NEF to TIFF in ViewNX

[Thomas Comerford]

Make sure you have the latest version of View. I can see no difference and I do not believe there is one. Again, you are not actually viewing the NEF file in View, it is an interpretation based upon your Cameras default settings, no different than any other file format. When you convert immediately it is just as if you took a NER and JPEG simultaneoulsy in your camera, they are identical. One is just a rendered image, now a real viewable file. My question is why would anyone want to convert in view anyway? You can only benefit from raw if you use Capture to modifiy default settings, correct for abberations, use levels and curves, white balance etc.
--
Erwin

Well, I have the latest version of View and am using it because I don't have capture. Have you seen my posted pictures comparing the NEF and TIFF versions? Do you still think there is no difference?

Well I understand that what we see in NEF raw view is basically just an interpretation of raw data but why is that particular interpretation MUCH better than any other versions I can get?? Really I wouldn't care about these things, but I can see a definite and irritating loss of quality when converting to TIFF which as I understand just shouldn't be there. Thomas and tcab confirmed that, too - "really strange."

Just for the record, I consider the image displayed by View NX to be "wrong" since it's the odd one out. The image displayed by Capture NX matches the file saved by Capture NX, which in turn seems to match the file saved by View NX. If you like what View NX is displaying, my advice is to turn up your in-camera sharpening.

--
http://www.pixelfixer.org

 

[Hedgehog26]

Just for the record, I consider the image displayed by View NX to be "wrong" since it's the odd one out. The image displayed by Capture NX matches the file saved by Capture NX, which in turn seems to match the file saved by View NX. If you like what View NX is displaying, my advice is to turn up your in-camera sharpening.

--
http://www.pixelfixer.org

Well sharpening is already quite up in my camera. However I guess this does not matter here as we talk about NEFs (and TIFFs from NEFs) where such camera settings don't apply.

The point is, how to reproduce that crystal clear image I can see in the NEFs after converting to TIFF. Shall I attack it with massive sharpening in Photoshop? (One round of sharpening isn't enough, I have tried that.)

 

[Erwin Buske]

Sounds like we are getting to the bottom of this. This reason I see no difference is that I have my in camera sharpening set to 0. View evidently exagerates any in camera sharpening setting. If one is using Capture fully, sharpening should be the very last step in the editing process, therefore it makes sense to set in camera sharpening to 0.
--
Erwin

 

[Thomas Comerford]

Just for the record, I consider the image displayed by View NX to be "wrong" since it's the odd one out. The image displayed by Capture NX matches the file saved by Capture NX, which in turn seems to match the file saved by View NX. If you like what View NX is displaying, my advice is to turn up your in-camera sharpening.

--
http://www.pixelfixer.org

Well sharpening is already quite up in my camera. However I guess this does not matter here as we talk about NEFs (and TIFFs from NEFs) where such camera settings don't apply.

The camera settings do apply in this case, because you're using a Nikon raw converter which honours the in-camera settings when it is converting the raw data into an image.

--
http://www.pixelfixer.org

 

[Hedgehog26]

Sounds like we are getting to the bottom of this. This reason I see no difference is that I have my in camera sharpening set to 0. View evidently exagerates any in camera sharpening setting. If one is using Capture fully, sharpening should be the very last step in the editing process, therefore it makes sense to set in camera sharpening to 0.
--
Erwin

This is beginning to sound convincing. One thing still isn't clear for me, though. If NEFs look crisp because View applies the camera sharpening settings to them, why is it that they look much better than the paired JPEGs (NEF+JPG) that were subject to the same settings?

 

[Thomas Comerford]

Sounds like we are getting to the bottom of this. This reason I see no difference is that I have my in camera sharpening set to 0. View evidently exagerates any in camera sharpening setting. If one is using Capture fully, sharpening should be the very last step in the editing process, therefore it makes sense to set in camera sharpening to 0.
--
Erwin

This is beginning to sound convincing. One thing still isn't clear for me, though. If NEFs look crisp because View applies the camera sharpening settings to them, why is it that they look much better than the paired JPEGs (NEF+JPG) that were subject to the same settings?

Because those JPEGs were created by the in-camera processing, which produces images that aren't quite as crisp as a conversion done on a PC. This can often be seen in the reviews on this site where they do separate tests for JPEG and raw, with the JPEGs usually falling slightly behind in terms of "per-pixel sharpness".

--
http://www.pixelfixer.org