I have used purely Nikon software in the past because of their superior way they interprete the NEF files. Any thrid party software I know up to now ignores parts of the RAW file informartion, like in-camera settings, AF point or such alike. Because I missed the selective processing options that Capture NX2 lost due to the license issue with Nik Software I decided to check out Capture One. Reason was that someone here in the forum said that the Nikon-Only version would work with the native RAW file interpretation from Nikon, which turned out to be wrong. Two things made me finally move away from it and change to DxO PhotoLab 4:
- I find the way Capture One tries to "simplify" the workflow and forcing you into their philosophy of catalogues , sessions etc. quite irrititaing for someine like me who is used to organize my workflow and imagae management simply based on directories, naming conventions and keywords in the exported JPG's.
- Noise reduction within the program is a bit better than in Capture NX-D, but not the best either. Combining Capture One with tools like Topaz Denoise forces you to break up your workflow, because you have to change file format when entereing Topaz Denoise to TIFF or even DNG. This prevents you from juggling with denoising parameters and other paramters like micro contrast or clarity during processing of picture that require denoising.
In DxO Photolab 4 you have a denoising function completely integrated in the raw processing rather than forsing to use external programs including changing the file fomat and thus make you going away from completely non-destructive processing as soon as you need denoising.
To give you an impression, here are some test picture shot with a D4S and then exported to JPG unprocesses first and then again after applying DeepPrime denoiseing in PhotoLab 4 to it. All 100% crops with no other processing applied than mentioned:
1. ISO 1100 exported as-is and with DeepPrime applied using standard/automatic setting
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1. ISO 20.000 exported as-is and with DeepPrime applied using standard/automatic setting
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Remember, all this is not done with external plug-ins, but with the internal denoising function of DxO which allows you to use it in ramdome sequence and combination with the other processing functions. YOu might want to take a look to the next post, where I have another expample (can't attach more than 5 pictures in one post
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After also other things in DxO PhotoLab work better for me compared with Capture One, I decided to changeoer to PhotoLab and cancelled the subcriptions of C1 again.
For older images I keep Capture NX-D installed because it features nice support for images that were processed with Capture NX2 using U-Point technology. Capture NX-D is able to show pictures that were processed with Capture NX2 correctly, even if you have used selective processing by means of Control Points / U-Point technology (i.e. selective sharpening of an eye). This is because as opposed to modern programs Capture NX2 was writing the modification IN the raw file itself rather than using sidecar files and Capture NX-D has the capability of interpreting this information correctly.
However, after noise reduction in PhotoLab is so good and the selective processing functions that used to be in Capture NX2 are now implemented in an improved version in PhotoLab 4, I even started to reprocess old images with this software to take advantage of the denoising. Actually DxO bought the technology orginally developped by NIK software back from Google and has implemeted it in their software now.
Beside that I discovered that using Topaz Denoise is bending colours quite a bit, which - in combination with forcing you to change the file format within your workflow makes is relatively difficult to correct that easily.
