Re the CNX browser: I avoid it. I manage my pictures in iPhoto and pass selected NEF’s to CNX for editing. If I pre-generate a “modified” JPEG file using iPhoto I can then overwrite it using CNX, and so I see a single version of each photo while having multiple versions embedded inside the NEF. Details follow:

Round-tripping from iPhoto to CNX
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Note: This was inspired by, and partly copied from, a post by Michel Corbin. Corbin was concerned with Photoshop Elements, but the principles are similar, except that with CNX you can, and may well want to, save a modified NEF file in place of the iPhoto “original”, as described below; see:

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1017&message=18641170

and following posts by the same author)

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Before beginning, select the Preferences menu, then Advanced, and select CNX as the external editor. I prefer to then select “Edit photo using full screen” as my default, since I do most editing there.

To process a RAW file:

a) In iPhoto’s thumbnails view, right-click on image (ctrl-click if you have a 1-button mouse or trackpad) and select “Edit in external editor.” This will launch CNX. Note that invoking “reprocess RAW” is only needed if you have previously edited the file.

b) Return to iPhoto and edit the same file within iPhoto; do something simple like convert to sepia. It doesn’t matter what you do since the Modified file will be replaced.

Exit from full screen back to the thumbnails window, or advance to the next image in iPhoto, to save the modification as a JPG.

c) Return to CNX and edit the file. You can create multiple versions of the image if you like; CNX does _non-destructive_ edits and saves the instructions that create them inside the NEF file. This consumes virtually zero disk space, and preserves the information in the original NEF. SImply invoking “Save” from CNX updates the NEF that lives inside the iPhoto library by adding in the list of edit steps. This is a _big_ advantage of CNX relative to PSE—no file clutter.

d) Now use CNX to create and save a JPG for the “usual” iPhoto uses: printing, slide shows, emailing, incorporation in web sites, etc. (you could, of course, print directly from CNX if you like).

This is where it gets a little tricky. When you save the JPG file in CNX, you have to navigate to the folder that contains the MODIFIED file that iPhoto made. Saving your JPG (via “save as”) will replace the sepia file from above.

If you do not know where it is, use the “reveal in Finder” command that is available by right-clicking on the image in iPhoto. For iPhoto 6 (but not 8), Joe’s iPhoto Applescripts has a Reveal in Finder that allows selection of the original or modified file.

CAUTION – as you search for the Modified folder for your images, you will see that even before you save your image as a B&W or Sepia, there is already a JPG in the file. Don’t give in to the temptation of skipping the step and simply replacing the JPG that’s already there. If you do, your processed JPG file will dissappear as soon as you enter full screen mode or try to re-edit the file.

e) Go back to iPhoto and you will notice that after a brief moment, the file displayed among the thumbnails will be replaced with your processed JPG file.

This workflow is quite nice in that it allows you to see only one image. You can use iPhoto’s Revert to Original function if you want to select a different CNX “version” to save as the JPG, or if you want to let iPhoto do the RAW conversion after all—the changes you made to the NEF are still there, though iPhoto does not see them.

REMINDER – never delete or add files to the iPhoto library directly, using the Mac “Finder” — doing so will corrupt the library. Replacing a file by another with the same name and type is safe.

Capture NX U Point technology does to Photoshop what the telephone did to the carrier pidgeon. It simply wipes it off the face of the map.

As for Capture NX being slow, it never fails to make me laugh when I read people boasting of their professional credentials then informing us they have a PC with “2 gig of ram”. Please get a serious professional computer before you post any more comments.

I am having one specific problem with Capture NX which makes it very difficult to use and I don’t know where the bottleneck might be.

When I click on a thumbnail to open the image full screen, the box comes on which says “rendering”. It renders at a reasonable speed until it gets to about 70% and then it slows to a crawl. The rendered image is fine when it is finally completed – but I’m quite frustrated.

Does anyone have an idea as to what aspect of my hardware would be slowing the rendering this way – and only at the end?

BTW, I agree with other posters who say that the end result is quite good. Sometimes I don’t go even go to CS3.

Louise

Louise