Review: Unleashing the RAW Power of Capture NX2

Too Deep in the Forest, originally uploaded by jjvornov.

After I downloaded Capture NX2, I found that it was able to achieve much of what I was doing in Photoshop much more quickly. The ability to selectively control where curves were applied with the U-point technology was a key factor in this.

Since so much of my current workflow has been influence by Vincent Versace’s “Welcome to Oz”, which is Photoshop-based, I thought it would be valuable to buy one his Capture NX materials. Since I was exploring Capture NX2, I thought that it would be a nice combination to both get his approach to NX2 while learning the program in more detail.

This is a DVD training course that is very, very dense. Just like “Welcome to Oz”. It bears repeated watching and you really need to play along with the video to try the techniques and see the effects. It’s all simply video of the screen with a well recorded voiceover. Absolutely no filler at all. I’ve watched the movies straight through. Now I’ve been playing the quicktime version on my laptop screen while I have Capture NX2 running with one of my own images open on the second. I’m working by figuring out what problem I want to address in an image and then find the section in the DVD that deals with it. It’s harder to do this than you might think because control over location with a long single Quicktime movie is very in exact. It would be useful to have a collection of smaller movies to open if only to find spots more easily. More indexing would help as well.

This is an image that I worked on while watching Vincent work on a flower image. As usual, I’m a bit over the top in the approach, but I often do that as I’m learning. I’m piling up multiple experiements and it’s like an over spiced dish. Later on, when I’m trying to create an image, I’ll be more subtle. Here I was trying just to get the complementary colors of the green foliage on the red dirt of the tree roots to pop and vibrate, creating a visual center for an image that was way to busy as it came out of camera. Toned down a little, it could be mistaken for a Velvia chrome perhaps. But I would never have been able to go back and fix the light like this shooting slides.

I haven’t been a big purchaser of DVDs in the past as I always find the pace too slow. DVDs also make lousy references compared to books to look up a technique. Judging by this DVD, the Acme approach may be more suitable for me and could be worth some futher investment as time goes on.

Author: James Vornov

I'm an MD, PhD Neurologist who left a successful academic career on the Faculty of The Johns Hopkins Medical School to develop new treatments in Biotech and Pharma. I became fascinated with how people actually make decisions based on the science of decision theory and emerging understanding of how the brain works to make decisions. My passion now is this deep explanation of what has been the realm of philosophy, psychology and self help but is now understood as brain function. By understanding our brains, I believe we can become happier, more successful people. View all posts by James Vornov