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Capture One with NEF images

novice9
I just started using Capture 1 Pro V5 on NEF captures from a D300. For some reason (presumably due to my lack of proficiency with the software), I cannot get the images processed through C1 to look even close to the beautiful quality of the jpeg's straight out of the camera.

I would really appreciate it if anyone would be willing to take a look at a sample nef/jpeg pair and provide any suggestions. I would post a sample pair here but can't seem to find a way to upload those files (perhaps there is none).

Thanks in advance for any help.

tony.
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Comments

3 comments

Date Votes
  • Paul Steunebrink
    Tony, a few tips that might help you get helped.
    First, I suspect most Capture One users are addicted RAW shooters; they don't shoot the camera jpegs for years and therefore are not in the habit to make the comparison. Second, and in addition to the first, please tell us what is that you miss in your pictures.

    Regarding posting images here. You can embed a link to an image you posted elsewhere on the net. Or upload an image (pair) to a free service and post the link for download here. Other users can download and review the results and comment here. There are several options.
    Welcome to the forum and Capture One!
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  • Juergen1
    [quote="Paul_E" wrote:
    First, I suspect most Capture One users are addicted RAW shooters; they don't shoot the camera jpegs for years and therefore are not in the habit to make the comparison.


    But you can take a jpeg as to see what you could do with Nikon software.

    I really don't like to post here I'm not happy with C1's raw development of D300 files (with D200 it was okay), but it's the truth.

    I see lacks in

    Luminance: about 1/3 - 1/2 stop too dark.
    Highlights: anyhow blown away. Using the highlight slider leads to dull results.
    Saturation: what saturation? I have to increase about 10 in the advanced color editor. The common saturation slider works another way (smart saturation). I'm not speaking of or demanding over-saturated pictures!
    Colors: Really deviates from Nikon NX/ACR (which are perfect). Yellow: Very dull (one guy in the net offers an ICC profile for 18 € to manage that, haha). Blue, red: too dark with a tendency to coolness. I tested with Kodak color patches.
    Noise reduction: This was my biggest problem. Unusable at high ISO. In combination with sharpening pixel-groups become 'rod'-shaped (sorry, can't find a better english description).

    For single files the best solution for me in terms of image quality was to use Nikon Capture NX2. But it is very slow and has a weird interface, although you have very interesting tools. Badge developement takes time...

    Here it comes to Lightroom and Aperture. I loved the way, Aperture is organized and hate it in Lightroom. Again, the image quality and the speed of AP for me is not acceptable, otherwise the workflow and GUI would be the best. Lightroom is very fast even on older machines than mine, but the rendering engine of LR2/ACR is still a mess with D200/D300 files. And I really really dislike the kindergarten UI and this module concept.

    But I started to test the LR3 beta with it's new raw engine, and I could'nt believe my eyes: picture quality is nearly perfect in any way. Colors like NX2 (tested with Kodak color patches) stunning demosaicing, even better than NX2. You can use ISO 1600/3200 with D300 without loosing saturation, the demosaicing looks like very fine high ISO films (luminace noise reduction is not implemented yet, but if you use Dfine, you get superb results).

    This was so impressive, that I have to try to forget my averseness to Lightroom and consider to change my workflow.

    As yet I was unable to get the same results with C1 (especially at high ISO), tried to generate profiles and styles with C1 Pro tryout V5 (which delivers obviously the same results as V4). Finally I gave up.

    The out-of-box quality LR3 offers at least with D300 files, paired with its DAM-abilities and speed convinced me to try a new workflow.

    I really don't want to make publicity for Adobe in this forum and I hate the usage of Lghtroom, but in the end the image quality and invested time regarding the whole workflow speaks for it (related to D300!). So it seems I have to struggle with the interface and module concept of LR. Expression Media seems to have died in it's liason with P1.

    But probably someone has created a really good working profile for the D300 (Phase One hasn't with it's generic in my eyes, I guess it's not so important for them to support such semi-pro models). Would be the last chance for me with C1. Therefore I'm glad only to have purchased the standard version of C1.4, and V5 Pro seems to be quite slow on my old MBP.

    Excuse my bad english and these long statements.

    Jürgen
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  • Boris1212
    I've faced similar problems at the beginning. Trying NX2 and other raw converters, but still the speed and detail resolution of C1 are the best for me.
    Thought, to achieve "Nikon" look I took a pic of QP card and than developed the files in NX2 with various settings (portrait, standard...), and throght comparision i build some custom curves and a custom icc profile. With those settings pics looks very similar as in NX2, but i barely use this settings anymore. Instead I've made a custom neutral setting on nikon D300, so the pics on display looks very close to the default preview of C1 and i check on dispay only highlights. For a try - nikon portrait settings is close to C1 with those settings: standard profile, brightness +12, contrast -14. On Nikon, neutral setting with contrast +2 and brightness -1 is close to C1 default.

    Hope it helps,

    Boris
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