Nikon NX Studio

What do you use to edit your photos? Perhaps the software from Adobe is most common, and even if you don't feel like paying for all of that, there are numerous web-based solutions to provide you with enough photo-editing facilities to get your shots to look their best. Free photo editing software isn't short in supply, but more discerning users might feel they're lacking in some important areas, so they forgo them completely.

In this case, NX Studio makes for an interesting proposition — and not just because it's been made by Nikon, a well-established camera-maker. The tool is perfectly usable to edit your JPEGs and PNGs, but RAW editing is where it shines.

The program works much like any image editor out there: you feed your photos into it, which then affords you the possibility to work with the app's editing tools. Users can thus modify their shots to look more to their liking with just a few inputs, because the options are all there: brightness and color adjustments, levels and curves alterations, as well as cropping/straightening the perspective.

A powerful tool can be found in the LCH Adjustment tab. Through it, users will be able to adjust their shot's lightness, chrome, and hues in a very granular manner, which even allows them to completely change certain shades of the image.

Something just as noteworthy is the Color Control Point feature, which allows you to target specific areas of your image, and work on them individually. This works wonders when you want to draw attention to a certain part of your photo.

It should be no surprise that all the aforementioned tools get even more precise when working on a RAW still. Some functions reserved for RAW editing — such as Picture Control, White Balance, Exposure Compensation, and Active D-Lighting are available to use, and they mainly work to tweak the color temperature and exposure values.

Thanks to the customizable preview panel, users can work on more than one photo at a time, if they so desire. The panel can be split into two, and even four sides, which allows for quick and accurate image editing for each of the stills.

NX Studio is a piece of software worth considering if you're looking for a free, but still potent solution for your photo editing needs.