Nikon NX studio

[Airy]

That's sure not the lack of RAM... just the usual poor stability of the Win platform when lots of apps have been installed, I'm afraid.

[David H. Hartman]

I have had NX Studio crash, disappear suddenly once maybe twice. Other wise it installed and has run without issues on a Windows 10 Enterprise i5 laptop.

Has anyone seen the Undo/Redo feature working? I think it's grayed out 100%. This is not indicative of a finished v1.0 release.

I find the LCH and Levels & Curves tools too small for precise adjustments. In Capture NX-D these tools could be un-docked and made large for precise adjustments. In Photoshop this type of adjustment can be bumped 1 or 10 points at a time numerically.

I hope NX Studio will mature in to a viable program sooner than later.

Dave

[janvaran]

Has anyone seen the Undo/Redo feature working? I think it's grayed out 100%. This is not indicative of a finished v1.0 release.

Grayed out on macOS as well. Tested several edits, but the Undo option stayed grayed out.
Whn I quit Nikon NX, the edits was saved without confirmation.

[David H. Hartman]

Grayed out on macOS as well. Tested several edits, but the Undo option stayed grayed out.
Whn I quit Nikon NX, the edits was saved without confirmation.

Edits saved without confirmation is the reason I don't rely one the *.nksc (side car files). If I make edit and want to discard them they can easily be save against my will. It I experiment and make a half dozen changes then I would have to do a half dozen Undo or Ctrl + Z or Command + Z depending on the OS. With the *.nxd or new *.nka (save all adjustments) I'm in control. I can and sometime do save version and later delete those I don't need or want.

Anyway no undo/redo is not indicative of a version 1.0 program.

Dave

[Ilkka Nissilä]

Even on one of my smaller laptops, NX Studio runs well. Snappy response in general.  No hiccups so far. This is on a 16GB box with 1 TB SSD.

I have the same experience on both my desktop and laptop: it works well, pretty fast.

[chris dees]

I have the same experience on both my desktop and laptop: it works well, pretty fast.

Same for me.
On a 2016 MBP and a 2019 iMac (both on Big Sur).

[David H. Hartman]

I'm trying to communicate with Nikon regarding the failure of NX Studio to read and apply the adjustments saved in *.NXD files to an NEF being edited in NX Studio....

"Can you please explain what you mean by .nka and .nxd files as all raw files edited by Capture NX-D or NX Studio are all NEF file types." --Nikon

NXD files are Capture NX-D files the user can save that contain all the adjustments the user has applied to an NEF file. In the Capture NX-D menu: Adjust> Save All Adjustments> to save an NXD file and Adjust> Load Adjustments> to apply adjustments to one or many NEF files.

NKA files are NX Studio files the user can save that contain all the adjustments the user has applied to an NEF file. In the NX Studio menu one will use Adjust> Save All Adjustments> to save an NKA file and Adjust> Load Adjustments> to apply adjustments saved in an NKA file to one or many NEF files.

Users can have hundreds or more hours in Capture NX-D *.NXD files. It is a grave oversight for NX Studio to fail to read and apply an NXD file saved in Capture NX-D to an NEF file being edited in NX Studio. This is reminiscent to Capture NX-D ignoring adjustments saved by Capture NX2 in NEF files for many versions. Nikon should have learned and not release NX Studio without the ability to read and apply the settings in an NXD file.

—

“As long as the sidecar file is present in the correct folder, NX Studio will be able to read these as well.” —Nikon

This is irrelevant to NX Studio’s failure to read and apply NXD files to an NEF file being edited in NX Studio. Again the user can have hundreds or more hours saved in NXD files and Nikon should not lightly obsolete the users work saved in the NXD files.

...I hope this makes sense. I'm sure there are bunch of typos. I tried to get this logical and cleaned up before sending to Nikon.

Dave

[David H. Hartman]

It's possible to use the *.nksc (side car files) as a bridge between *.nxd and *.nka files but one will have to run both Capture NX-D and NX Studio, open the NEF in Capture NX-D, apply *.nxd adjustments, close the NEF file to save the *.nksc file. Then in NX Studio open the NEF file and save an *.nka files. If there is more than one *.nxd files associate with an NEF file then this scenario will have to be repeated for all *.nxd files. This is slow and cumbersome. I'll have to do this for every NEF file from my D800 that I developed in Capture NX-D or start from scratch in NX Studio.

I've tried the above with a few NEF(s) from my D850 and it works. Converting all the *.nxd files to *.nka files associate with my D800 will take many hours, probably at least 100 hours. I don't have many NEF files I've developed from my D850 so the problem with D850 NEF(s) is relatively small.

Don't take your love away from me
Don't you leave my heart in misery
Cause if you go then I'll be blue
Breaking up is hard to do

--Neil Sedaka, Howard Greenfield

There is always a lyric for every occasion. 

Dave

[duckdrive]

I am having problems with NX Studio crashing. If I resize my image using the mouse wheel the computer crashes and restarts. This has happened on 3 computers all with 16gbs of RAM. Can anyone offer me any help on this? I enjoy the program until it crashes.

[David H. Hartman]

I am having problems with NX Studio crashing. If I resize my image using the mouse wheel the computer crashes and restarts. This has happened on 3 computers all with 16gbs of RAM. Can anyone offer me any help on this? I enjoy the program until it crashes.

My advice is report the problem to Nikon. NX Studio V1.0.0 is clearly a Beta text version not a finished v1.0 program.

I would uninstall NX Studio and wait for an update, e.g. NX Studio v1.1.0 or similar. I would install the latest version of Nikon Capture NX-D. Under the hood CNXD is pretty much the same functionally. My observation is CNXD is slower than NXS. Otherwise anything you can do in NX Studio can be done in Capture NX-D.

Given time I expect NX Studio will be a useful program giving very good results, perhaps better than others, for developing Nikon NEF image files.

I'm in hurry up and wait mode.

Dave

[arthurking83]

A couple of questions for those that use NXStudio:
Where is there any option of semblance of a [Save] icon/button. Saves the Cntrl-S methodology every time I have a need for it. Not annoying but close to it.
Also, how to version a file? Versions appear at the bottom of the edit tools, but I see no way to create a version.
My version of Versions really only has an unusable greyed out button to click that with an arcane step saying "Apply Adjustment Steps". It cant' be clicked or anything. pretty much useless.
I edited an NEF(expendable file). Adjusted stuff randomly and obviously. Hoped to have an ability to see a version or something in the Versions tab. Zip!
Anyhow, after adjustments made, I saved as and over wrote the original NEF file. Made a few more edits again. now just did a save to overwrite the file yet again.
Went into Adjustment -> revert to original .. and back to original as stated it would do.

I have a small question, which may or may not be answerable by any here:

When I travel, I use a rather antiquated little "netbook" running Win 7, and because my cameras came with it and it's a little less dreadfully slow, I still have a copy of VNX-2 for basic raw operations.  I know that VNX-i is said to overwrite it and have never installed it.  I do have CNX-D on that and my other computers, and the two run together.  I keep VNX-2 because it processes files differently, and for certain very basic operations its a little faster and simpler  (the netbook is not just slow - it's glacial!).

So my question is, does anyone know whether the new NX Studio overwrites VNX-2?  If so, can one reinstall VNX-2 without conflict?  I know I can get used to not having it, but would be happy to keep it if possible.

.....

Yes it does.(both View-NXi and Studio) overwrite and delete VNX2.
But it's no issue to reinstall VNX2 back onto the system again, it will install again with no problem .. and from my experience works without problem.
Only change to ViewNX2(and maybe not something to worry about) is that the Picture Control Utlility doesn't get installed(actually a good thing), as ViewNXi, CNXD and NXStudio all install the later version of the utility.
If you do use the PC utility, the link to it via VNX2 will still work and opens the latest version if you have any of the other Nikon software installed.

It is irritating that for every update of the software, VNX2 will always get uninstalled again. In effect you need a copy of the last version of VNX2 on your system for when you do an update to ViewNX-i and I assume same with Studio too.

I never used ViewNX-i just brief looksy to see what it can do, if it can do anything .. but never used it.

I rarely used CNX-D too. Every now and again tho .. more so to not feel all Jurassic tho rather than any need. Had plans to update camera and CNX2 may have been made a bit redundant. I did get the hang of CNXD to a degree, and it felt like home when CCPs made a return to Nikon software.

ViewNX2 is still my go too 'viewer' for any NEF files I upload to the PC.
Still faster than anything else I tried. FSViewer came nearly close when used in jpg-preview mode.

@ Ann.
No matter that you do or don't use Nikon Picture Controls(profiles) .. the fact is that you can't escape it. The camera uses Nikon's profiles.. ie Picture Controls.
This is a point that is inescapable. Only reason you believe that you don't use them is that you don't use Nikon software, but the NEF straight out of your camera has data in the exif that shows the Picture Control values set in the camera.
I used to use Picture Controls quite a bit years ago in the sense that you could easily create your own Picture Control with Nikons' software and upload it to the camera.
in terms of 'batch processing' this is a method that simply cannot be beaten for speed. Every image out of the camera would have been 'batch processed' to your requirements without the need for any batch processing software external to the camera.

Anyhow the point is moot ... we each have our own biases and prejudices and we stick with that no matter the alternatives.
But what would have been nice for Nikon to have catered for would be that the camera owner could have tweaked the Picture Control settings with more allowances and the ability to use other software's profiling results translated into Picture Control settings for transfer to the camera.

I think back to the film reversal silliness that Nikon introduced with the D850 and how it was limited to jpg shooting only. Why they(Nikon's software developers) diddn't use the Picture Control system for colour reversal beggars belief!
They instead chose to 'choke the cameras firmware' with a superfluous menu item that most people will never look at or use .. where they could have easily accounted for it in Picture Control memory banks that most users leave untouched!

[Ilkka Nissilä]

A couple of questions for those that use NXStudio:
Where is there any option of semblance of a [Save] icon/button.

Right, this is an issue, and although I use NX Studio, I haven't conclusively explored all its features. It seems the 1.0 version simply doesn't have all functions implemented.

What you can do is make copies of the NEF file and name and process those differently. Then whatever changed you make is "saved" to a sidecar file in the background.

But what would have been nice for Nikon to have catered for would be that the camera owner could have tweaked the Picture Control settings with more allowances and the ability to use other software's profiling results translated into Picture Control settings for transfer to the camera.

This would be nice, as soon as NX Studio became available I've started to use it again as my primary raw converter (as I used to with Capture NX2 which unfortunately doesn't support most of my cameras' NEF files). I just find Nikon's conversions more balanced and pleasant to look at and prefer their interpretation of the white balance as well. And I like to set the on-camera settings as close as possible to get the playback image to look the way I want it to look in most cases.

However, if it were possible to use picture controls and other processing settings in camera as starting points for third-party NEF conversion, it would be a valuable feature in my opinion. It would allow the photographer to use the settings in camera when they have time and then avoid having to do a lot of post work for those files where the photographer got it right in camera. For difficult or missed shots one could then adjust the settings.

I think Adobe simply would like each camera to be the same so that they don't have to taken into account any camera-specific features. But they are a big and highly profitable company and they could easily be able to afford the development time to more closely interpret Nikon's files and give closer heed to user settings in the camera. And they can do it for each major camera manufacturer.

I think back to the film reversal silliness that Nikon introduced with the D850 and how it was limited to jpg shooting only. Why they(Nikon's software developers) diddn't use the Picture Control system for colour reversal beggars belief!

I think this is a bit of an experimental feature that Nikon provided to make digitization easier and hopefully they will improve it over time.

Color negative reversal seems to be a topic which is not so easy to figure out yourself, how to do it with the kind of results you'd see with conventional printing or even a minilab. Nikon Scan did a really good job of it, and the GEM and ICE worked very well for color negatives. Let's hope these features find their way into cameras or post-processing software as well.

[David H. Hartman]

I edited an NEF(expendable file). Adjusted stuff randomly and obviously. Hoped to have an ability to see a version or something in the Versions tab. Zip!
Anyhow, after adjustments made, I saved as and over wrote the original NEF file. Made a few more edits again. now just did a save to overwrite the file yet again.
Went into Adjustment -> revert to original .. and back to original as stated it would do.

NX Studio v1.0.0 shows promise but it's a woefully unfinished beta release at best.

For saving various versions that won't be over-written automatically and without your choice there is an Adjustments> Save all adjustments> and Load adjustments> feature that saves an *.nka file that saves all your adjustments. Capture NX-D has the same feature but saves *.nxd files that are currently incompatible with NX Studio. I asked Nikon via some help page about the NX Studio's lack of ability to read and apply *.nxd files saved in Capture NX-D and they clearly showed they had no idea what the Save all adjustments and Load adjustments feature was for.

You can name the *.nxd and *.nka files anything you like so a description of the features used and the NEF for which they are intended is easy to note. These files will be written wherever you saved the last one so it's cumbersome to save them in the folder where the NEF resides. The *.nxd and *.nka files can be applied to any NEF file so if several NEF files need the same post processing you simply select those NEF files in a thumbnail view and load the adjustments. It's really lame that Nikon hasn't made the use of this feature smoother for the user and the failure of NX Studio to read and apply *.nxd files to NEF files is as I see it inexcusable.

Capture NX-D and NX Studio are not free! Those who buy Nikon cameras are paying for these programs. Just a small amount of additional effort on Nikon's part could make them smoother to use. They do produce excellent results.

For now I'm continuing to use Capture NX-D as NX Studio is so unfinished.

Dave

[Øivind Tøien]

I have a small question, which may or may not be answerable by any here:

When I travel, I use a rather antiquated little "netbook" running Win 7, and because my cameras came with it and it's a little less dreadfully slow, I still have a copy of VNX-2 for basic raw operations.  I know that VNX-i is said to overwrite it and have never installed it.  I do have CNX-D on that and my other computers, and the two run together.  I keep VNX-2 because it processes files differently, and for certain very basic operations its a little faster and simpler  (the netbook is not just slow - it's glacial!).

So my question is, does anyone know whether the new NX Studio overwrites VNX-2?  If so, can one reinstall VNX-2 without conflict?  I know I can get used to not having it, but would be happy to keep it if possible.

Meanwhile, I pine for the day that someone manages to make a cheap little Chromebook equivalent that runs Windows.

To avoid repeating the reinstall of ViewNX2 every time NX Studio etc. is updated, just rename the program folder that contains ViewNX-2 (for instance to 'ViewNX 2-P', P  for persistent  ) and recreate the shortcut.

However I have noticed one little annoyance lately: While viewNX2 will happily will change star ratings on the original nefs, once CNX-D has created a .jpg file, ViewNX-2 refuses to update the star rating or the color rating. I tried a reinstall without a folder rename and also to the very latest version (I have been running ver. 2.10.2 as that has been more stable), but that did not fix the issue. Likely a new version of CNX-D made some changes in how labels the created the JPGs. It seems that files edited last summer were OK, while at least from January the problems started to pop up.

Edit: I just tested a jpg exported from NX Studio and the good news there is that ViewNX2 does not have the same problems with re-rating those jpgs as the ones output from CNX-D.

Edit 2: I have to take that back, it appears that these problems only happens with certain files (all that were compared were captured with D500, but it also happens at least with AW1 files), and if so it happens similarly with output from both CNX-D and NX Studio. I have worked with a file that does not display the problem, but anything I do in CNX-D does not provoke the problem. It was compared to a problem file that was right before it in capture sequence.

[Ilkka Nissilä]

For now I'm continuing to use Capture NX-D as NX Studio is so unfinished.

For me NX Studio has worked well and I use it as my daily browser / raw converter, have done so since it came out. I use it only to make the raw conversion and then continue in Photoshop to crop and do further adjustments, resize, sharpening and such things. I could use ACR/PS and for some things I do, but I enjoy the Nikon white balance and raw conversion algorithm output more. In NX Studio it is easy to activate either method.

What bothers me most among bugs in the first version is that if I rate the images by pressing a number key, sometimes it beeps and will not take in the rating, and so I have to repeat it to get it down. After setting a rating, I can move to the next image with arrow keys but not further than that, which is very annoying. I have to use the mouse to click on another image if I want to continue browsing.

It would be nice to get a more fully-featured editing and browsing product from Nikon. Perhaps NX Studio can get there over time.