Does anybody use the Nikon software to convert NEF files to JPG? How good is it? PP can be done by multiple software products, but converting is another story.
The free converter is very good since it knows the camera presents like Picture Control used which other software does not. For a long time the older
Capture NX 2 was the best rendering program for Nikon but ever year Adobe got better and NIC software which developed Capture NX2 got very slow in updates until they just canceled the contract.Most of the technology in NIC software was introduced in Capture NX, like the UPoint. But Capture never was fully debugged and was a memory hog so people were frustrated with it despite liking it because it was the only software which could actually read the file format of NEF since Nikon never released the file definition. Canon did long before so Adobe did not have to guess what was intended by a file. As we know, Nikon has never been competent in software, for example none of the programs it released were well sorted out or with a good user interface. Snap Bridge is a good example.
The fact remains, for simple rendering and minor adjustments, the free software that comes with a Nikon is very good with NEF files to render into TIFF or JPG. Adobe still can't read or write to NEF with all the camera settings like picture control but they have gotten a lot better in guessing. I use LR Classic CC, tried cloud based LR CC and it just does not do much but has potential for those who want to do minor editing on all their mobile devices. It is very limited now but will probably become more complete later.
The Photographers bundle is a great deal although I prefer owning software outright. I have been very happy however with the price and features. It is a mature platform that gets updated often. Things just work. LR is surprisingly capable for general photography so only about 10% of the keepers end up being finished in Photoshop CC. PS is a very complex system, easy to do simple things but its real power requires years of learning. Because it is the industry standard, there are hundreds of books and thousands of YouTube tutorial videos. None of the other software has that ecosystem. I have tried out most of the other software out there including the open source applications and none is complete enough to replace LR or PS.
Raw Therapee is pretty versitle with lots of features in adjusting and rendering RAW files and the GIMP is very similar to Photoshop but use of layers is different so takes a little getting used to, but when you learn it, it is very versatile for Photoshop like pixel level editing. Both of those have the advantage over Adobe because they run natively on Linux or Windows and as a result allows more people to ditch Windows and move to Linux which is an excellent operating system; fast, secure and reliable....and free that works on all platforms.
Most distributions have complete sets of productivity software attached so one can have a totally free computer work environment covering all normal tasks like word processing, spreadsheets, image editing, database, web browsers, email and messaging systems all at no cost. If you want to try is I suggest two of the most popular distributions: Ubuntu or Mint Linux. You can try it without installing it by by running it from a thumb drive and boot into it on start up.. If you have some programs that only run on Windows, you can install Linux in Dual Boot mode so at computer turn on a menu appears asking which system you would like to boot. For general web browsing and common office activities, Linux is safer, faster and requires less OS overhead. Also, viruses are extremely rare so web surfing does not require lots of anti-malware or antivirus programs running in background. Installing new free software applications is easy with one-click installs. The included applications cover almost everything typical home or office users need. The open source, free, Libreoffice is an excellent MS Office replacement and free. I have both the paid for MS Office and the free LibreOffice and use LibreOffice exclusively because it handles a wider range of file formats and will create PDFs from any document easily without buying Acrobat.
So there are lots of options,but for me, after trying them all I prefer Adobe Photographers bundle for $9.99 a month.
