RAW file converters

dacrema said:

I just purchased a used D90 for my daughter. I do not want to give up my copy of Capture NX. What is out that is relatively inexpensive for a college student? This will be a hobby camera for her. She has a copy of Adobe CS3 she used for an art project in school but it will not run on the newer Microsoft computers we have. I mention this because I wonder if student discount and upgrade is worth while.

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UFRaw is free; I use it for all my RAW conversion. Works stand-alone and as a plug-in to the (also free) Gimp.

http://ufraw.sourceforge.net/
http://www.gimp.org/

Eric
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http://www.lumenssolutions.com/

nfpotter said:

Clayton1985 said:

ViewNX is very good and is free but I would recommend Lightroom 3 student edition. In my opinion Lightroom's Adobe Camera Raw interface is the best and the lens correction and noise reduction are really good. I prefer LR over Capture NX2 now.

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Interesting take on things.

LR doesn't remember your in-camera settings. BIG deal-breaker for me. I also don't think the ACR converter is as good as CapNX.

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nfpotter said:

To say something is "the best", well....

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I said "in my opinion" and was talking specifically about the user interface.

To say something isn't "as good", well......

no txt

Here is a list of free RAW converters. I've only used RawTherapee briefly in tha past, which was quite good, though I also have Adobe Camera Raw with CS5 so I don't need an alternative.

So here's what I have found about Raw Converters on the net.

RawTherapee
http://www.rawtherapee.com/

Quite nice. You can find a mini review of it by me here: http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/for...ad.php?t=48504
UFRaw
http://ufraw.sourceforge.net/

It's a pretty good tool. What I like best about it is the way it handles whites. Colour transitions usually seem nice and smooth, very pleasant. Comes with a plug-in for the GIMP.
RAWHide
http://www.my-spot.com/RHC/

A youngster, but already has some interesting features, namely batch processing and conversion algorithms.
dcraw + batch scripts
http://www.cybercom.net/~dcoffin/dcraw/

It's a command line converter that works well with batch scripts and sometimes serves as a reference converter for other converters. You can find a tutorial how to use it here: http://www.guillermoluijk.com/tutori...w/index_en.htm . There's software that builds on it. You can find a list of that software on dcraw's homepage. There are also several GUI frontends for this neat tool.
s7raw (for Fuji cameras only)
http://www.my-spot.com/RHC/

Conversion samples combined with a tutorial: http://www.mattspinelli.com/s7raweditor2c.html .
RawShooter Essentials
http://www.my-spot.com/RHC/

It's discontinued but for some owners of older DSLRs, it' a gem. It had a commercial version. Adobe bought them and later Adobe Lightroom was born.
SILKYPIX Developer Studio
http://www.isl.co.jp/SILKYPIX/english/

A bit slow and the output quality isn't the best you can get (but still OK). It's pretty easy to use, though. The free version is limited in features and isn't updated as often as the paid version.
Stepok's Raw Importer
http://www.stepok.net/eng/raw_importer.htm

A very easy to use raw converter that gives good conversion quality, although export speed isn't anything to write home about.
Rawstudio
http://rawstudio.org/
An interesting raw converter for Linux.
Rawker
http://raifra.fh-friedberg.de/Mac/index-en.html
Mac OS X only.
Raw Photo Processor (RPP)
http://www.raw-photo-processor.com/
Mac OS X only.
Scarab Darkroom
http://www.scarablabs.com/scarab-darkroom

This is a new RAW converter which is in the beta testing stage, and there will be a free version and a paid for Pro version with extra features.

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Redhed17



http://photobucket.com/albums/v253/redhed17/

When I wrote this is in the last post 'Quite nice. You can find a mini review of it by me here: http://www.talkphotography.co.uk ', it wasn't referring to me. ;-)

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Redhed17



http://photobucket.com/albums/v253/redhed17/

I don't know if it will suit your needs, but it is from Adobe, and it is FREE!

The Adobe DNG Converter, a free utility that converts files from more than 300 cameras to DNG, enables you to easily convert camera-specific raw files to a more universal DNG raw file. Visit the Camera Raw page for a complete list of supported cameras.

http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=4923

In Linux I use the Darktable, a Lightroom in Linux.

Very fast, 32bit LAB colurs inside, needs a bit more contrast than the "Nikon" mode has there.

Antti
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some pics: http://www.pbase.com/anada

Tony Beach said:

Best image quality is still Capture NX I think. Capture One works well and is within budget (economy version is about $100), and once she's converted to TIFF she can do more serious editing with CS3. My last choice would be Elements or Lightroom as I'm not a big fan of ACR.

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I use CNX2 a lot and really like it for editing in general. Still a few silly design flaws, but they all some.

Raw Therapee, newest version, gets more detail and dynamic range out of a raw file than any other converter including CNX2, LR3, Capture One, DXO, etc. And I have tried a lot of them. But, it is a lot slower and offers limited editing. Only practical for the occasional shot where you need to get all of the detail out. One of the problems I have with CNX2 is getting the dark shadows to come out correctly. Raw Therapee does a much better job in the dark areas if you set it correctly.

I will try to post an example from IM of a D700 NEF file processed in RT then noise cleaned up in CS4 as a tif file. No local brushes, just running programs. This is an iso 3200 file. Compare this to D7000 and there is not much to compare. D700 much better.

Note, you will need to click the tab for Original to go see the detail I am talking about.

= Tom