Nikon Capture NX 2 review

Capture NX is the latest version of Nikon's official Raw converter for its DSLRs.

It uses the same U Point technology as the previous version, which makes it much easier to make brightness, contrast and colour adjustments to specific areas of the image without having to use complex masking/selection tools.

But now the principle's been extended via the new Selection Control Point feature to allow all the other adjustment tools to be applied in the same way. These include Gaussian Blur, Unsharp Mask, levels and curves adjustments and more.

For those used to conventional selection tools, this feels clever but odd, especially the way the effect changes as you move the control point around. Nevertheless, this is a very quick and intelligent way of making localised adjustments.

Other smart new features in this version include an Auto Retouch Brush that is good at brushing over spots or blemishes.

NX 2 also introduces Shadow and Highlight Protection sliders, which are useful when making contrast adjustments and for recovering additional highlight detail in Raw files. These bring Capture NX 2 into line with the highlight/shadow recovery tools in Aperture and Lightroom, for example.

But this leads into the workflow process and what could prove to be Capture NX 2's downfall. NX 2 has a basic folder/thumbnail browser, which is, admittedly, improved in this version with a labelling system and ratings. But it's no good for those who need fast, library-wide metadata searches, 'virtual' collections and albums, web galleries, slideshows and the rest.

The other issue is the bespoke NEF file format it uses. Cleverly, Capture NX 2 can save all your adjustments within the NEF file, together with any versions you want to create along the way. Unfortunately, the NEF file NX 2 produces when it does this is no longer a normal NEF file. NX 2 can still make perfect sense of it, but nothing else can - including software which can read that camera's (original) Raw files.

The upshot is that if you really want to make proper use of NX 2's embedded editing instructions, you're stuck with its own browser, which makes it much more difficult to integrate it with an Aperture or Lightroom workflow. NX 2 only achieves its full potential if you're prepared to use it as a complete end-to-end workflow solution.

But that isn't quite the whole story. NX 2 might appear to be a bespoke Nikon Raw converter, but if you ignore the Raw side for a moment, it's also a very good image-editor, which could be used alongside any cataloguing app to fix up Tiffs and Jpegs. It doesn't do layers or masks like Photoshop, but most of the time photographers don't need those features anyway.

And in this role, NX 2 is a lot better than the previous version. The tool layout is less confusing, the contrast slider makes it much easier to add 'punch' to your images, and the automatic chromatic aberration removal and distortion correction options work on Jpegs and Tiffs from other cameras, not just NEF files. Seen as a Nikon-specific workflow tool, Capture NX 2 has some obvious limitations. But if you think of it as a highly-innovative image-editor with added appeal for Nikon owners, it makes a lot more sense.