Adobe Lightroom and View NX2/Capture NX2 interaction

[Lady GooGoo La La]

I recent acquired Adobe LR5, so this is a dumb question.

Adobe LR seems to import RAW Nikon files and allows edits of those files, if I edit a NEF file in LR, will that edit affect how I perceive the same file in View NX2 or Capture Nx2?

Non-destructive edits made in  View NX2 or Capture Nx2 are ignored by LR, but are edits (in NEF's) made in LR ignored by View NX2 or Capture Nx2? Duhhh!


Lady GooGoo LaLa

[Lady GooGoo La La]

Answer:

LR writes an XMP sidecar file to allow visualization of changes therefore those changes will not be visible in View NX2 or Capture NX2.

Great!! so they can co-exist and not conflict with each other! :-)

[Kevin Childress]

Correct in that LR adjustments will not have any effect on the same RAW file when used in the Nikon software. However, the engines in the Adobe software and the Nikon software are very different. You should anticipate perceiving different outcomes if adjusting the same RAW file in both programs. I use LR extensively and while I do prefer LR over the Nikon programs, I do continue to use NX2 when shooting black and white in-camera. If shooting black and white in-camera, there is a tag in the .NEF file that NX2 recognizes as part of the file properties, and NX2 will display the .NEF file as black and white as the camera produced it (NX2 also allows you to see the color version of the same .NEF file). But LR does not recognize that "black and white tag" in the .NEF file so LR never displays what the camera actually produced. If an when I use NX2 to adjust a raw file, I always output the adjustments to a 16-bit uncompressed TIFF. That TIFF file is then imported into my LR catalog. Moral of the story: keep an assortment of tools in your tool box.

[Lady GooGoo La La]

Thank you for describing your LR NX2 workflow Kevin especially with regard to use of a 16 bit Tiff. I, m doing some HDR, do you find LR sufficient for nose reduction?  I dont know how to use it yet, but was considering 3rd party solution (Noiseware, Nik software now Google, or Topaz) to get noise under control!  Any suggestions here, you seem to have this situation well under control! ;-)  

[Kevin Childress]

Lady GooGoo La La wrote:

Thank you for describing your LR NX2 workflow Kevin especially with regard to use of a 16 bit Tiff. I, m doing some HDR, do you find LR sufficient for nose reduction?  I dont know how to use it yet, but was considering 3rd party solution (Noiseware, Nik software now Google, or Topaz) to get noise under control!   

You're very welcome. On a side note: If you're just getting started with LR, I urge, urge, urge (etc., etc.) you to be proactive with using LR's catalog features (for structuring a comprehensive library) before you get too deep. The cataloging features in LR are industry-leading and can save you a TON of time in the future.  

Regarding noise reduction in LR: YES, YES, AND YES!  Lightroom gives you six different ways to manage noise reduction. Better yet, the controls for noise reduction are in the same panel as the sharpening tools so it makes it very easy to judge the effect of noise reduction on sharpness (and vice versa) as you adjust each individually. I also have NIK's (Google's) sharpening and noise reduction tools but I find they only add steps to a workflow that may not be necessary. I may use those tools in a layers-based approach inside of Photoshop but it would be an extreme case to justify that. 95% of your noise/sharpening needs can be addressed in LR. 

Take a look at my blog post regarding sharpening in LR. You'll see where I reference using the ALT key to reveal a mask inside of LR for sharpening. That same technique can be used to reveal the same sort of mask during noise reduction.

 

[Lady GooGoo La La]

Thanks again Kevin, as I am new to LR I appreciate your experience and will read your blog.

You mentioned LR's catalog, that was another concern I had regarding LR.  I am not a good photographer, I just take lots of photos, statistics are in my favour ;-)! Anyway, I make HDR panoramas (we wont say how good they are) which means I have thousands of files, now with my D610 my files size even bigger, by drive can be quickly clogged and use removable drives while on the road. my concern using catalogues is they are databases, I'm familiar with the maintain required and concerned about corruption after 100's of hours of effort.......yes I know about backups but power failures et al corruptions happen. I see files corruptions more often than I like.  The are so may parameters involved, but it sounds you are a proponent of catalogues, do you limit the size of the catalogue to a certain files size or number of files. I am aware you use a D800 and take houndreds of photos too, so whats your experience in this regard. Any warnings re using catalog?

Kind regards,

Lady GooGoo La La 

[Kevin Childress]

Lady GooGoo La La wrote:

... I make HDR panoramas which means I have thousands of files, now with my D610 my files size even bigger, by drive can be quickly clogged ...

I understand this. And until about six weeks ago I had the same concern. But I have adopted a new strategy for this concern. The solution is right on my keyboard and is labeled "Delete". I also do a lot of HDR and panorama work (many times in combination) and I would also end up with thousands of megabytes of files. So after taking a little break from photography I decided to clean up some of the old stuff before I started creating new stuff. I went back and looked at all those RAWs and 16-bit TIFFs used to create the HDR's, and the panoramas, and the HDR panoramas, and I began to dump the stuff that I knew I would never "rework" into another version of the same image. In doing so I permanently deleted more than 2,500 RAW files and 16-bit uncompressed TIFFs. I felt completely liberated and it changed what I keep when shooting now. Basically, if the image isn't worth sharing, I delete it. Gone. Done. Moving on.

Lady GooGoo La La wrote:

... my concern using catalogues is they are databases, I'm familiar with the maintain required and concerned about corruption after 100's of hours of effort.......yes I know about backups but power failures et al corruptions happen

Okay, but understand this: LR's catalog is not a back-up of the files on your hard drive. But the catalog, or "database" as you call it, is a fact of life with LR. Besides being an awesome RAW converter, it is LR's ability to index a catalog as it does that makes the program such a powerful tool. You can only "edit" an image in LR if you import the file into LR. When you import a file into LR, reference to that file is written into the LR catalog. If you tag the file with keywords, those keywords are written into the catalog. If you make adjustments to the file in LR, those adjustments are written into the catalog. All of this is done so that LR can call up the information for future adjustments, edits, additions, deletions, etc, etc. 

You have options for how the catalog works. So, what I'm suggesting is to understand how the LR catalog works; embrace it, love it. Get ahead of it now so that you can set up the catalog to do what you want it to do in the future.

Lady GooGoo La La wrote:

... do you limit the size of the catalogue to a certain files size or number of files. I am aware you use a D800 and take houndreds of photos too, so whats your experience in this regard. Any warnings re using catalog?

Currently I do not limit the size of my LR catalog. I have read many articles on this subject and more than a few people suggest they only see problems with the catalog when the catalog reaches 15,000 - 20,000 images indexed. And even then, the only "problems" they see is when their computer takes a little longer to search through the catalog for file data (previous adjustments, etc.). To rephrase that, their perception is a slower-running computer. Everyone has a different threshold for pain when it comes to a "slow computer", and obviously much of that depends on one's computers performance to begin with. I currently do not suffer from such pain. In a couple years I may decide to split my catalog into two or three partitions but I'm not faced with that decision right now. 

The only warning I have about your LR catalog is this: Don't ignore it. Embrace it. Love it.

PS - I replied to your other question ...