Nikon software

Part 1 Take a first look at Nikon’s new image-editing tool with Rod Lawton

Discover Capture NX-D, Nikon’s latest software designed especially for processing and adjusting your RAW files

On 25 February, Nikon revealed a brand-new version of its image processing and adjustment software, called

Nikon Capture NX-D. (The D4s was the bigger announcement the same day; see page 86 for more on that.)

Once Capture NX-D is finished, it will replace Capture NX2, which will be discontinued – so does that mean it’s a direct replacement?

Probably not. Nikon Capture NX2 was developed with the help of Nik Software, which designed the innovative control point technology used by Capture NX2 for quick and effective image adjustments. However, Nik Software was taken over by Google back in September 2012, which has left Capture NX2 high and dry. Nikon has continued to add support for new D-SLRs as they appear, but the software itself has been on borrowed time.

Capture NX2 had some powerful editing, masking and selection tools, but the beta version of NX-D has none of these, so it does look like a much simpler tool.

Free for all

Capture NX2 fans will have to migrate to Photoshop or some other image-editing tool for the localised adjustments they used to do in the Nikon software, but it’s not all bad news. Nikon Capture NX-D will be free, just like Nikon ViewNX 2 is now, and presumably you’ll be able to download and use it even if you own an older camera.

Safer metadata

Capture NX-D also tackles metadata issues caused by existing Nikon applications. First, there’s no mention of the complex and problematic Nikon Transfer tool – older 1.x versions still on users’ machines can corrupt newer NEF files. Also, Capture NX-D uses safer ‘sidecar’ files to store your adjustments rather than writing them directly to the NEF file.