Nikon 7000 software, will it sharpen my photos?

[Nancy Moran G]

Hi,
Got my 1st DSLR in May - D7000 with 3 lenses. Figuring I had enough to learn, I did not load software. Now I have been enlightened about 'sharpening' my photos and wondered will the Nikon program help me at all? I am not real techno, and that is another reason for not installing it.
Thank you, Nancy

[Tringa]

Can't help directly Nancy, even the 'net doesn't tell me what the software that came with your D7000 will do.

All I can suggest it that you install the software as see what it does. If you don't like it you can always uninstall it.

There are quite a few free photo editors that include sharpening and lots of other useful feature, eg

Photoscape, Irfanview, GIMP

I'm sure a Nikon user will be along soon and can advise you better than me.

Dave

[Manfred M]

My latest Nikon shipped with View NX2 software and it does have a sharpening slider.

When I use it, I use it to capture images from my camera or memory card and I then convert the NEF images to TIFF format and move things over to Photoshop for actual editing work.

[xpatUSA]

Hello Nancy,

Are you taking pictures in the JPEG format and, if so, did you know that the camera can do sharpening? And other stuff besides? How it's done should be in your D7000 manual. Pardon me if I'm stating the obvious!

Of course, not everybody likes in-camera sharpening and, indeed, sharpening may not be appropriate for every shot that you take.

[Mike Buckley]

You may find this Nikon tutorial helpful (I haven't reviewed it): http://www.nikondigitutor.com/eng/viewnx2/index.html There are also many tutorials on YouTube.

[Nancy Moran G]

The camera does sharpening too !? Geez, does it make coffee too?
Thank you all for your help.
I am shooting jpeg right now, not having tried RAW as I do not have a pp product yet.
I will watch video, ut it is 4:50 a.m, and I am off the see Albuquerque balloons rise, my 1st time )))
Nancy

[Andrew76]

If you're shooting jpeg, all cameras will add a little sharpening. What sometimes becomes problematic, are all the other things the camera chooses to do to the image as it's saved.

I agree that if you don't have a PP software that you're familiar with, jpeg is the way to go, but definitely something to look for in the future.

I can't speak for Nikon, but Canon cameras come with a software that is capable of processing RAW images, and although it's not nearly as powerful as say, Photoshop, it will do everything that Light Room will do (almost), and is a far better option than jpeg.

[Mike Buckley]

I can't speak for Nikon, but Canon cameras come with a software that is capable of processing RAW images

I don't know whether Nikon ships its View NX2 with all of its cameras, but it is always available online for free, including updates and upgrades.

[Tringa]

A review of the D7000 I read recently said the software include is ViewNX2.

Dave

[Mike Buckley]

Even if the software is included, you are better off installing the online version, which will always be up to date. Not so with a CD that comes with the camera.

[GrahamS]

Even if the software is included, you are better off installing the online version, which will always be up to date. Not so with a CD that comes with the camera.

Mike is correct and I can vouch for this - the ViewNX2 that came packaged with my D7k has a bug, and I therefore downloaded the latest version from the Nikon website, which works correctly. However, Nancy, you don't need editing software to obtain good jpg images straight from the camera. Read the "Picture Control" section of your user manual and you will see that there are a number of pre-set picture styles available for you to choose from - Standard (which is the default), Portrait, Landscape, Vivid etc. It is also possible for you to adjust the sharpness, contrast and saturation of any of these pre-sets to create a custom pre-set to suit your own tastes. As long as your PC displays reasonably correct colour and brightness and isn't way out of whack, you should be able to tweak the in-camera settings to suit yourself.