D-Lighting

Active D-lighting: Active D-lighting is a newer feature of Nikon digital camera's, which is based within the camera -- and as such, it is a RAW Adjustment. It must be turned on within the camera and can not be turned on after the fact.

But once turned on, in Capture NX, you have the ability to set it to "unchanged, off, low, normal, or high".

Since Active D-Lighting is a RAW adjustment, hopefully the quality of this adjustment is better than 'after the fact' D-Lighting (below). But, this needs more research.

D-Lighting: D-Lighting is (under 'Light' menu) a NX Adjustment, which can be a step added after the fact. It is pretty good a recovering detail from underexposed areas of your photo (brightening just the dark areas of your photo). It is a quick, easy and very effective tool to use.

The problem I have with the D-Lighting tool is that when it is needed most (2EV compensation), it can introduce slight shifts in colors. The solution then is to use Levels & Curves, or use the custom +1EV Adjustment on just the portion of your photo that needs it. For small EV adjustments, D-Lighting works well.

Recover blown hilights: D-Lighting can also be used to recover a blown hilights. First underexpose the entire photo (via Exposure Compensation) to make the blown hilight look OK. Then use D-lighting to recover the entire photo. Here is an example of recovering a blown window hilight, in just a few mouse clicks:

An alternative: Another way of performing D-Lighting is to use 'Levels & Curves'. A similar result in the above 'blown window' example was achieved with the the following Levels & Curves. Please note that the curve to use will be unique to each and every photo: