R.G. Loc: Scotland

This test was inspired by a Youtube video that I watched. The commentator stated that the NX Studio raw conversion was enforcing a significant amount of default denoise on the images and it couldn't be cancelled. So I ran my own test using NX Studio and On1. I tried to make it purely about the raw conversions but it looks like On1 automatically added something in the way of lens corrections. As far as the original raw file is concerned, it was taken with an EC setting of +0.7 because it was part of a bracketed sequence, but that's irrelevant as far as this comparison is concerned.

As the last two images show, the On1 conversion is overall brighter and more contrasty, but that's just a matter of rendering. A few tweaks would bring the NX image to much the same level. What I wanted to compare was the sharpness or lack of it.

The first two images below are very tight crops (less than 1:1) to allow a good look at the sharpness. To my eye they are very similar and if the On1 image looks a tad crisper, it's more than possible that it's due to extra overall contrast which, as I said, is just a matter of rendering.

My verdict is that the comments that I heard on Youtube aren't justified. It's possible that the commentator's NX was picking up on in-camera Picture Control settings that his other raw converter (Lr if I remember right) wasn't reading. And while the On1 conversion may look like it's further along the road to a finished edit, that's probably only because of automatic settings like contrast being applied universally to the On1 raw conversions. It's very possible that NX leaves the raw conversion without any automatic adjustments (i.e. totally neutral) as a matter of design. Automatic adjustments can be a bit hit-and-miss, so it's not a clear positive or a clear negative, and it's certainly not proof that On1's raw conversions are in any way better.
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NX Studio crop.

(Download)

On1 crop.

(Download)

JPEG of NX Studio raw conversion.

(Download)

Jpeg of On1 raw conversion.

(Download)

srt101fan

Thank you very much for posting this. As I said before, I bought Affinity and am trying to learn digital photo editing. I've been considering an alternative to the Affinity RAW development module. I had started to look at Nikon NX-D, the predecessor of NX Studio.

Your post is very timely and useful for me. And coming from an accomplished photo processor like you it's also very credible!

R.G. Loc: Scotland

Let's not elaborate on what exactly I've managed to accomplish .

We see quite a lot of positive comments about Affinity so it's presumably capable of good results. However, I didn't care for the basic adjustments and the raw conversions can be done better elsewhere. ACR (Adobe Camera Raw) will give you good raw conversions plus it's a good introduction to basic adjustments. Photoshop Elements gives you ACR plus a good introduction to various other things like working with layers, so it's a good all-round starting point. On the other hand if you try NX Studio (which is free) and like it, that doesn't leave much uncovered either as far as basic editing is concerned. In your situation it's obviously worth giving NX a try. I liked that some of the sliders make it easy to get good results. With some editors it's a tricky balancing act the whole way through - which is fine if you're used to it but there are gentler learning curves to be had.

Ourspolair

Thanks for sharing this info. I am about to run a batch through NX studio to see how I like it. The GUI is certainly better than NX-D.

R.G. Loc: Scotland

You're welcome. The only control I found a bit tricky was the Active D-Lighting (ADL) slider. The effect that it produced seemed to be very dependent on what other adjustments had been made. It's the sort of thing that I'd be happy to leave till the end for minor tweaking, or just leave it out altogether. Perhaps it's intended purpose is to put you in the ball park before applying the other adjustments, but I prefer to stick to what I'm used to. I was never quite sure what it was doing but I'm sure it serves a useful purpose. I think it's a one slider HDR adjustment. What I can claim is that I've had good results in the past using in-camera ADL (which if I remember right is jpeg only), but now I tend to rely on exposure bracketing.