Capture NX - Tips and tricks
What are "Base Settings"
and why are some tools (like LCH, noise reduction) in more than one place?
Think of the "Base Settings" panel as Nikon Capture 4.4 all wrapped up in one little (but quite expandable) panel. These settings are written into your NEF, and the NEF must be completely re-rendered using the NC4 engine if you make changes to them. Other programs that can read the NEF format (like Nikon View and Capture 4.4) will be able to read changes made to the "Base Settings".
Because the Base Settings are sort of the "root level" of your NEF, they take much longer for your computer to render. So, if you have a choice of applying USM in the base settings or in an "Edit Step", choose the Edit Step. Changes made to your NEF in the "edit steps" use the new Capture NX engine, are cached to the disk, and are effectively applied in a manner similar to adjustment layers in Photoshop. For maximum performance, turn off things like Noise Reduction in the Base Settings.
Using “Edit Steps” in Capture NX
Edit Steps in Capture NX function in a manner similar to layers in Photoshop. Although edit steps are applied sequentially, you can delete an edit step at any time. Because of the sequential nature of edit steps, it is important to take into consideration the order in which they are applied. For example, adding a Noise Reduction edit step should be done early on in your workflow, while sharpening should probably be applied at the end of your editing.
Another nice feature of edit steps is that you can use the “opacity” settings to customize a particular look. For example, you may wish to apply an effect only in the colour channels of your image. You can do this in the “opacity” settings.
You can save one or more edit steps by clicking on the “batch” tool in the edit menu.
Hint: If your suite of settings contains changes to the base adjustments, make sure the base adjustments window is expanded to prevent a warning dialog box from being displayed.
The usefulness of edit steps is increased when you use “versions” to save a particular image state. For example, lets say that I want to use Capture NX to create an image for posting at Nikonians. I can make an edit step that includes resizing, sharpening, and converting the image to sRGB mode for the web. I can then save this suite of settings as a “version” so that I can toggle between complex edit step states on the fly. I might have another version that is full-size and sharpened in a different manner for output to my printer, or to Photoshop as a TIFF file. Because the edits in Capture are non-destructive, I can save a single NEF and have multiple versions embedded in it.
The Capture NX File Browser
For people familiar with Capture 4, the file browser replaces the “Multi Image Window”. The file browser’s main jobs are two-fold: allow the user to quickly open an image from a particular folder and batch processing. Despite its appearance, the File Browser is not an image viewer tool like Nikon View, or Adobe Bridge. Files displayed in the NX Browser window can only be opened in Capture NX.
Tips for using the file browser:
1) How to sort by file type (extension). There is no default manner of sorting images by filetype (jpeg, NEF, etc) in the file browser. However, you can still sort your images by filetype. First, choose “details view” from the FOLDER MENU in the browser, and choose view—>details. Now the files should be displayed as tiny icons in list view with various menu headings. Click the “Type” heading column to sort by filetype. Now return to the “rows” view. The files will be sorted by file extension.
2) Batch processing.
If you want to process a large number of files without applying any new settings to those files (you want to use the embedded settings), then you can perform a batch save using the “Save As…” dialog from the File menu in the browser. Select the images you wish to save, choose “Save as…” and then specify where to save the files and what format to save them as (JPEG, NEF, TIFF). Capture NX will batch save all the files using the settings that are already in each file. This is useful if you have made individual changes to a large number of files in a single folder and then want to process them all at once.
On the other hand, if you wish to apply a suite of settings that you have previously saved, you can use the “batch” command from the file browser. Select the files you wish to process, designate an output directory, and choose a set of pre saved settings. In order for the “batch” command to work, you must apply a pre saved setting.
3) Pasting file settings.
You can use the file browser to apply settings from one NEF to another very quickly. Let’s say you shot an entire event at an indoor gym under mixed lighting. You open a NEF from the event in which you took a shot of your pocket gray card. You then use Capture NX’s eyedropper tool to set the gray point (white balance) of your image and get it exactly the way you want. You can use the batch icon in the edit steps to copy the selected step. In the Browser window, select all the files you wish to fix the white balance, and from the batch tool icon, choose “paste settings”. When you are done, you’ll be prompted to save all the changes.
Colour Control Points - the basics
The colour control points are one of the major new features in Capture NX. Colour control points act to select similar pixel values within a user-specified radius in the image. Colour control points are unique in that you can apply them in separate Edit Steps, or together in a single Edit Step.
When you first start learning to use colour control points, it is a good idea to select “show selection” from the View menu in Capture NX. This will show you a black and white representation of what parts of your image have been selected. By using the selection tools, you can also define a "mask" over which area the control points will or will not have an effect. The selection mask overrides all control points (think of it as being the master mask).
Colour control points can serve two purposes:
1) Defining pixel values for modification.
2) Defining pixel values to be held constant.
Let’s say you have an image with a sky that just isn’t quite blue enough for your liking. You add a colour control point to the blue sky, drag the size slider to cover the sky in your image, and adjust the hue, saturation and brightness to your liking. Unfortunately, you discover that some other areas of your image that you didn’t want to change had pixel values that were similar to those in the sky. By adding another control point in the same edit step, the newly selected pixel values will revert to their original state. In this way, you can “add or subtract” from your selection. You can also duplicate colour control points by clicking on a point and using the “duplicate” command. A new point will be added to your image with the same adjustments as the point you duplicated.
Tip: If you don’t want colour control points to interact with each other, then manually add a new Edit Step for your next set of points.
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