Customer Reviews

The Photographer's Guide to Capture NX2 (eBook for NX 2)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Nicely organized and thorough, but I don't like the e-book format because I prefer to read on the train or in a comfortable chair. And, IMHO, Mike Hagen's book is better written and far less expensive

Some might consider an eBook a disadvantage but I consider it a plus. Obviously one will be on a computer while learning Capture NX2. Switching between the eBook text and NX2 on the same computer couldn't be simpler. Most importantly, the book is clear and the content well organized. The book presents the material in a manner that parallels the work-flow intended by the Capture NX2 software developers. The eBook author effectively teaches the various elements of Capture NX2 software.

I was pleasantly surprised by Mr. Odell's e-book. Extremely well written and organized. His presentation of the material is excellent. I've read many photoshop books over the years and usually end up feeling as though I'd wasted my time. Odell's book is a little over 400 pages I believe, but it reads much faster than you might think. He takes you through pretty much the entire program...including a very valuable chapter on setting up preferences to get the best performance out of the program. He tells you which adjustments should be done first (if your photograph needs any that is). This is very important in NX2 as well as other editing programs.

I read the one dissatisfied customer of the book. I didn't really understand what he was unhappy with. The book explains succinctly how to use settings files. Even a quick look in the NX2 manual that comes with the program does a decent job on it as well. However, I will write that if you are new to this stuff (editing your photos) that it does take some getting used to. It can be very frustrating at first. I've yet to meet a person who intuitively knew how to use masks/layers, control pts., etc. It takes getting used to. I've spent the past several years using CS3 so this was an easy jump for me to make. More often than not, I think people get the idea that every photo has to be taken through a complex editing scenario with set guidelines on how to do it. This just isn't the case. Mr. Odell repeatedly writes that he rarely spends more than about 5 mins. doing adjustments to his photos. I spend a bit more than that, but it probably isn't necessary...I like to experiment.

I'd been fighting the move over to NX2 for 2 or 3 years now. I was relatively happy with the results that I was getting in CS3, but I had read many times that NX2 gave much better results with the Nikon's NEF RAW files. After seeing what it can do relative to other RAW converters I'm glad I made the switch. I'm not sure I would have if I did not read this book...it made things so much easier for me....

RAW format photos are hard to process and Nikon does not make it easy but the Cature NX2 software does and this book makes using that software easy and productive. This book is worth the investmant in time ana money. Easy to understand the functions and process to edit your photos. This software coupled with Photoshop CS4 or Photoshop Elemnets 7.0 makes a good match. Well wriiten and lucid, easy to understand and use.

Dr. Jason Odell's eBook is very thorough and well worth the $27.95 that I paid. I've had it for a couple of weeks and it has already paid big dividends on the speed and quality of my post-processing. Perhaps the thing that helped the most is the section on setting up the preferences for optimum performance.

I'm still at an early stage with post-production, partly because I still like to work really hard at getting the shot correct out of the camera, and partly because I find playing around on the computer exhausts my patience and interest quite quickly.

In those circumstances, the manual that comes with NX2 is, like most of Nikon's stuff, comprehensive, but written by a Martian and very DULL! Jason O'Dell's ebook is a substantial help, and the examples of how he got from there to here, as it were, with his shots is really interesting.

If you're happy with ebooks, and want guidance from an enthusiast who has been there, this is well worth considering.

I found this eBook extremely thorough and helpful and a great learning tool especially when augmented with the recent short downloadable video tutorials.

When I first purchased The Photographer's Guide to Capture NX2, I was floundering in CNX2. For the most part, I was playing around with the different adjustments, however, I didn't understand the concept of workflows, and how they impact an image. Jason's guide really showed me what tools are available, how they work, etc, but also offered basic recipes for processing various types of images. For someone learning, it's a great baseline to begin at to produce higher quality images . His online classes also help because you are interactive with Jason and can see what he's doing on the screen. He does a great job at answering a question you may have.
As far as the skill level of who should be using the guide, it's doesn't seem to be geared to the new photographer. There is some terminology in there that I didn't quite understand because I don't have the basics behind digital imaging. That's easily resolved by using a search engine.
Overall, it's a great guide. I like it in PDF because keep one monitor open to CNX2, and one monitor open to this ebook. I understand people may not work for other people, but it works for me.

Before I bought Capture NX2 I had never used any post processing software so I needed to learn the fundamentals as well as learn how to produce a photograph that looked a lot better that what I was starting with straight out of the camera. Having bought a number of books that explained each of the CNX2 controls individually I still felt lost when I went to edit one of my own portrait or landscape photographs. I wanted a roadmap and an opportunity to practice so I could see what was possible. That's when I was lucky enough to stumble across Jason P. Odells excellent ebook. He sets out a useful workflow and teaches you how to use the controls step by step. Explains in depth so you know why you are doing it. By the end of the process you can experiment with your own photographs and produce something much better than you ever thought possible. I am very grateful to Jason Odell for getting me up the learning curve. If you want to learn post processing on CNX2 and you are willing to invest time and effort to learn, this is the ebook for you.

To get your money's worth from NX2 you need some additional instruction. DVD-based training is the easiest to absorb for me. This eBook is a lot more portable than a big instruction manual so I added it to my usual DVD training.