What use is Digital Photo Professional?

Digital Photo Professional (DPP) is Canon's RAW conversion tool. It comes for free with Canon cameras that produce RAW pictures, and once you have it, all updates are free. However, you cannot download it for free without an original copy to update. DPP opens CR2, TIFF, CRW and JPEG files.

When it comes to high end RAW converters, like DPP, Adobe Camera RAW, Adobe Lightroom and Apple's Aperture, they all have their strengths. It is very difficult to tell which one is "best". Someone who masters any one of them, can usually do what s/he needs to do with that program. Anyone who does not fully master any one of them will probably not achieve the best possible result.

Comparing DPP with Nikon's RAW conversion programs is not easy either. DPP can do more with CR2 files than View NX can do with NEF files. Capture NX has more functions for NEF than DPP has for CR2, but what you find in DPP may be more than enough.

If you want a full blown image editing program, neither DPP nor Capture NX cuts it. You cannot use them to paste a face from one person onto another. Neither can you render patterns or add text strings to a picture. For such tasks, you need to use a tool like Adobe Photoshop or the gimp.

DPP can perform batch jobs on several pictures at once. However, it is not scriptable with any internal macros or AppleScript.

What use is Capture NX?

Capture NX 2 is Nikon's high end RAW converter. It opens NEF, JPEG and TIFF files and also saves in those formats. It has many more adjustment options than View NX, and it can add and remove them in a way that is similar to Adobe Photoshop's adjustment layers.

The most unique feature of Capture NX is probably the "Control Points" that let you easily make adjustments to areas of the picture that are similar.

When it comes to high end RAW converters, like Capture NX, Adobe Camera RAW, Adobe Lightroom and Apple's Aperture, they all have their strengths. It is very difficult to tell which one is "best". Someone who masters any one of them, can usually do what s/he needs to do with that program. Anyone who does not fully master any one of them will probably not achieve the best possible result.

Capture NX is not an image editing program. You cannot use it to paste a face from one person onto another. Neither can you render patterns or add text strings to a picture. For such tasks, you need to use a tool like Adobe Photoshop or the gimp.

Capture NX can perform batch jobs on several pictures at once. However, it is not scriptable with any internal macros or AppleScript.

What use is View NX?

View NX is a free picture browser from Nikon. You can use it to view NEF, JPEG and TIFF files, and you can make "Quick Adjustments" to the files, like changing white balance or exposure. You can also convert NEF files to JPEG or TIFF. If you want to make more than just simple adjustments, it is better to use a more advanced tool like Capture NX or Adobe Camera Raw, but they cost money.

One "problem" with the adjustments you make to NEF files in View NX is that they are not visible in non-Nikon products. You cannot see the modifications in Adobe products or Picasa or UFRaw for example. This is actually perfectly normal. You cannot see Adobe modifications in non-Adobe products either usually.

One more thing you can do with View NX is to upload your pictures to Mypicturetown, Nikon's web sharing site.

Adobe Camera Raw "Batch conversion" of White Balance

... or other settings.

I took a number of pictures today with my Nikon D5000 with the White Balance set to "incandescent", which was silly, because all of them were taken outside on a sunny day. As I had taken only NEF pictures, I was not too concerned. I know that one easily can adjust white balance in RAW files. The only question was how.

My first attempt was using View NX. I highlighted all the pictures in the browser, clicked on "Quick Adjustments" and chose the white balance "Calculate Automatically". I then sat back with a good book and waited while View NX updated all the files. There was a progress indicator in the lower right corner, so I could see approximately how thick a book I could read. Somewhere along the line I also clicked on the Save button, when View NX prompted me to do so.

The "problem" was that View NX did not update the original setting in the NEF files, and Adobe products only read the original setting. In other words, even though they looked fine in View NX, they still looked wrong in Adobe Bridge and Adobe Camera Raw.

So the solution had to be within the Adobe products themselves:

1. Double click on the first image in Adobe Bridge, to open Adobe Camera Raw.
2. Select the White Balance you want (for example Auto or Daylight).
3. Click on Done, to close ACR.
4. In Adobe Bridge, right click on the image and select Develop Settings > Copy Settings in the pop-up menu.
5. Select all the other images.
6. Right click on them and select Develop Settings > Paste Settings.
7. In the dialogue you get, choose which settings you want to paste. To get just White Balance, you can select the Subset White Balance.
8. Click on OK.

Once ACR has finished processing the files, they will look fine in Adobe products.

Difference between RAW converters

There is one big advantage of pictures taken in jpeg format compared to RAW: you have a fairly good idea what they will look like.

With RAW pictures, be it CR2 or NEF or any other version, it is just the raw data from the camera, and each RAW converter may interpret it in their own way. One converter may handle noise better than another. One converter may interpret the white balance or luminosity in one way, and another converter may have another idea of how things should work.

Here is an example where compensation for distortion is radically different. The pictures are taken with a Canon S90 camera.

The first picture is a CR2 file processed with Canon's own Digital Photo Professional. The lines and the tiles are pretty straight.



The next picture is the same CR2 file, processed by Picasa 3.6.1. Note the very bent lines. In the corners of the photos, there is actually more information than there is in the straight picture.



What likely is happening here is that DPP has information about how much the lens bends the picture. DPP corrects for it, and the tiles look like they should do. Picasa, however, probably takes pixel for pixel from the sensor of the camera, and the result is the bent aspect.

It is very possible that Picasa will update its converter for CR2 files from S90 in the future, so they will look closer to reality and further from the pixel data.

Note that converting to DNG is not a solution. If you convert to DNG, that does not remove the distortion, and Picasa displays the DNG as distorted as the CR2 file.

How do the Selection tools in Capture NX work? Can I modify selections?

The Selection tools in Capture NX may at first look a little confusing. This is where I would like to say, "but it is really simple..." That would be lying however. It is confusing. In the following, I will try to make it a little clearer.

First a rule to make life easier: Get the Selection right from the beginning.

The easiest thing is if you first select exactly what you want to apply an adjustment too. Then you apply the adjustment, and you are done.

If you make a mistake, you can always delete the adjustment and start from the beginning. You can also "revert" adjustment or selection, but that may be confusing, so wait with that until you really need it.



Now, let's assume that you have applied an adjustment, but you were not happy with the selection. You can do the following things.

Revert the selection. Once you have clicked on the revert or delete button for the selection, the adjustment will apply to the entire picture. Adding a selection again using the Lasso tools will not bring the adjustment back, but do not panic.

This is how the different tools work after an Adjustment selection has been deleted:

The Selection Control Point will add a new selection, and it will apply the adjustment to the selection.

The Lasso, the Polygon Lasso, the Rectangle Marquee and the Oval Marquee will create a selection without adjustment. The entire picture will be without adjustment. However, you can later fill in the selection using the next tools.

The Selection Brush will add a selection where the adjustment applies. However, if there is a previous selection from one of the lasso and marquee tools, the Selection Brush will only add the adjustment to areas which were already selected.


The logic of the Selection Gradient is identical to the Selection Brush. It will add a selection where the adjustment applies. However, if there is a previous selection from one of the lasso and marquee tools, the Selection Gradient will only add the adjustment to areas which were already selected.

The Fill / Remove Tool is arguably the silliest "painting" tool of all. It does not matter where in the picture you click. If you use the Fill tool (with the plus sign), all selected areas will get the active adjustment. If you use the Remove tool (with the minus sign) selected areas will not get the active adjustment, but other areas will.

This is very confusing. As it does not matter where in the image you click, this should be a simple command, not a tool you have to click on twice (on the tool and on the picture) to activate.

Nevertheless, it is very useful, just like the other selection tools, once you have spent some time understanding how they work.


In the example picture above, a blue Color Balance adjustment has been applied to the following selection: Top left - a rectangle with a cut out oval. Top centre - a selection control point based on the colour of the waves. Right - an oval selection filled with a gradient selection. Bottom left - text scribbled with the selection brush in a selected rectangle.

What is a "full stop" aperture?

A "full stop", or Exposure Value (EV) is an aperture unit that halves the amount of light that comes into the camera. There is a full stop between f/1 and f/1.4. There is another full stop between f/1.4 and f/2. The series then goes on f/2, f/2.8, f/4, f/5.6, f/8, f/11, f/16 and so on.

If you stop down once from f/4, you will set the aperture to f/5.6, and let half as much light into the camera.

The values can be calculated by multiplying the previous value by the square root of 2. The square root of two is approximately 1.414213562373095048... but luckily camera manufacturers only use one decimal.

F-stop illustrated

One of the more confusing things in photography is the f-stop values (also called focal ratio, f-ratio, relative aperture or f-numbers). They usually have values like f/1.4, f/2, f/2.8, f/4, f/5.6 and so on. The confusing thing is that a higher number means a smaller aperture. Understanding why this is the case may make your life easier and even your pictures better.

The number is calculated by this formula: (focal length)/(Diameter of the entrance hole). Usually a long lens has a long focal length - it is very roughly the distance between the end of the lens and the sensor. The "entrance hole" is the hole in the aperture mechanism.



In the diagram above, the f-stop number is f/2, as the focal length is twice the Diameter of the entrance pupil.



In the diagram above, the f-stop number is f/4, as the focal length is four times the diameter of the entrance pupil. The value is higher, as the aperture is smaller.



In this last aperture diagram, the f-stop number is also f/4. This time, it is not the entrance hole that is smaller, but the focal length that is bigger than in the first diagram. (Click on the diagrams to display them in real size, if you do not believe me.)

If you change from f/2 to f/4 on your camera, you will cut the diameter by half, and consequently you cut the amount of light by four.



In other words, if you have a situation where you have set the camera aperture to f/2 and the shutter speed to 1/400 of a second, and you then change the aperture to f/4, you can keep the same amount of light by slowing the shutter speed down to 1/100 of a second.

So why is it called stop? It seems to be mostly old habit. The aperture hole, the entrance hole or "entrance pupil" as it is also called, "stops" light from getting in to the camera.

D5000 slow Live View focus

The Nikon D5000 has an excellent swivel monitor which you can use with Live View to take pictures in positions you could not possibly reach if you were using the standard Viewfinder. The problem, the huge problem, is that it focuses very slowly. You can count on several seconds after you press the shutter-release button before the picture is taken.

The solution to this is: manual focus. It is far from an ideal solution. In some situations you cannot manually focus fast enough. However, in some situations, if you set the lens to manually focus, you can take the picture instantly, before Live view has decided that the focus is accurate.

View NX is working with Snow Leopard - finally

The below text is now luckily obsolete. After almost half a year, Nikon finally fixed their applications so they can run with Snow Leopard.

If you launch ViewNX 1.4 under Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard), all text labels may be replaced by strange strings like IDS_MENU_FILE and a lot of other strings beginning with IDS. There are apparently problems with Capture NX 2 as well.

Your system is fine. The problem is with the software itself, and we have to wait for an update from Nikon.

There is a web page from Nikon that clarifies the situation. It is not very flattering for Nikon.

The page explains what Nikon planned to start with. Capture NX 1 is not part of the software that was supposed to work, and they will not do anything to make it work in the future. Nikon has pretty much abandoned Capture NX 1, so those of us who buy new cameras, like the D5000, have to upgrade to Capture NX 2, which does not work with Snow Leopard, which... Well, the situation is not ideal.