Capture NX2 still does what it always did (unless, of course, you moved to a new version of your OS, in which case new issues may have turned up ;~). Thus, if your workflow uses it and you're happy, then keep using it. Nothing I wrote should change that. I didn't write "stop using Capture NX2," after all.
Some people over-interpret what I write (usually putting their own agenda on it). What I wrote was "I no longer recommend Capture NX2." Simple as that. I do not believe it to still be the product that stands out above the rest for a working Nikon NEF user. For someone choosing from scratch, Capture NX2 is likely to cause them more grief and problems in the long run than other choices. But if you've already built a workflow around Capture NX2, then nothing changed just because I stopped recommending it. If I had that much power over you, I'd have written "send me a check for US$100..." ;~).
However, some items need to be clarified:
- I was specifically referring to the latest ACR (CS5) and the latest beta camera profiles (get them from the Adobe Labs site). If you're using CS4, of course you don't get lens profiles, vignetting and chromatic aberration correction in ACR.
- U-point technology was unique when Capture NX2 first appeared, but Nik themselves have built plug-ins that bring it to Photoshop, Lightroom, and Aperture. On the other hand, U-point is part of the US$179 Capture NX2, but adding it to the Adobe software is going to up the Adobe Tax considerably (see Plug-ins, below). However, in this particular article I was not writing about economical solutions, but rather about best solutions.
- "Photographer-centric" seems to be a point of contention. If you're a low volume photographer and work only on one image at a time, Capture NX2's workflow and speed probably don't intrude. Photograph a wedding in raw and try saying the same thing ;~). Capture a pano or HDR or long-exposure stack set and try saying the same thing. True photographer-centric workflows work for both the one-image cases and the many-image cases without forcing you to change what you're doing. If you're a serious photographer, you will encounter both cases.
- The "lock factor." Capture NX2 only works with Nikon NEFs. Bought a Canon S90? A Sony NEX5? A m4/3 body? Any camera that records raw to be your carry-everywhere camera? (For awhile, that even included Nikon's own Coolpix P6000, as Nikon originally said they weren't going to provide NRW file support!) Capture NX2 in your workflow essentially locks you to Nikon DSLRs.
- Stability is variable with Capture NX2. I've always had a stable install on my desktop. But on my laptop it took repeated reinstalls and deep file system sleuthing and cleansing to get Capture NX2 stable. The historical pattern has been relatively consistent: OS changes, even point releases, seem to cause issues with Capture NX2 more regularly than they do with any other product I have installed on my systems. And I deal with people asking me about how to fix Capture instabilities every week, so I know I'm not alone in that. Also: a lot of Capture's stability problems stem from the installer itself and the many subfiles that it works with, including .NET on Windows machines. It's really difficult to recommend to someone that they potentially start down a path that may have them iterating installs and searching directory-by-directory for files to get a stable system.
- Performance of Capture NX2 is okay, as long as you have enough memory. But many of you saying that Capture runs "fast" are doing single image conversions at a time and/or haven't seen what current state-of-the-art really is when you've got 64-bit software using multiple cores done right. Unfortunately for Nikon, 64-bit multicore is now what ships from both Apple and Microsoft in pretty much everything except perhaps netbooks. It's the new standard. Thus, Capture's "performance" is now lagging what I'd expect to get with any new machine, and well behind state-of-the-art.
Some of you are holding out hope that Capture NX3 solves many (or all) of the current issues facing Capture. Let me remind you that Nikon's software record is not strong. Photo Secretary? Dead when they didn't update to USB (I managed to get it working on USB). Nikon Scan? Dead because they couldn't muster up resources to make minor changes for new OS versions even though they still sell the scanner that requires it. PictureProject? Dead. View? Dead, then resurrected with a new and different code base. Capture? Dead, then resurrected with a new and different code base and with features taken out. There's simply no continuity or clear vision in Nikon's software efforts, and there's far too much whim factor in Nikon's software dealings than continuity. Users want continuity. For a company that's been doing digital photography software for 15 years now, Nikon hasn't gotten very far.