Chapter 13 Useful Software for the Nikon D5100 373 Create and save custom curves. You can load a sample image and create a special tone compensation custom curve for that image using tools similar to those found in Photoshop. View and change Custom Settings. This is one of my favorite features. While changing the Custom Settings for any of the Custom Settings options using the D5100's menus isn't difficult (particularly after you've absorbed the information in Chapter 9), Camera Control Pro makes playing with these options a joy. Other Software Other useful software for your Nikon D5100 falls into several categories. You might want to fine-tune your images, retouch them, change color balance, composite several images together, and perform other tasks we know as image editing, with a program like Adobe Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, or Corel Photo Paint. You might want to play with the settings in RAW files, too, as you import them into an image editor. There are specialized tools expressly for tweaking RAW files, ranging from Adobe Camera Raw to PhaseOne's Capture One Pro (C1 Pro). A third type of manipulation is the specialized task of noise reduction, which can be performed within Photoshop, Adobe Camera Raw, or tools like Bibble Professional. There are also spe- cialized tools just for noise reduction, such as Noise Ninja (also included with Bibble) and Neat Image. Some programs, like the incomparable DxO Optics Pro perform mag- ical transformations that you can't achieve any other way. Each of these utilities and applications deserves a chapter of its own, so I'm simply going to enumerate some of the most popular applications and utilities and tell you a little about what they do. DxO Optics Pro DxO Labs (www.DxO.com) offers an incredibly useful program called Optics Pro ($170-$300) that is unique in the range of functions it provides. Ostensibly an image quality enhancement utility that "cures" some of the ails that plague even the best lenses, the latest release also features a new RAW conversion engine that uses a new demosaic- ing algorithm to translate your NEF files into images with more detail, less noise, and fewer artifacts. These features meld well with the program's original mission: fixing the optical "geometry" of images, using settings custom-tailored for each individual lens. (I'm not kidding: when you "assemble" the program, you specify each and every cam- era body you want to use with Optics Pro, and designate exactly which lenses are included in your repertoire.)