A question to the Nikon users here: which program do you prefer to use to post-process .nef files and do you require special plug-ins and/or converters? I'm considering getting Adobe Lightroom (since it costs half for me as a student, but I'll have a go at the trial first), does any of you use it as a primary tool and are you satisfied with it?
I shoot with a D3 and use Capture NX2. I wouldn't touch Lightroom with a long stick to be perfectly honest. Lightroom (and Apple Aperture) are both superb in their UI, really easy and to use a create a good workflow, as well as being excellent for library/cataloguing. BUT (and it's a big one) with the files from my D3 (and to a lesser extent, my older D80) both LR and Aperture give me inferior image quality.
Nikon are more secretive than Canon and others with the algorithms for their NEF files, so third party software producers like Adobe and Apple have to kind of reverse engineer the files in order to create an algorithm for decoding the NEF files....Basically, neither company has managed to get it right, and if you're not using Nikon software, then you're not seeing the best from your Nikon images.
Mostly, in LR I see a lack of contrast and a dullness in the colour when compared to NX2. There are a couple of reasons for this, because not only does NX2 have the better NEF conversion, as I said above, but it's also designed to read the settings of your camera. By that, I mean it will look at saturation, contrast, brightness, sharpness etc settings that you have in your camera and apply them to the converted RAW file (in the same way that it would if you were shooting JPEGs). This means that your RAW images look almost identical to the image you see on the camera's LCD screen (which is an embedded jpeg thumb). No other program will read these settings, only NX2, and the amount of time this can save you in post processing is astonishing.
Anyway, I did a comparison about a year ago and posted the images in my Deviant Art journal. These shots are straight out of the camera, no adjustments at all, converted straight into a jpeg and resized. I used Aperture as a comparison, but in my experience, Lightroom is the same
Notice the yellows on the horizon, and the colour/contrast of the plants in the foreground, which are more vibrant
Speaks for itself here, the reds here are so much stronger, as is the contrast and the definition of the blacks.
This one is more subtle, but again the greens are more vibrant in NX2, as well as the yellows and orange on the horizon.
What you can't see in these images is that NX2 also seems to resolve more detail than LR or Aperture. That may sound crazy, and I don't know the exact reasons, but I assume some softness comes in via the conversion process, and applying sharpening later doesn't give the same effect (again, because of the conversion algorithms). My images just look sharper and better in NX2. I was so blown away when I first started using it, that it felt almost like I had a new camera....it's that good.
OK, so moving on from the conversion. NX2 also has a far wider and more effective range of adjustment controls than anything else out there except for PS (and I think NX2 is much more intuitive than PS). I don't know if you've ever seen Viveza or any of Nik softwares U-Point controls (NX2 is actually made by Nik software) but it's better than anything I have ever seen for local adjustments of everything from colour, shadows, contrast, colour temperature, sharpness, noise reduction etc etc. There's some information about it on the site
http://www.capturenx.com/en/intuitive_operation/color/index.html but you really have to use it to see how clever it is. You don't ever have to bother with selections or layer masks like you do in PS, and you're making these adjustments non destructively onto the NEF file, so it doesn't do any damage to the master file.
Basically, since I've started using it, I've almost never had to use PS again. I spend a lot less time processing images because NX2 gives me better images right out of the camera, and its much quicker to get the image finished.
It's also pretty good at batch processing (important to me, as I shoot a lot of weddings besides my landscape work) although I admit, it's not as quick at applying global adjustments to a large amount of images as Aperture or Lightroom.
The downsides are that it isn't as intuitive to use as LR, it's not as fast unless you have a pretty powerful system (I'm using an i7 quad core iMac 27" with 8gb of RAM and it runs perfectly on that, but on my 2gb Macbook Pro, it really runs quite slowly). It also does crash occasionally (although it's pretty rare. I use it intensively for thousands and thousands of images).
The library and cataloguing isn't as elegant as LR or Aperture, although I've found I got used to it quite quickly and actually quite like the way it works now.
Finally, you need an additional piece of software (Nikon Transfer, which is a free download) to actually import the images from your camera. It's no problem though, it opens up as soon as you connect the camera, asks you where you want to import the images too (with NX2 files as default), and then opens NX2 automatically when the import is finished...so I don't see any drawback in having to use it.
Why not try out the free trial, and actually compare the image quality yourself
http://nikonimglib.com/cnx2/
My wedding biz partner uses Nikon and shoots in RAW exclusively. He edits all of his photos in Lightroom and finalizes them in photoshop. There are some occasions where he has to use Capture NX. This is usually the case when he isn't getting accurate colors, sharpness, or noise reduction from Lightroom.
Lightroom and Photoshop have recently been updated and so has ACR. The quality levels are much higher now.
There are other RAW processors out there like DCRAW which offer superior image quality to every tool out there. What these raw processors lack are extensive editing features. I am willing to take a little hit in image quality if it means a faster work flow.
I guess we both do enough shooting to know that everyone has different methods, and what works best for one doesn't for another etc etc...
But for me, while LR is faster on it's own the NX2, editting in Lightroom and then finalizing them in PS is considerably slower for me than doing the entire editting process in NX2 and not needing to use PS at all, particularly when taking into account that I can get my images looking exactly how I want them in NX2 with less editting than I can in LR.
My workflow uses View NX quite extensively for selecting keepers and deleting unwanted images, as well as rating them. ViewNX works seemlessly side by side with NX2, so I just switch between the programs when I want to edit them (1 click). It's a different workflow from what I used to do with Aperture, but now I've got used to it, I've found it's much more effective. Although again, I'm just talking about me personally here.
The only thing I use PS for is doing the final edits on the page spreads that I use for the wedding albums. I'm using Kiss books right now
http://kissweddingbooks.com/blog/ The quality of the books, and the customer care are absolutely brilliant.
It's a little bit out of focus as it was really dark in the room... also I wanted to eat it. 
