the conversion in ViewNXi is rather silent. No message or anything showing the progress as far as I can see, just working in the background and doing the job.
On the Mac version of V-NXi a progress bar is displayed to the top left, just below the Browse Map Edit Web buttons.
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After a lot of experience with the program I use NX-D almost exclusively for my Nikon files.
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A thought: Did you install from the CNX-D installer only or the combined ViewNXi & CNX-D installer?
On my Win7 computer I know I used the separate install programs. I normally download two copies, one as a backup. I was using Capture NX-D regularly before I used View NX-i. As with CNX-D, VNX-i was buggy at first, really bad for me. I was still using ViewNX2 when I had problems with the thumbnails being out of sync with the folder I was viewing so I might easily delete a file I needed to keep. At that point knowing the VNX2 was not supported I decided to give VNX-i another try. VNX-i is OK now and I'm getting used to it. It has annoyances but I want the EXIF information displayed so I can easily see the things that are important to me.
Anyway I installed CNX-D months earlier than VNX-i and I upgraded using the separate install programs also.
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Dave is right. NX-D was buggy and unstable in the beginning, at times I could not even install it on my Notebook. The current version though is very good.
As with all Nikon Software do regularly delete the thumbnails in
users
You
app data
Local
Nikon
This is a hidden folder.
At times the db and cache seem to be larger than NX-i can bear. It will then not show the thumbs correctly
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Finally after quite a few hours work last night, nearly thrashing my computer when trying to uninstall, clean up, and reinstall the software and several system restores (uninstall hung, and the computer would not shut down without brute force...), I finally got it working. I agree that the impression before all this happened was that it is running more smoothly now, although I was not able to convert anything.
The problems I had with the uninstall was at least not entirely to blame on the software as there was at least one connected external drive (or the docking station at use) that had become unresponsive (it was not used for editing though), and caused the whole system to act up. I have yet to reconnect those drives...
The experience confirms that my decision is wise to not upgrade to a camera body that is unsupported by CNX2 before I have found an editing solution that works for me. I do not wish to start out my relation to a new body with a negative experience...
Edit: Yes there was a connected WD 2TB drive that had gone bad (the first one for me). As there are no clicking sounds I suspect the controller on the drive is malfunctioning. It has sometimes disconnected spontaneously while in operation... No images or anything else really important on the drive though (as it was one retired from imaging service) and I am currently copying from the backup to a similar vacant drive. It appears that the drive was purchased in November 2013, so may be it was due to break... Interestingly WD listed the warranty as expired < 2 years after the purchase. There was a power out shortly after I removed the PC from the docking station yesterday that could have contributed with a power surge. May be I need to start unplugging power to the docking station when I leave for work with my laptop...
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Øivind.
My uncle once disconnected all of his electronics when a thunderstorm hit and thereby nearly saved them. But:
The house network was severely hit and reconnecting the first device meant imminent death of it.
Soooooo. I DO always cut power for all machinery not currently in use but I use a codom too: surge protector power strips that can be costly at times.
They once saved me a 4000€ job. The electrician on the site of the event had meddled with the phases and a 50€ power strip went up in smoke, but none of the devices.
I put the power strip on top of the bill and it was accepted.
They probably deducted it from the electrician's bill...
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PS. Backup power strips are a good idea for mission critical applications
PPS: are you sure it is the drive? It might be the encasement too...
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PS. Backup power strips are a good idea for mission critical applications
PPS: are you sure it is the drive? It might be the encasement too...
Indeed, another "can of worms" to deal with, enclosures are often the source of trouble. I always buy separates, that is I buy the enclosures then I buy the drives, and if the enclosure doesn't allow hot swapping of those drives, then it's no sale.
The most reliable enclosures have a built in power supply, and the least reliable use external "wall warts" or "power bricks" for their power supply. Just turning off and on those units that use external power supplies can result in a power supply failure, rendering the enclosure inoperable. Best case for longe life is to leave the power switch in the on position.
Enclosures with a built in power supply are not as easy to find, and usually they are more expensive than units that use external power supplies.
Many people buy the combination enclosure with drive installed, and those are not designed to allow user access that permits swapping out the drives at will. Those setups usually come with installed software for backups, and I do not want that software, I have my own, so just give me a bare drive, thank you very much.
So, if one of my drives, or one of my enclosures goes south, I only need to replace one of them, not both, and I don't have any issues with that unneeded built in software. YMMV
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Øivind, I have successfully had a Canadian company rebuild the controller board for a disk drive that went south.
It involved sending the faulty controller board to them and they cloned the ROMs that defined the exact good and back tracks & sectors for my drive from the old board and burnt the ROMS on the new replacement board to match. I can send you the details if you are interested. Cost about $US50 plus postage from Australia to Canada.
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Edit: Yes there was a connected WD 2TB drive that had gone bad (the first one for me). As there are no clicking sounds I suspect the controller on the drive is malfunctioning. .....................
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Thanks for lots of suggestions all of you. There was no thunderstorm when this happened, just a bright sunny day. This is just one of the WD Mypassport portable 2TB drives. One thing I do not like about those drives is that they have the USB controller integrated with the controller board of the drive itself. So your drive might even be gone if the connector brakes unless you have some really clever soldering skills, as the drive cannot just be moved to a drive enclosure. If I find a similar drive that makes clicking sounds (I have one in mind) I might have a go at combining them into one usable one. (There is also the freezer trick to try). These drives do not cost an arm and a leg, and as long as no data are lost it might not be worth spending a lot of time on fixing it. I am aware that Toshiba and Seagate competes in this segment (nowadays I buy the 4 TB versions, last one the WD Mypassport Ultra metal version), but I do not know if they are any more reliable. (Too bad WD essentially killed the Travelstars by freezing the development when they bought HGST.) I follow the strategy that I keep upgrading to the bigger sizes of portable drives for my image drives; thereby I keep copying to newer drives, of course with plenty of duplication, and the old drives take on less critical tasks.
Back to CNX-D, which now works on my computer. Have anyone made any new discoveries with the new version with respect to features?