d300 nef beautiful in nx2, awful in lr22

[grosloulou]

Hallo,
I always shoot in jpeg and nef with my d300. I import both of them as different images which was a good idea due to the fact that nef is awful.
In nx2, jpeg are beautiful and nef same quality or better. nothing to do only resizing or a small exposure retouch.
in lr22 my jpeg are beautiful and my nef are ugly. it is tedious to start from zero and change exposure,... until I reach jpeg quality but the biggest problem is that when i compare the two images, nef has noise that jpeg hasn't.
so, my problem is that I can't import nef in lr22 anymore.

Isn't it a way to open the d300 nef in lr22 with same quality than in nx2 ?
if no, what kind of processing must I do to filter nef noise.
Finally I won't find any advantage to shoot in nef !

thanks for help
BR

Marc

[NEMESIS]

Hello buddy,

Every camera that shoots JPEG make conversion on it's own so it may have contrast, saturation, sharpness etc... So all that camera decides to make to the JPEG. On the other side RAW file or NEF in your case since you have Nikon is as it names says raw file. Captured as it is as raw data. So for that matter you have Camera Raw or Nikon dedicated software for developing Nikon RAW files to your liking.

Plus is huge advantage that your camera when shoot raw records image in 14bit while JPEG is 8bit image. So a lot more detail and luminosity values to play with. Compared to JPEG, RAW is non destructive format.

So my advice is shoot only RAW and do some job in Camera Raw or Nikon software you are using.

[grosloulou]

thanks for reply but it doesn't make me happy.
you first say that nef is perfect and then say oh, finally shoot in jpeg.
what I wanted to say without saying is that d300 uses jpeg settings on the nef too but lr22 looses these infos.
most of parameters with lot of experience can be found with lr2 sliders but noise is different. not sure lr noise filter is good.
if there was a d300 plugin for lr22 which reads nef nikon parameters in lr22 it would be fantastic.
moreover I expected a workflow technique in my request. for instance nef processing in nx2, save into tif or jpeg and import only this bitmap into lr22 but keep a track of origianl nef,,... I really have problem to handle these nef just because LR2 hasn't the key to open the nef

BR
Marc

[Old Geezer]

I found this tonight. It might be of use.

http://www.naturescapes.net/Joomla/index.php/news/333-nik-a-can-rel-firm-updates

I have seen the same problem for LR 2.2 on other blogs.

[NEMESIS]

I am sorry i got wrong on that one. I said JPEG but meant on RAW. RAW is always my preference.

Once again i am sorry for mistake i made in typing.

[grosloulou]

ok, nemesis, thanks.
So, I suppose you don't use nx2 but LR2.
Have you noticed nef more noisy than jpeg in the background,... ?
do you think sensor filters jpeg noise in d300 normal mode that nef doesn't ?
do you think just a lr2 noise filtering is enough to get same result than jpeg ?

Marc

[NEMESIS]

Hello Marc,

Well i am Canon camera owner. And i use both Photoshop and Lightroom for my photography.

And as i said JPEG is not that noisy since camera already applies some changes compared to RAW which is raw capture data. So for JPEG camera can apply contrast, sharpness, noise removal, etc. When is RAW then you completely decide of all parameters. so in ACR or LR, NX you can adjust your RAW file as you like plus is more flexible and dynamic when take into account that A/D converter is 14Bits. So from start you have more "room" to work with.

And yeah in post processing of RAW file you can achieve a lot better results then JPEG that came out "ironed" from your camera. More time you invest n post processing the better results will be. Of course if you know what are you doing and what you want to achieve.