Nikon broke usability in their new version of Capture (the NEF editing software). The controls are all different, and more importantly, the adjustment settings AREN'T VISIBLE while I work. Also they complexified the interface enough that all my mouse and keyboard shortcuts got killed, so now it's clumsy and slow to do single-file edits several in a row.


Capture 4.4.2 Screenshot showing how I typically use it. This is a highly usable, efficient configuration.


Capture NX Screenshot showing the same kinds of settings chosen (not that you can really tell). I've clicked the Exposure adjustment so you can see what's there for controls. 


In the older version, I could easily adjust exposure, white balance, and D-lighting, then Copy Image Adjustments (mouse menu right click), close file, alt tab, grab another image from my thumbnail list, paste Image Adjustments, tweak, save. Left hand on the keyboard, right on the mouse, and everything exactly under my fingertips. It was really fast and efficient. And it worked well that as I tapped exposure up or down, it moved by 1/6 of a stop, so I could easily hit the adjustment amounts I wanted. 


The new one uses a slider, which means it's a lot harder to hit the same adjustment amount several times in a row. It's imprecise and clumsy. Capture NX is also slow - it feels like a behemoth and I spend a lot of time waiting for it to do something. 


Also, I can't hit Alt-F S for save. What's with not launching the File menu off the standard hot-key combination? Ok, control-s will save. Fine. But then why I can't I just generally get into the menus with the alt key? And, there are no tooltips. No hints. No mouse-over hover tips. No balloons. Nothing. There are graphical icons with no explanation and no idea what they mean. They're not even standard ones. (EDIT: Apparently when I install this on my other computer, I get tooltips. Chalk one up to inconsistencies in .NET which the thing is obviously written in (it includes a dotnetfx folder). Blah. But at least I can see the tooltips now.)


The file browser that's built in to it... It shows icons for the images (thumbnail size). Ok, seems sensible, right? But folders are just as big, and, the images are layed out in rows that make you scroll to the right, instead of line wrapping so you can scroll down like you would in windows explorer or a standard folder window. It's not at all paying attention to the size of the window it's open in.


What the heck GUI toolkit did they make this thing in? It's not even the same piece of software it used to be.


I don't just care that it's "different" -- I do care that it's worse. The time savers and power tricks have become buried and the settings are now invisible and require work to get to. (Note that to open a setting, you have to hit the tiny triangle next to its name -- the name itself doesn't pop up the setting. So you're aiming for a tiny mouse target, open a box, then go find the setting to change, instead of just clicking the setting directly.) Nikon, you just killed my productivity - it used to take me about 30 seconds to edit an image. I can't even get to all the controls in that time now.


STUPID NIKON. STUPID CAPTURE NX. You broke its usability. I was using Capture 4 because it was so incredibly much more efficient than using third party software. Capture NX fails on all accounts there.


Oh and just for the icing on the cake? Installing Nikon Capture NX broke Adobe Photoshop CS2 RAW conversion. It tells me I'll have to uninstall nikon's plugin to photoshop before the normal raw conversion will work. And then it bombs with a disk error. So I can't even use CS2 RAW to avoid using Capture NX. EDIT: Capture 4 appears to have been the culprit, I just didn't notice until now because I didn't have a need for it. Uninstalling Capture 4's plugin worked fine. I'm not fully satisfied with photoshop's raw converter anyway though, and will be happier if I can get CaptureNX to do what I need. (/EDIT)




And why did I go looking at Capture NX in the first place? Because my Nikon D80 just arrived, and I learned that Capture 4 won't read the D80's files. And no software update is available for it.


EDIT: Oh, lovely. It also tints the photos greenish. *head-desk* There goes my color-calibrated workflow.




EDIT 2: I do plan to go through the tutorials suggested by the Nikon guy below. I won't have time until the weekend, so it'll be a bit before I can update.
