Nikon NX Studio is actually pretty good

Last night, I updated my installation of DxO PhotoLab 7 Elite from version 7.6 to 7.7.1, and it refused to accept my registration key. This effectively locked me out of the application, and I now have to wait for DxO to fix the issue. Isn't software activation just great?

Meanwhile, I decided to revisit Nikon NX Studio. And you know what? It's actually a rather solid application. It may lack bells and whistles of DxO PhotoLab (and other similar RAW processors), but all essentials are present and accounted for, and with a modicum of effort you can produce respectable results.

Here's what a RAW file processed in DxO PhotoLab looks like:

And here's the same RAW file processed in Nikon NX Studio:

Honestly, I prefer the latter over the former. The application's interface is straightforward and easy to work with, the learning curve is minimal, the application is optimized for working with NEF files, and it doesn't cost anything. What's not to like?

I tried to install Nikon NX Studio on Linux Mint using Bottles, with partial success: the application starts and works, but it doesn't see any RAW files (or any files for that matter). Oh well, it was worth a try, and maybe I'll figure out what causes the problem at some point.

Installing Bottles as a regular user, and then running the Nikon NX Studio installer solved the issue. 🎉 Ironically, the application runs faster in a bottle on Linux that natively on Windows. Go figure!

I'm afraid my celebration was a bit premature. It turned out that the application neither saves the edits nor it applies them the resulting file.