In article , Me
wrote:

which raw processor is very subjective. some people prefer camera raw,
others prefer nikon's software (or canon's), bibble, capture one, dcraw
or one of the many others. each one does things a little differently.
most of the time, the technical differences are minor and won't even be
noticable in a print or when displayed on a screen.

I don't agree. The difference in the ability of the raw processor to
extract detail is visible. If you look at the Nikon D300 review at
DPReview, there are test chart shots with various raw converters, very
clearly showing that CaptureNX extracted more detail from nef files,
with less artifacts near nyquist than any other raw converter, incl.
ACR. It's picky - 100% pixel view is perhaps looking too close - but
it's very clear to see if you look, and for people who don't look - hey
perhaps Ken Rockwell is right, and everyone should just use jpeg...

i just took a quick look at the review and i saw comparisons with raw
from other cameras, but i didn't see where he compared camera raw and
nx, let alone comparing with other raw converters. and dpreview is
just one example, there are other sample images that show different
results. that's why it's subjective; people like different 'looks.'

and with something like lightroom or aperture, shooting raw+jpeg is
redundant. working with raws is the same as working with jpegs and
it's just as fast (the difference is hardly noticable).

You miss the point. If you use the workflow as it's possible to do,
then you don't need to edit many (*nef) shots at all.

there's no need to do much editing in a lightroom workflow, unless one
wants to.

nikon's software is not all that fast.
Sure - it's mainly slowed down by the raw converter re-compressing the
/edited/ embedded jpeg. I shudder to think what it will be like with
24mp D3x files - a fast computer won't be a luxury - it will be essential.

i found it slow just to open the nef, as well as making adjustments,
compared with photoshop & camera raw. are you saying it rewrites the
embedded jpeg *each* time an adjustment is made? i would expect that
it does that at the end.

Well, the OP has NX, and that is a very good program (though often
maligned). For post-processing that might be needed *after* doing the
hard stuff in NX, then I don't see the need for full PS - Gimp does well
for cloning etc., but YMMV. (and as I think I've said, I use PS anyway -
because I want/need good soft-proofing and gamut warning - but that's
because I'm fussy about prints).

the *full* photoshop is overkill. elements is most of what most people
need at a very reasonable price (and it's often bundled for free with
various products).

As far as non-destructive editing goes, then yes, NX does it, but saves
edits as metadata within the *nef. For long term archiving, I think
that's a big advantage (sure some potential - but unlikely - pitfalls too).

it avoids having to deal with sidecar files, but it risks corrupting
the .nef itself when rewriting it. i'm of the opinion that the raw
file should never be altered, with all changes stored separately.