As I briefly touched upon in my Nikon D300 compared to Nikon D80 I saw huge differences in processing Nikon D300 NEFs in Capture NX vs Adobe Lightroom.
Here is the same ISO 800 image edited in NX and LR adjusted only for contrast. Click on the images for bigger sized photos.
1. Default noise reduction
Edited in Adobe LightRoom without additional noise reduction
Edited in Capture NX without additional noise reduction
Adobe LightRoom 100% crop
Nikon Capture NX 100% crop
IMO, Capture NX is way better out of the box.
2. Increasing Noise Reduction in Adobe Lightroom
Adobe LightRoom edited photo after adjusting Luminance NR and sharpening
LightRoom 100% crop after tweaking Noise Reduction in LightRoom
3. Images edited with no sharpening and no noise reduction
Adobe Lightroom, no sharpening, no noise reduction
Capture NX, no sharpening, no noise reduction
Adobe Lightroom, no noise reduction, no sharpening, 100% crop
Capture NX, no sharpening, no noise reduction, 100% crop
4. Photos edited with just Sharpening turned off
Adobe lightroom, no sharpening, extra noise reduction
Capture NX, no sharpening, default noise reduction
Adobe Lightroom no sharpening, extra NR, 100% crop
Capture NX, no sharpening, default NR, 100% crop
IMO, Capture NX delivers much better image quality in every possible setting.
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