RAW file converters

[dacrema]

I did a search but if you put RAW into the search engine you get overloaded with information that does not look at converters (mostly RAW vs JPG).

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.

About her. She is a Chem Bio so the photo class is an elective. She aced art classes in HS including college level advanced classes - so while photography will be a hobby she will not be completely new to composition, color and the like.

I was going to give her my D70 - good enough for the class and she has used it some - but came across the D90 for a good price. I wanted her to have a camera that would use my gear driven lenses and have better low light abilities for a coming trip.

Sorry to ramble on. But these type of request are always followed by request for more info on background and use.
John

 

[Tony Beach]

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.

 

[gollywop]

If you're just looking for good conversion software, you can get the Student edition of Lightroom 3 for $89. Can't beat that. If you want more, you can get the student edition of CS5 for $299.

As to CNX, I don't think it is going to be of much use for CR2s -- maybe I'm wrong here, as I don't really use CNX. I am a big fan of ACR.

--
gollywop

-----------

 

[gollywop]

If you're just looking for good conversion software, you can get the Student edition of Lightroom 3 for $89. Can't beat that. If you want more, you can get the student edition of CS5 for $299.

As to CNX, I don't think it is going to be of much use for CR2s -- maybe I'm wrong here, as I don't really use CNX. I am a big fan of ACR.

Wow, sorry about that. When I read your OP, I read S90 rather than D90. Forget my comment about CR2s. However, the LR option is a good one.

--
gollywop

-----------

 

[Ray Ritchie]

You'll have to make a judgment about what features she really needs and how much they're worth to her. One of the cheapest full-featured programs for RAW conversion and many of the processing capabilities of Photoshop will be Photoshop Elements 9, along with the latest Adobe Camera Raw plugin - I think that runs $119 at student discount pricing. You can get an educational copy of Photoshop CS5 for something like $199. If those are too expensive, there are free (and less full-featured) products available, e. g., you can convert Nikon files to JPEG's using Nikon's ViewNX product, which is free. There are other shareware products out there which will do the job, but as you are asking about Windows-compatible products, and I'm a Mac user, I'm not up on the latest alternatives. If you have some geek instincts, you can get the GIMP suite up and running on Windows by doing some free downloading and putting in a number of hours puzzling through the installation process.

Ray

 

[nfpotter]

ViewNX is free. Will let you do do RAW conversion. There are several other free ones, too.

Gimp is a good free alternative to Photoshop, if you need sometihng to edit with.

 

[HSway]

I'd say you got her a splendid camera. Get her NX2 and the PS upgrade she already knows. She will get it all and best, can blame only herself for any dissatisfaction.

Hynek

--



http://www.sunwaysite.com

 

[lmpmd]

I believe toneup is 19.99 and respects all incamera settings. Do a search to confirm this. I suppose you can open up raw there, convert to jpeg, than then work on jpeg in pse:
http://www.oxfordeye.co.uk/index.aspx
--
Larry

 

[Robert Cohen]

As has been mentioned, ViewNX is free. It can be downloaded from Nikon. Other free programs that I think offer Raw conversion are Irfanview and FastStone.

Photoshop Elements 9, which comes with a version of Adobe Camera Raw, usually costs about $90, and often is on sale for closer to $50. As a student she has access to student versions of the Adobe products at substantial cost savings. It could be that she can get the full PS CS5 for a good price as a student.
--
--Bob

 

[MRM4350]

View NX2 is free from Nikon, and will convert NEF to 8 or 16 bit tiff files for editing in CSx. Adobe prvides a free raw to DNG converter, and all CSx programs can edit DNG files.
--
Michael

 

[chuxter]

Nobody mentioned Raw Therapee...it's free.

I might suggest (also) that you get PSE9...it will do everything she needs to do. With a student discount, it's pretty cheap!

--
Charlie Davis
Nikon 5700, Sony R1, Nikon D50, Nikon D300
HomePage: http://www.1derful.info
"He had a photographic memory which was never developed."

 

[Clayton1985]

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.

 

[nfpotter]

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.

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.

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

 

[rufusm]

NX2 appears to be 'abondonware' hehe. LR3 with the latest ACR engine and updated profiles gives me results on par with NX2 but much quicker with a logical workflow compared to NX2. I still have NX2 installed but I cannot remember when I last dusted it off. I agree about 'best' being subjective but LR3/CS5 runs circles around that fossil NX2.

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.

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.

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

--
http://www.cpetridis.com
http://www.onyxstudios.ca

 

[Tony Beach]

I agree about 'best' being subjective but LR3/CS5 runs circles around that fossil NX2.

Yes, we can agree that it is somewhat subjective. With X-rite color profiles I get good colors from Lightroom, but I actually don't care for its UI and my landscape shots still show smudged shadow detail that I don't get with Capture One or Capture NX. BTW, my version of NX (not NX2) is really ancient, but I find it to be very fast on my near state of the art desktop computer.

 

[HSway]

MRM4350 wrote:

View NX2 is free from Nikon, and will convert NEF to 8 or 16 bit tiff files for editing in CSx.

I’d pick this as a second option and a cheaper one. View NX2 is better than the previous versions. It’s also a very good viewer – sometimes you have to click the open image to get it sharp-rendered. It has got the NX2 engine and improved controls for basic editing which is often enough when using this convertor.. For “unlimited” full data processing converting lossless tifs enables to work the high Q (and easy gained) material in the next stage sw. - Upgraded PS sounds very good to me – or the PSE.

Third option could be – the Capture NX2 alone.

I have also made very good experience with Capture One for Nikon and for the Canon files in direct tests as against native convertors.

Hynek

--



http://www.sunwaysite.com

 

[Arree]

Another vote for View NX.
Somehow nikon photos look the best in nikon programs.
--
Regards,

Arree

Like to see some pic's ?
http://picasaweb.google.nl/Arretje56/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/13935871@N04/

 

[b2martin_a]

You can upgrade Photoshop CS2, CS3, and CS4 to CS5 for about $190 at B&H Photo Video. RAW converter for CS5 is ACR 6.x and it is excellent. I have both CS5 and NX2 and I use CS5 RAW converter for all my D700 NEF processing. Adobe has generated Camera profiles for Nikon and Canon cameras and these are a close match for Nikon and Canon processed images. I find work flow and speed of processing much better with Adobe software.

 

[rufusm]

I agree about 'best' being subjective but LR3/CS5 runs circles around that fossil NX2.

Yes, we can agree that it is somewhat subjective. With X-rite color profiles I get good colors from Lightroom

This is something I am interested in purchasing soon as the x-rite will give colour consistency. One more thing to quicken post once all setup and tested especially in LR3 when working with multiple images.

but I actually don't care for its UI and my landscape shots still show smudged shadow detail that I don't get with Capture One or Capture NX.

I have been using Adobe since PS 5 and lightroom since version 1 beta plus capture nx 1 and 2, having said that Adobe has always had a better ui for me. As for the smudging, gee thanks Tony! Now I gotta go back and pixel peep. Just kidding, I have heard that before. I have demoed Capture One but I am very comfortable with Adobe, Capture One did give nice results though but I am staying with acr.

BTW, my version of NX (not NX2) is really ancient, but I find it to be very fast on my near state of the art desktop computer.

No problem with speed. Of late I have been processing my non event images through CS5 (acr) which I used to do in CNX because it is that good now compared to what I can do in CNX. If nikon/nik were to give me an updated version, I would certainly use it again.

--
http://www.cpetridis.com
http://www.onyxstudios.ca

 

[Vic Chapman]

A good budget option is View NX (free) and PS Elements. Better and still reasonable is NX2 and PSE for the stuff (cloning, layer work and the like), that NX2 doesn't do.