First Try With Raw.

[Barbelfisher]

Hi All,

Took a few pics in Raw yesterday and processed them with Nikon view nx2 which came as a freebie with my camera. Do you guys do the minimum with the raw file ie white balance and exposure then save as tiff and continue in psp with the tiff file? Also do you save the tiff as a 16 or 8 bit file? They are very large files those tiffs....

[pdxrjt]

Well, maybe not an answer to your question....but the consensus seems to be the PSP is not the best RAW editor in the world. I use (according to polls the most popular RAW editor) an editor made by a different company, although some will say After Shot Pro is good choice too Anyway, the program I use "converts" the RAW file so you can see it, then essentially writes data that affects how the RAW files is used. (RAW editors generally can't overwrite RAW files, so they either output the file to a different format or write a sidecar file that tells the program about the changes you have made.) The program I use does not convert the RAW file into another format until you want to export it to the web or for printing or whatever. That seems to me to be a good choice as that never locks you in to WB or exposure settings. Sorry if my answer does not directly go to your questions of workflow with RAW in PSP. Of course, this means I do most of my "basic" editing in another program.... and use PSP for special tasks. When I am ready to use PSP, I generally open it from within the other RAW converter I use (it will open the RAW file and convert it to various formats so PSP can use it), do my work and then export for printing or web etc. That's my workflow.

[Barbelfisher]

Hi,

I dont know if i would persevere with raw i only ever print the odd A4 print i was just trying it out, yes i have seen it mentioned many times that psp is not the best raw editor.....Looking at the raw images from nikon view NX2 they look ok to me, i thought that you would only adjust the white balance and exposure in the raw converter then edit the tiff file in psp because psp is a better editor than the nikon view NX2?

[larrewl]

IMO, the new (beta) NX-D does a better job of NEF -> TIFF conversion for my Nikon D5300 files than the popular RAW programs, including LR.

[MarkZ]

John:

I use AfterShot Pro, occasionally a program that came with my camera that is based on Silky Pix, to do some RAW processing. This is usually a bit of exposure correction, small sharpening, sometimes curve and often straightening and cropping. Once that is done I have the choice of accessing the option of process with another program which I have set to PSP. If I choose that route ASP creates a TIFF and opens PSP. As you say, TIFF files are huge - I created one the other day that was 97 MB from a 25 MB RAW - so I erase them once I've created a jpg.

My preference is to process a number of images in ASP and then do an batch output in full size jpg. A batch of five photos takes about three seconds. From there I do the PSP adjustments I want.

[Barbelfisher]

Lads,
Im going to have a look at the new nikon nxd notice the reviews are not so good though, found view nx2 to be very slow, do you need a raw converter that can also do a lot of other editing? Surely if so you wouldnt use use PSP for much editing would you and i think that PSP as an editor is pretty good..I only used view nx2 for white balance and exposure then worked on the tiff in PSP that seemed ok to me...Though i just notice that NXD is not compatable with windows XP.

[brucet]

Almost all the 'bad' reviews about NXD are coming from folks who expected a Capture replacement. It's not, and Nikon makes that clear, but folks still bang on about the 'missing' features Capture had. I've been trying it out. Is gives a result as good as if not better than ASP. Sure it's basic but does everything I want before passing the file over to PSPx6.

My logic tells me Nikon knows NEFs better than ASP does.

regards

[photodrawken]

do you need a raw converter that can also do a lot of other editing?

No.

I just began shooting in RAW a few months ago, and I found that it's best to use specialized tools -- one program for RAW conversion and another program for image editing.

I use the free RawTherapee program for RAW conversion because it does a spectacularly stunning job of getting the absolute best out of my RAW images. It's the only reason that it makes sense to shoot in RAW. RT has a million adjustments, so it will take you a while to experiment and see what works best for your camera. You can then save those adjustments as a "processing profile" and quickly apply it with a single click to subsequent images. Save your output image as a 16-bit TIF file -- using an 8-bit TIF kind of defeats the whole purpose of shooting in RAW because you lose so much tonal info. You'll want to keep your workflow as 16-bit for as long as possible.

If the image needs specific editing procedures (such as masking the sky to target a contrast adjustment to emphasize the clouds), then open the 16-bit image in your editing program of choice to do the targeted enhancements.

[pdxrjt]

do you need a raw converter that can also do a lot of other editing?

Well there you have it, you don't need it, but it sure it nice. I use a RAW converter that does about 98% of the editing I want (and apparently, about 42% of photographers use it as their go to editor making it the most popular one.) The program has gradients, some cloning, cropping, adjustment brushes, sharpening, etc. etc. Not everyone likes it, but I sure do. Why do I use PSP?: layers, masks, text and some cloning tasks--about 2% of the photos I edit..... otherwise, I use my "main program." As it works on the RAW file, you always have the range of exposure that RAW gives you and can always adjust the white balance and no need to worry about converting to TIF or anything else (until you are ready to export the finished product.) But that's me....not everyone likes it. Still wouldn't want to do without my PSP and I continue to update it every year.

[Barbelfisher]

Ken,

I am looking along the same lines as you, i will download Raw Therapee and give it a try up against the nikon View nx2 freebie and see if it does a nicer conversion though the nx2 i think does a good job of the conversion ( Did someone say that it only saves 8 bit tiffs?)

Ken let me think for a minute son and yes i think it can be easily done.......

[photodrawken]

I am looking along the same lines as you, i will download Raw Therapee and give it a try....

Hey John,
Just a word of warning about RT -- the latest 64-bit builds are very unstable in Win7 x64. Others have reported no problems with the 32-bit versions of RT running on 32-bit Windows.

[df]

I wouldn't think that a raw converter would benefit that much from being 64 bit unless you're shooting with a medium format digital camera.

[photodrawken]

I wouldn't think that a raw converter would benefit that much from being 64 bit unless you're shooting with a medium format digital camera.

It's hard to tell, since I haven't done any testing between those two versions (nor will I). I use the DCB demosaicing algorithm which is one of the slowest, and I also apply a whole ton of adjustments which can be quite processor-intensive. If there's the slightest possibility that the processing will benefit from using all the RAM installed and a 64-bit instruction set, then I want that benefit....

[Barbelfisher]

Thanks Ken, One thing i must address before anything else is to get more ram installed on my pc...At present all i have is 1 Gig..

[photodrawken]

Thanks Ken, One thing i must address before anything else is to get more ram installed on my pc...At present all i have is 1 Gig..

Yeah, it's insane, isn't it? My first PC had a whopping 8Mb of RAM, which was considered excessive at the time....

P.S., If I recall correctly, you're still on Windows XP. If so, it's waaaaaay past time to go to Win7, but you know that.