I think it’s most likely associated with the Adobe Camera Raw portion, which while OK, isn’t quite as perfect as Nikon’s RAW conversion. Since the RAW file is just that – raw information from the sensor, one would think you’d be able to get identical results with any raw conversion software. Obviously, there’s defaults in each, and Nikon’s default values (which I’m sure it customizes based on the metadata like camera model, lens model, exposure mode, etc.) is just plain better at coming out without any tweaking.

That said, I’m in the same boat. I like Lightroom for the organization, image management, speed and printing ease – but it does require doing more rework (i.e. export as a jpeg, or print, then go back in and make some more tweaks to the develop settings to correct anything you don’t like in the output).

I haven’t dedicated time to trying out Capture NX2 yet, but I’m hoping it’s been made to run a lot faster – and have some more image management capabilities.

I tried using Lightroom to export RAW-to-JPEG for photos taken on my D300 without any tweaking. What I noticed is that the exported images are not as sharp and contrast as the JPEGs taken directly on the D300. However, when I exporting RAW-to-JPEG using Capture NX, the quality of the output is slightly better than JPEGs taken directly from the D300.

Do you think that its some settings that we might have configured wrongly on Lightroom? I like using Lightroom for organizing my photos, but just wasn’t quite happy with the output quality.