RAW Nikon files & PSP X2: Do they work together?

[soenda]

Much to my surprise, Santa brought me a Nikon D40. One of the camera's great advantages, as I understand it, is the option to work with images in RAW format. Nikon's Picture Project 1.7 came with the camera. Before I load it though, I was hoping to find out how this is going to work.

Currently I do a lot of tinkering, layer blending, etc. with PSP X2. I don't want to give up the range of capabilities that PSP offers, but I also want to be able to work with the expanded potential that the unprocessed RAW files provide.

Is there any way to get the best from both? And if so, is Nikon's Picture Project likely to be the best RAW converter for me to use?

Thanks for any suggestions.

S.

[steve.ledger]

In my optinion, Adobe Lightroom is the best RAW developer there is at the moment.
It's reasonably priced and has a very pro' GUI with intuitive workflow.

An alternative to Lightroom and which is free is RAW Therapee

Some people have trouble with RAW Converters/Developers due to their 'mentality' being in 'IMAGE EDITOR' mode, which they are not, they are Digital Darkrooms designed to develop your RAW images (which are your digital negatives in effect).

I believe the software that comes with the Nikon dSLR's is a time limited version.

I have no experience with PSP X2, but I do have Corel PhotoPaint X3 installed as part of the CorelDrawX3 suite, I rarely use it because frankly I think it's rubbish.

[Trev]

Paint shop pro does not have a good record with Digital camera raw formats. Introduced with PSP 9 just before the sell out so Bible who where the suppliers of the PSP 9 raw package where dropped by Corel so no updates for a year. Then Raw shooter came with PSP X this was so good Adobe bought it and Killed it
Currently Psp can open most Raw files but does not offer much control over the process of converting. You would be better off using a converter to open and convert raw to tiff then do any further work in psp Rawtherapee bis currently free and comes from the same country as raw shooter did Coincidence!

[steve.ledger]

Freeware version of RawShooter Essentials 2006 is still available for download here

[soenda]

Thank you very much, Sledger and Trev, for getting back to me so quickly with the information. I have downloaded both Raw Shooter Essentials and RAW Therapee to try out. Thanks for providing the links, too.

I can't quite get my mind around the difference between an image editor mentality and a digital darkroom...unless all that means is that you use one of the RAW programs to receive the image files from the camera, then, except for a few changes like white balance, you're prepared to "move over" the image to a Paint Shop Pro or Photoshop for fine tuning.

As it turned out, the joke was on me last night. After all my scurrying in search of RAW converters, it turned out that I had set the new D40 to format the images as high quality jpegs. So, later today I hope to go out and get the real RAW images.

I take my hat off to you both. Thanks for your generosity with your time and experience to help me find my way.

Happy New Year! (Although I may be back before then.)

S.

[steve.ledger]

I can't quite get my mind around the difference between an image editor mentality and a digital darkroom...unless all that means is that you use one of the RAW programs to receive the image files from the camera, then, except for a few changes like white balance, you're prepared to "move over" the image to a Paint Shop Pro or Photoshop for fine tuning.

RAW data is unprocessed image data which comes straight off the sensor in your camera, rather than it passing through the cameras built-in JPEG or TIFF processor.
PaintShopPro and to a large degree, PhotoShop are 'pixel painters' - they allow you to play with RASTERSED pixels in creative ways. Neither of them are strictly digital photography tools (and is why Adobe saw the need to create Lightroom which has been designed from the ground-up as a RAW developer), though PS does encorporate ACR (Adobe RAW Converter) allowing it to turn your Camera data into more workable files for futher editing.
This link explains more about the differences between RAW, JPEG and TIFF

[PSPjunkie]

Have to agree, LightRoom seems the best so far, you get to "develope" your images before passing them to a program such as PSP or other editors

[soenda]

I wanted to let you all know that I am working with both RAW Shooter and RAW Therapee...or at least, trying to get them working with me. When I set the D40 to produce RAW output, I get NEF files. I've been able to get those to cooperate with RAW Therapee, but I'm experiencing a bit of trouble with RAW Shooter---some of it is just about coming to agreement about where in my system RAW Shooter wants to put the adjusted files.

Indeed, it is miraculous how well an underexposed image can be turned around through white balance adjustment.

At this point I'm not in a position to get into Lightroom, so it's more a matter of getting a workflow going that involves going from RAW to jpeg with the possibility of PSP X2 in between.

Thanks very much for your kind suggestions. Presently I'll try to post a photo processed from RAW for feedback.

S.