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Raw file questions


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7 replies to this topic

#1
dragon49

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I just purchased the P1000 which shoots in Raw.  A few questions:

Will my Adobe Photoshop Elements 9 be able to open the format that the camera takes?  If not, then what software is recommended?

Also, I have a question about quality.  If I use software to convert raw to the highest quality jpg it can output, without doing any editing at all, will the result be a higher quality jpg than had I taken the original photo as a jpg?

 

 



#2
Oric Man

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The problem with new cameras is they keep changing the file specification so you'll need software that is able to handle your model. Generally speaking, the newer he camera the newer the software you need.

 

A lot of modern photo processing software will have updates for cameras as they come along. You'll need to check if your Adobe software has included an update for your camera.  I think you need Camera Raw 11.1 - but I'm not certain Which bits of software Elelments includes. Most Adboe stuff updates itself as part of the package.

 

There's other software you can try like Open Source Raw processors or the Nikon software like Capture NX-D.

 

Not sure about the quality question. You can produce a larger file size, but I think the dimensions is limitied to the pixel count of the sensor. (? maybe someone can elaborate?)



#3
dragon49

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The problem with new cameras is they keep changing the file specification so you'll need software that is able to handle your model. Generally speaking, the newer he camera the newer the software you need.

 

A lot of modern photo processing software will have updates for cameras as they come along. You'll need to check if your Adobe software has included an update for your camera.  I think you need Camera Raw 11.1 - but I'm not certain Which bits of software Elelments includes. Most Adboe stuff updates itself as part of the package.

 

There's other software you can try like Open Source Raw processors or the Nikon software like Capture NX-D.

 

Not sure about the quality question. You can produce a larger file size, but I think the dimensions is limitied to the pixel count of the sensor. (? maybe someone can elaborate?)

Ty,

 

Nikon has their own NX Studio software to convert their RAW files to JPG, but when I shoot in RAW + JPG, I don't see any difference at all between the camera produced JPGs and the ones that I converted to JPGs from RAW by just using the "save as" function.  I am certain though that I could have fixed some badly-lit photos by tweaking things first.  For now, I'm just shooting in JPG only.  Some birders I ran into shoot in RAW only and use the subscription-based Adobe Photoshop + Lightroom package to get the most out of their photographs.  If I'm convinced I can learn the stuff well, I may take the same path.



#4
Merco_61

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The starting point in NX Studio is using all the camera settings. If you just hit save as, you will get the same result as the in-camera jpeg. The big difference is that you can tweak much more dynamic range out of a 12-bit raw file than an 8-bit jpg as there is more information to play with.

You can also use levels and curves to make a bird pop from the background.
Some parameters are locked-in in the jpg that can be changed if you shoot in raw.

If you need extensive editing, remember that JPG is a lossy format that will compress with new settings every time you save, making the compression artefacts visible in surprisingly few iterations.

 

gallery_1251_835_165471.jpg

This photo was quite bland with the bird nearly merging with the background straight out of camera. About 5 minutes of work in Photo Ninja later, it looked like this. 
 

I am posting this from my iPad, so I don’t have the original file available right now. I’ll post the unedited version later if you are interested.



#5
Merco_61

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Here is the SOOC original.

gallery_1251_835_115093.jpg



#6
fallout666

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if camera can shot raw then make camera shot raw. not sure on converting photo to raw. since not sure how they would do it. since jpg files lose 25% to 40% of info. make small in size. also you need to upgrade to pay buy the month lightroom or any of adobe programs since older lightroom or photo premium pro pay the by the month or year since will update to new gear and give more options or use Capture NX-D. free editing program gimp. your choice 



#7
Merco_61

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Capture NX-D is history. NX Studio is the successor and the current version is much more stable than previous versions.



#8
Ellinor William

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You camera will take the RAW images in NEF format and Adobe Photoshop is compatible with this image format. And, you can convert the RAW image to any format, because the file size of RAW is very large and you can do so much editing on it.

You can use Nikon's NX Studio software to convert RAW files to JPG.