Raw images look horribly overexposed?

[marcel_g]

I'm trying out PSP X4 on the free trial. I'm on a Dell laptop with Windows 7. The camera is a Nikon D70s. I was trying to use UFRAW to transform the images from NEF format to PNG, and then GIMP to adjust and crop and resize. I've found GIMP to be really frustrating to use, so I'm dropping that for something else, hence the PSP X4 trial.

For the most part, I need it for digitally editing the documentation photos that I take of my paintings, and as well for managing our family photos. I've been using ArtRage for digital painting.

So mainly for my painting photos, I need to adjust the color balance to the gray card, adjust for lens distortion, crop, and resize.

When I open my folder of NEF files, the NEF files look really over exposed and washed out, especially compared to the PNG files that I made earlier using ufraw. They appear that way in both the viewing bar and when they're in the edit mode.

Does PSP have some kind of default viewing auto-adjustment going on? Am I missing something?

Thanks in advance,
marcel

[teknisyan]

When you open the NEF file, did the Camera RAW Lab opened? You may want to try and use the Camera RAW Lab. You can visit

for more information about Camera RAW Lab you can visit http://pnoy.me/gC

[marcel_g]

Thanks Abiel, I'll have a look at that.

Marcel

www.marcelguldemond.com

[marcel_g]

Thanks Abiel,

If I set the Camera RAW lab brightness setting to -1.7, then the image looks relatively correct when it's open in edit mode. Is PSP reading the NEF's exif data and extrapolating settings from there?

Marcel
www.marcelguldemond.com

[bobtail]

The raw lab is a really basic converter. You would be much better off using the free Nikon ViewNX2, which gives many more controls of the raw data. More important it will read the camera settings so that the image that opens will look like the equivalent jpeg & may need no further work. Even better is Capture NX2 for nefs, but that costs about £140
My workflow starts with ViewNX, then open the image into PSP for any further work. For Canon & other makes the makers raw conversion software is usually the best starting point. Corel has not adequately addressed the question of the needs of Raw files, which are optimum for most serious photographers.

[marcel_g]

Thanks bobtail,

I'm downloading ViewNX 2 and will try that out.

cheers,
marcel