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madeinlisboa
madeinlisboa
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Open with another application

Aug 14, 2012 8:15 AM

Is it possible to open a photo with another application, without a pre-conversion to tiff by Lightroom? I love Active D-Lighting, it saves me a lot of shadow/highlight recovery, but Lightroom doesn't support it. I edit most of my photos with Capture NX, but I use Lightroom to catalog them and edit others. I can't find a way of opening a nef file directly in CaptureNX from Lightroom.

Thank you.

858 Views   6 Replies   Latest reply: mrlew.com, Sep 2, 2012 4:13 PM
 
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  • web-weaver
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    1. web-weaver,
    Aug 14, 2012 8:31 AM   in reply to madeinlisboa
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    You can open a photo with another application, but not from within Lr (except for Photoshop). You can open  NEF on Capture NX by locating it in your OS (Mac Finder / Win Explorer) and go <Open with> but there is no way to do that from within Lr.

    And, when you open a NEF in Capture NX that has previously been edited in Lr the edits will not be visible in Capture NX. And the vice versa is also true: if you edit a photo inCapture NX these edits will not be visible in Lr.

    This is so because both programs write the edits in a proprietary format that can only be read by the program writing it. Apart from that Lr stores the edits in its catalog which can only be read by Lr.

     

    It all comes down to the following: You either edit in Lr or you edit in Capture NX, but a cross-over editing is not possible - unless you create a TIF after the edit and open that in the other program. By creating a TIF the edits are written into the image pixels which then can be read by any photo editing software - if it can open and read TIfs that is.

     

    BTW: The Active D-Lighting works only if you shoot JPGs - as far as I know. Far better would be to shoot Raw and edit the highlights in Lr.

     
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  • johnbeardy
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    2. johnbeardy,
    Aug 14, 2012 8:33 AM   in reply to madeinlisboa
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    Look up my OpenDirectly plug-in.

     
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  • madeinlisboa
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    3. madeinlisboa,
    Aug 14, 2012 8:48 AM   in reply to johnbeardy
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    Thanks johnbeardy! I'll take a look at you plugin.

     

    web-weaver, I don't care if they are compatible or not. I just want to see all files in LR and edit them wherever I want LR shows a thumbnail, wheter is from CaptureNX or itself, and that's what matters.

     

    "Far better would be to shoot Raw and edit the highlights in Lr."

    Far better is not having to edit the highlights and that's why I shoot RAW with active d-lighting on. you can't believe what a time saver that is.

     
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  • -Agfaclack-
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    4. -Agfaclack-,
    Aug 14, 2012 10:33 AM   in reply to madeinlisboa
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    active d lighting does nothing to the raw file.

    it´s capture NX that does the magic.. and LR did not have this nikon feature.

     

    i would like to see that in future LR versions. but i guess it depends on nikon.

     
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  • madeinlisboa
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    5. madeinlisboa,
    Aug 14, 2012 1:44 PM   in reply to -Agfaclack-
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    Yes, that would be great. Meanwhile LR is useless for most of my photos. All exposure alghoritms are nothing more than tricks employed to get the most of a photo. Nothing like the real thing Nikon and Capture NX offer, a kind of semi-hdr on a single photo.

     
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  • mrlew.com
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    6. mrlew.com,
    Sep 2, 2012 4:13 PM   in reply to madeinlisboa
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    Sure you can. However it will be a TIFF that you are editing in Capture but I've done it. Simply point LR to Capture NX as an Additional External Editor.

     

    To do this:

     

    While in Develop Mode;

     

    Go to the Edit tab and select Preferences.

    Select External Editing

    In the lower portion of the window you will see the area to add an additional external editor. Simply navigate it to NX and add it.

     

    Once you've done this you can now go to the Photo tab and select the Edit In. NX should be one of your choices. 

     
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