Congrats on a lovely site and all of the hard work you are doing.

A great big Bravo Zulu to Mike Rubin for offering his comments as well.

The dirty secret seems to be out; by shifting to from a:

– convert – edit – save

to a:

– save – edit – convert

workflow, RAW becomes very easy to use. (Yes, yes, I realize that a RAW file must be “converted” before it can be seen, but I think we all know what we are talking about. The goal is to keep the RAW file available and editable without dropping to 8 bits and locking the colors.

There is no question but that Capture’s ability to read the in camera settings gives it an edge. Even more impressive is it’s ability to CHANGE those settings if desired.

The next dirty secret is that what we REALLY want is a camera that shoots to a standard RAW format coupled with powerful editing software that allows us to develop presets. Think about it, if you shoot NEF and use Capture, the CAMERA doesn’t really use the settings, rather Capture emulates the camera. The cool thing about this scenario is that:

– The camera could be a bit cheaper as it would not have to do as much processing.
– The “in camera” settings, which are really in your software, could be updated with new releases. There is even scope to set them up as plugins, thus allowing third parties to play.

Finally, it is clear that most of the RAW converters/developers are very good. The big variable, as you noted, is operator skill with the interface. I have now been using Aperture for a few months now and can work very easily. This was emphatically NOT the case when I started – I found Aperture to be exceedingly un-Mac like.

Similarly, it took me forever to get results with Capture NX – not because the software was bad, but simply because I had no facility with it.

Sorry for the long post – long airport layover!

DiploStrat

You reach the very heart of my concern about Aperture: “Apple chooses to go at RAW on their own with no assistance or SDKs from manufacturers”.

This is the reason I chose to run my simple test. I wish that we could all standardize on on the way adjustments meta-data is handled in RAW files, if not on a single file-type.

Essentially, these are two very different applications with RAW conversion in common. Aperture is a workflow app that does RAW conversion. Capture NX is a RAW converter that does advanced image editing on the RAW file. I wish I could develop a workflow that takes advantage of both (i.e. sort and rank in Aperture, convert and edit in Capture NX). It seems like it will be difficult thought because it requires exporting masters, re-importing them, and stacking them. This, however, is Apple’s fault, not Nikon’s. I think they should have designed it with the option to use the workflow and Capture as a RAW converter.

Thanks again for your comments

My pleasure to comment and thanks for the voice.

I certainly understand the frustration with the interface. Until I became intimate with it, it didn’t flow the way I would have liked. Certainly there are bugs to fix and designs to hammer out. I don’t and didn’t look at your commentary as denigration of Capture NX and no offense was taken.

I would never take away from Apple nor their design which is so evident in Aperture. Plus the elegance that Core Image and use of the GPU in Aperture allows things that no one can do on any platform other than the Mac-at least not without writing 2 sets of code for both Mac & Windows.

Aperture is a beautiful piece of software and it does so many things well. I also take some pride in the fact that Apple, either unknowingly or knowingly incorporated some features, albeit executed even better (again owing to the OS and GPU integration as well as Jonathan Ivey’s design leadership) from Nikon PictureProject which is a much lower level piece of software. (Specifically Versions in Aperture, Markers in PictureProject, Versions in Capture NX come to mind).

I think, and I base this on my own experience as well as many authors and users I have spoken to privately, that Aperture’s RAW processing suffers, and not just on Nikon files, but most RAW files. Because Apple chooses to go at RAW on their own with no assistance or SDKs from manufacturers, they have a lot more work and coding to do on their own and unfortunately it is a weakness in Aperture. Adobe, on the other hand, do a very fine job with RAW processing on Lightroom and ACR 4; they’ve really come a long way, but it’s taken years, trial and error and a number of top photographer’s input and probably millions upon millions of dollars to get to that point.

From day 1 in 1999 with the D1, Capture has always produced a great RAW rendering with the NEF file. But today, I think that that is only 1 great feature of Capture NX. Its real strength lies in its U Point technology from Nik Software (our partner and a company in which we have an equity investment) and the selective application of effects. The next strength is the ability to truly apply non-destructive editing to NEF files and also JPEG & TIFF files when converted to NEF in Capture NX. With Versions (formerly Markers) we have a level of control without the bloating of the hard drive and the non-destructive power all encapsulated in a single file rather than a closed database or side-car file. That is where Capture NX’s real strength lies.

Best,

Michael

I did listen to the round-tripping podcast, but he doesn’t deal with RAW conversion, but TIFF editing, so I thought it wasn’t appropriate to this test.

My point in this small study is certainly not to denigrate Capture NX. I think Nikon should know their RAW format better than anyone, but to check if I was at any serious disadvantage in using Aperture. However, I will be as open with you as I am with the product managers in the company I work for . I find Capture NX more complex than it needs to be from a UI perspective. I have owned it longer than I have owned Aperture, but I was able to become proficient in Aperture quickly. I don’t plan to give up on Capture because I like having the deepest tool-set possible.

Thanks again for the comment. I will experiment some more tonight.