alsheppard123 Loc: St. george, Utah

I have purchased a Nikon D5300 and I have also subscribed to the $9.95/month Adobe LR and photoshop program. In the literature that came with the camera was a card with a Nikon website to download Nikon View NX2. I'm confused over what program is trying to do what. I launched NX2 and it wanted to import all my photos from Windows "my pictures" which I did not do. Why do I need NX2?

jaygreen55 Loc: Westport CT

You don't need NX2. I import all my photos directly into lightroom from my camera card since that is the program I use to process my RAW (NEF) photos. Even if you shoot JPEG LR is a superior image organizing system in my opinion

alsheppard123 Loc: St. george, Utah

That is what I thought as a beginner at LR but there was a bit of confusion.

jaygreen55 Loc: Westport CT

There are some great video tutorials on the wb on how to use Lightroom
just google to find them. Some of the best are produced by Adobe and feature Juleanna Kost. They were a great help to me in learning how to use it. Same goes for photoshop

amehta Loc: Boston

The only advantage to View NX2 (or Capture NX-D) is that you can get a high quality tiff by applying the camera settings when you took the picture. Some people do prefer the Nikon software's raw conversion.

alsheppard123 Loc: St. george, Utah

Thanks, I'm going to stick with LR for now. I'm subscribed to a month to month with Lynda. There is a lot of brain load with what I have on my plate for now.

jaygreen55 Loc: Westport CT

Lightroom will also apply the camera's setting. There's a a camera calibration box at the bottom of the develop module that allows you to choose between Adobe Standard and the various camera profile settings
(Camera Landscape, Portrait, Neutral, vivid etc.) I use it all the time and it's very effective

The one thing LR doesn't do is show the focus point of the image but there is a plug in available that will do that if you need it

CO

The Transfer function in View NX-2 is good to use. It will create folders on your computer for you when it transfers your photos. It's the fourth icon from the left near the top of the page. Once in the Transfer page click "Start Transfer" in the lower right corner.

OliverLeveritt

The thing that I like best about NX2 is that I can rename files on import. I put each day's shots in a folder with the date in the name, and the filename is changed to reflect subject or location, date, sequence number, and original file name. With four camera bodies, the original file names will replicate more frequently.

NX2 also embeds my copyright, as well as any other tags that I wish to apply at the moment.

I don't import everything I shoot into LightRoom. After uploading via NX2, I create a subfolder, "Work" and copy selected files to that folder. I might import that folder's contents into LightRoom.

As I progress thru my workflow the suffix that I append to the end of a filename changes to indicate it's stage or progress. That way, I have the original jpeg, the original RAW file, and any subsequent edits / processes. The name of the file that is finally uploaded to flickr, etc. gets moved to the description. I can quickly find any version of a shot that I did years ago if I want to re-process it or make an enlargement for a canvas wrap, or whatever.

I find that beginning the naming convention that begins with NX2 and persists through the workflow makes life a lot easier.

mborn Loc: Massachusetts

You can rename files on import on LR also