Real World Nikon Capture NX
Category: Kindle Store,Kindle eBooks,Arts & Photography
Real World Nikon Capture NX Details
With his friendly, accessible style, photographer and writer Ben Long takes you on a tour of the ins and outs of Nikon's powerful new photo editing program, which can be used with any digital camera! Real World Nikon Capture NX is packed with the kind of detail you can't get anywhere else. Long knows which features are important, like how to make selective corrections to an image with just one click, and what you need to know to get your work done. His expert advice will help you take great pictures, then organize, edit, and output them successfully. In Real World Nikon Capture NX you'll learn how to: Compose stunning digital images from JPEG, TIFF, and raw format photos Learn to correct color and tone using Capture NX’s state-of-the-art adjustment tools Use nondestructive editing techniques Create a comprehensive and efficient workflow for processing images Configure Capture NX for color management Use advanced editing features such as control points and selection brushes Output your photos to a variety of media, including print and the Web
Reviews
My first impression was received when I picked up the Amazon.com box and felt how light it was. This CAN'T be it. I'm used to the REAL WORLD series containing very thick and detailed books. I was surprised by the 220 page book, and felt that $35 was probably a little steep, but looked on the bright side - a 220p book is a heck of a lot easier to tote around than a 400p bible. I put my impressions aside and dug in.Ben divides the book into 8 chapters: 1) Intro; 2) Basic Theory; 3) Interface & Basic Workflow; 4) Preparing to Edit; 5) Basic Image Editing; 6) Advanced Image Editing; 7) Version Control and Batch Processing; 8) Output.Basic Theory is a quick intro to terms like Raw, jpeg, white balance, non-destructive editing, and it walks the beginner through reading a histogram. The Interface & Basic Workflow chapter introduces users to the NX toolbars and defines the steps in a basic workflow as: Importing, culling, adding metadata, sorting, editing for "picks", outputting and archiving. Ben gives a brief description of each, such as "you can import your images directly from your camera using a cable connection to your computer. Nothing new here, and it has very little to do with Capture NX. However, this could serve as an informative overview for someone just beginning digital photography.Chapter 4, preparing to edit, is a basic (very basic) overview of color management. This is, again, geared toward the beginner, and not very specific to Capture NX. It doesn't go deep, but this is a book about NX, not Color Management. So, about 75 pages into the manual we finally get into Chapter 5 and editing with NX.In Chapter 5, Ben walks us through his recommended sequence of edits: Geometric corrections, remove color casts, adjust tone & contrast, perform color correction, final tweaks, sharpen for output. He introduces us to the tools used to make the edits and does a good job of clarifying the difference between Base Adjustments and Edit Steps and why (whenever possible) Edit Steps should be used instead of Base Adjustments. Rotating, straightening, cropping, flipping and resizing are covered, as are auto levels, auto color, and levels and curves. While most of this book is geared toward the beginner, I didn't feel that there was enough of an explanation within the levels and curves section to give a solid understanding to the beginner. If you are looking to learn NX levels and curves, you are probably better consulting a Photoshop book like REAL WORLD PHOTOSHOP CS2 and taking that understanding to the NX curves tool.In all, I was pretty disappointed by the depth of the material. This book spends too much time teaching you how to do basic things like rotate and crop (if you can't figure out how to do this yourself, you are in trouble) and doesn't spend enough time discussing techniques like how to sharpen in NX. In fact, Ben glosses over image sharpening in about two pages by giving a brief definition of Intensity, radius, and threshold, but not mentioning how he uses these three settings to create sharper images for the web or print output.In Advanced Editing, Ben walks through creating masks for image edits, and through color control points. Finally, the Batch Processing and Output chapters look at these features within Capture NX. Note: I've found batch processing to be very slow, but the book offers no hints on how to speed it up.In all, I was disappointed with the content. There aren't many books available on Capture NX and it would have been great to have a comprehensive bible around this tool. Unfortunately, this book is more like an expanded version of the Nikon (Nik) manual and offers little new material to someone who has played with Capture NX and knows a little about photo editing.Other notably missing topics are: Optimizing your PC to use NX, troubleshooting NX, any tips & tricks, creating templates or sets. Overall, for a very good software product, this is a disappointing guide.