Camera Labs

I am going to pick up a Nikon D80 soon and I would like to ask, what is the best photo editing software. -RR

The "best" is probably Photoshop. However the learning curve is steep, to say the least. Photoshop Elements does most of what Photoshop does for a fraction of the price. Of course owning a Nikon you really should try out Capture NX. This software is great as it retains the unique Nikon in-camera settings (if you want it to) and offers "Control Point" adjustments. Much easier to use than Photoshop although if you need to change specific areas of an image sometimes you just can't go by PS. Capture NX also eats RAM, 2GB is a minimum.

Zorro.

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http://zorrofox4.deviantart.com/



Various lenses, SB800 & Manfrotto 190 with 460MG head

I use Lightroom to catlog and edit my photos from my D80. I find it incredibly easy to use and get excellent results.

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Nikon D80, Nikkor lenses: 35mm f1.8 G AF-S DX, 50mm f/1.8 AF D, 18-70mm f/3.5-4.5G ED-IF AF-S DX, 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6G IF-ED AF-S VR, SB800 flash
My photos on SmugMug

I use Aperture, which is a the Mac forerunner to Lightroom. As with Lightroom, it's a cataloging and general editing suite. Providing you're not planning on *heavily* editing images, both Aperture and Lightroom provide pretty much all the basic editing features that you're likely to use on photos. The learning curve is *a lot* easier than Photoshop and in the case of Aperture (I'm sure Lightroom has this function as well) you can open photos in a pre-selected external editor like Photoshop for any additional edits that you need to make.

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My Flickr

I will reinforce Zorros comments re Capture NX and add a little clarification in that Capture NX allows you to go to the camera settings section and change the photo by altering the cameras menu in regards to colour hues and exposure as though you were doing it on the camera before taking the shot. To my mind, NX is more akin to developing a raw print rather than enhancing an already created image. As to the memory side of things, the updated version of NX is faster than the first but the need for more memory arises from the temporary cache figures that it produces in the rendering of NEF files but regular flushing of the temporary files from the hard drive after saving 6 or so images seems to keep my machine working fine even running on an old platform and using 1gb RAM.

RushRocket, if you go to Nikon imaging USA, Capture NX is available as a trial download and you can buy a license key online should you decide to keep it after the trial finishes. The other point I would make is that I think the D80 still comes bundled with the Picture Project software, if that is the case, try Nikon View as an alternative, it is a better featured software package when used in conjunction with Nikon Transfer for basic file transfer and cataloging of images. Both View and Transfer are now available as free downloads from Nikon and are rumored to be the replacement software packages bundled with D80 >>> range of cameras.

Check out the link below and follow the Tutorial links to see Capture NX in action.

http://www.capturenx.com/

Zorro.

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http://zorrofox4.deviantart.com/



Various lenses, SB800 & Manfrotto 190 with 460MG head

I use Photoshop CS3 and through tutorial DVDs from a few good camera mags I am getting better all the time....super piece of kit.

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Canon 40D - EFS 17-85mm IS - EF 50mm 1.8 II - EF 70-200mm f.4 L - Speedlite 580EX II - GF Lightsphere Cloud - S.I.L.K 300DX PRO Tripod - Manfrotto 679 monopod - LOWEPRO Trekkar Backback - Adobe CS3 -