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#1
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Nikon Capture vs RawShooter Essentials vs ACR
I recently acquired a Nikon D70s and have been fortunate enough to have had
the chance to travel round Slovenia with it taking a large number of NEF Raw images. Now I'm home, I'm experimenting with the various options as far as processing the RAW NEF files into Tiffs, or whatever... I own Photoshop Elements 3, which comes with a knocked down version of Adobe Camera RAW built in. I've tinkered with it, and decided it doesn't offer quite the range of options of other software. In particular, it always uses the Adobe RGB colour space - which although good, doesn't suit my modest equipment, I feel (not least my printer - Canon Pixma iP4000). So, I'm discounting ACR from the list. Then there's Rawshooter Essentials. It's free, which is a bonus! It's also capable of producing some great results, with good controls. But - it doesn't come with white balance presets (something I find useful), and doesn't allow my to retain the imbedded colour profile of the original NEF file. I tend to do landscape photography, and to date I've been impressed with the Nikon sRGB IIIa colour profile for the punchy colours it produces. All the shots taken directly with the camera as jpegs are using this profile. (Although, when I view them in PSE editor, it says they're the basic sRGB profile...) So, that seems to lead to Nikon's own Capture Software. Now it does seem to offer everything in terms of white balance presets, RAW adjustments, and the ability to save as a Tiff file using Nikon's own sRGB IIIa profile. Maybe the controls aren't quite a nice as RawShooter, but otherwise it stacks up pretty well. But, it costs over £100... It's also really good to be able to see all the embedded data within the NEF file and exactly how the shot was taken - focus points, etc. Are there any other options? Is Nikon Capture really worth the extra, or am I missing something? What about the RawShooter colour profile limitation - is this a red herring and something not worth worrying about? Thanks for you help, Alex. |
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#3
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According to Alex Berry :
I recently acquired a Nikon D70s and have been fortunate enough to have had the chance to travel round Slovenia with it taking a large number of NEF Raw images. Now I'm home, I'm experimenting with the various options as far as processing the RAW NEF files into Tiffs, or whatever... I own Photoshop Elements 3, ... Then there's Rawshooter Essentials. ... So, that seems to lead to Nikon's own Capture Software. ... You don't say what your computing platform is, so I'll presume Windows. If you were using a Mac, or anything else, you would probably have stated. It is only Windows users who seem to feel that everybody uses the same platform. :-) Are there any other options? Is Nikon Capture really worth the extra, or am I missing something? What about the RawShooter colour profile limitation - is this a red herring and something not worth worrying about? Well -- since I use a unix system, none of those are options for me. What I use is a combination of dcraw (free) and "the GIMP" (also free). dcraw is what processes the images on their way into the computer, and "the GIMP" is what you use to manipulate the images as you desire. The combination has capabilities equivalent to PhotoShop, but does not have the unfortunate effect on the wallet. I'm sure that "the GIMP" has been ported to Windows, and I believe that the same applies to dcraw -- each by third parties. "dcraw" comes as pure source code, and it easy to compile on unix systems at least. But Windows tends to come without a compiler, so you are stuck with needing a pre-compiled package. There are other image processing packages available for Windows, but as a non-Windows user I tend not to know them. I hope that this helps. DoN. -- Email: | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564 (too) near Washington D.C. | http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html --- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero --- |
#4
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Alex,
Have you tried the trial version of capture???? You can see for yourself whether it is what you want.. I know I am rationalizing, but I think it stinks, when you pay a thousand for a camera, then they try to hit you for another Benjamin to get the FULL use from the camera, by selling you software that should be included.. Alex Berry wrote: I recently acquired a Nikon D70s and have been fortunate enough to have had the chance to travel round Slovenia with it taking a large number of NEF Raw images. Now I'm home, I'm experimenting with the various options as far as processing the RAW NEF files into Tiffs, or whatever... I own Photoshop Elements 3, which comes with a knocked down version of Adobe Camera RAW built in. I've tinkered with it, and decided it doesn't offer quite the range of options of other software. In particular, it always uses the Adobe RGB colour space - which although good, doesn't suit my modest equipment, I feel (not least my printer - Canon Pixma iP4000). So, I'm discounting ACR from the list. Then there's Rawshooter Essentials. It's free, which is a bonus! It's also capable of producing some great results, with good controls. But - it doesn't come with white balance presets (something I find useful), and doesn't allow my to retain the imbedded colour profile of the original NEF file. I tend to do landscape photography, and to date I've been impressed with the Nikon sRGB IIIa colour profile for the punchy colours it produces. All the shots taken directly with the camera as jpegs are using this profile. (Although, when I view them in PSE editor, it says they're the basic sRGB profile...) So, that seems to lead to Nikon's own Capture Software. Now it does seem to offer everything in terms of white balance presets, RAW adjustments, and the ability to save as a Tiff file using Nikon's own sRGB IIIa profile. Maybe the controls aren't quite a nice as RawShooter, but otherwise it stacks up pretty well. But, it costs over £100... It's also really good to be able to see all the embedded data within the NEF file and exactly how the shot was taken - focus points, etc. Are there any other options? Is Nikon Capture really worth the extra, or am I missing something? What about the RawShooter colour profile limitation - is this a red herring and something not worth worrying about? Thanks for you help, Alex. |
#5
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The sad truth is that your problem is you have invested too much in hardware
and software and not enough in learning how to use them. That is an affliction common to many people on this newsgroup. To some extent the manufacturers are at fault for promising a level of effortless automation that does not exist. Continue to shoot in RAW/Adobe RGB so that one day, if you actually learn more about what you are doing, you will have the most usable form of your original image. To do otherwise would be the equivalent of making a copy of your 4x5 sheet film original on 35mm film and throwing away the orginal. If you do not want to learn how to use what you have you will probably be happier using your D70 as an oversized jpeg point and shoot camera. The RAW converter in Elements 3 can do more than you will ever need but cannot do anything if you do not bother to spend the time to learn what the various adjustment parameters do to your image and how to use them to optimize your image. Although you now have a consumer level printer you may one day want to go on to a better photoprinter. All printers have their own color space which is coded into the printer driver. The printer driver will convert your image into its particular color space. If you want that conversion to occur with some reliably predicable relationship to what you see on your monitor you must learn color management. If you learn to use color management, and understand what a color space really is, you will understand why you want to shoot in Adobe RGB and nothing else regardless of what printer you have. If you stick with Canon printers you will learn that they eternally repackage printers as new that use the same inks as last month's models: ergo they are the same printer with the same color gamut. Do not rely on a color space to "punch up" your colors. Adobe Elements can do a far better and more controlled job. In fact, that is one purpose of a photo imaging program. Do not bother with Gimp, which is an aptly named piece or crippleware. In Elements 3 you have just about the most sophisticated image processing program this side of CS2. Learn to use it and you will likely not need to learn any other programs. |
#6
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Alex Berry wrote:
I own Photoshop Elements 3, which comes with a knocked down version of Adobe Camera RAW built in. I've tinkered with it, and decided it doesn't offer quite the range of options of other software. In particular, it always uses the Adobe RGB colour space - which although good, doesn't suit my modest equipment, I feel (not least my printer - Canon Pixma iP4000). So, I'm discounting ACR from the list. Is that a limitation in Elements? Because ACR can certainly render to other color spaces, at least in Photoshop proper. Anyway, I would be very surprised if your printer can't exceed sRGB's gamut. Almost all photo printers can. I tend to do landscape photography, and to date I've been impressed with the Nikon sRGB IIIa colour profile for the punchy colours it produces. If simply using an sRGB profile produces "punchy" colors, you're doing something wrong. I suspect Nikon's software is mapping the colors a bit differently in the IIIa mode to increase the saturation, and is probably increasing contrast and clipping shadows as well. What about the RawShooter colour profile limitation - is this a red herring and something not worth worrying about? NEF files don't have an ICC color profile; that's an illusion perpetuated by Nikon's software, which simply looks at some metadata, sees that you had sRGB IIIa selected in-camera, and goes with that. So, I'd call it a red herring. That setting has no effect on your RAW image other than the camera noting in the metadata that it was selected. -- Jeremy | |
#7
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Some people don't realize that Nikon View (which is totally free and easily
downloaded from Nikon site) contains a raw editor which allows many adjustments on photos. It contains nikon editor which does the raw conversion. Make fure "show tools palette 1 is showing. You can change WB and exposure etc. It will open nef files with all incamera settings, and they will resemble the jpeg you would have gotten if you had shot jpeg. PS and PSE won't open photo looking like that jpeg. View allows conversion of nef's to HQ jpegs (not basic jpegs) and conversion to 16 (maybe 12) bit tiffs. You can save these edits and open with any program of your choosing, and theres even a open with PS command there I use all the time. Please try this and let me know how you like it. "Alex Berry" wrote in message ... I recently acquired a Nikon D70s and have been fortunate enough to have had the chance to travel round Slovenia with it taking a large number of NEF Raw images. Now I'm home, I'm experimenting with the various options as far as processing the RAW NEF files into Tiffs, or whatever... I own Photoshop Elements 3, which comes with a knocked down version of Adobe Camera RAW built in. I've tinkered with it, and decided it doesn't offer quite the range of options of other software. In particular, it always uses the Adobe RGB colour space - which although good, doesn't suit my modest equipment, I feel (not least my printer - Canon Pixma iP4000). So, I'm discounting ACR from the list. Then there's Rawshooter Essentials. It's free, which is a bonus! It's also capable of producing some great results, with good controls. But - it doesn't come with white balance presets (something I find useful), and doesn't allow my to retain the imbedded colour profile of the original NEF file. I tend to do landscape photography, and to date I've been impressed with the Nikon sRGB IIIa colour profile for the punchy colours it produces. All the shots taken directly with the camera as jpegs are using this profile. (Although, when I view them in PSE editor, it says they're the basic sRGB profile...) So, that seems to lead to Nikon's own Capture Software. Now it does seem to offer everything in terms of white balance presets, RAW adjustments, and the ability to save as a Tiff file using Nikon's own sRGB IIIa profile. Maybe the controls aren't quite a nice as RawShooter, but otherwise it stacks up pretty well. But, it costs over £100... It's also really good to be able to see all the embedded data within the NEF file and exactly how the shot was taken - focus points, etc. Are there any other options? Is Nikon Capture really worth the extra, or am I missing something? What about the RawShooter colour profile limitation - is this a red herring and something not worth worrying about? Thanks for you help, Alex. |
#8
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On Sat, 17 Sep 2005 10:15:42 -0400, Ed Ruf
wrote: However, in terms of raw conversion exposure and WB are the only controls one has. Better than nothing, but I would thing at that point Pixmantec's free Raw Shooter Essentials is a better choice. Actually, the only thing it's good for is to edit the IPTC information. Once the IPTC is saved then Photoshop can see it and includes it in the file info, Portfolio sees it and you can set Portfolio up to turn that metadata into the fields and keywords you archive your images with. Everything else is much easier to do in Photoshop, and Raw Shooter doesn't let you edit the IPTC. I need my caption info and keywords and file number in the metadata for my editors. |
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