NEF file processor

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ecniv

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Edit My Images
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Hi,

As my camera (D300) is in fixation I used a GF3 (my wifes) to shot around London yesterday. Now I shot in raw and the RW2. Used the Panasonic SilkyPics (downloaded from their website) and it is a pleasure to use. Loads of tweaks I didn't get into, but essentially fast and easy.


Way faster than the Nikon Capture NX (supplied with the D300).


My Question :
Is there a free decent and fast package to process the Nef files? Or should I be looking on the nikon site for Capture NX2 (if its faster processing)?
 
I highly recommend (and use) Nikon's ViewNX2. It has all the basic editing functions plus has the benefit of actually reading the camera settings and displaying them correctly unlike Adobe that just guestimates what the image should look like.

Oh, and did I mention ViewNX2 is a free download from the Nikon web site?
 
ecniv said:
Any one used Capture 1 and then 2... is that worth upgrading...?
Click to expand...

Yep, used Capture NX initially and then upgraded to CNX2. Is it worth it? From my perspective I'd say absolutely! CNX2 is my editor of choice although I have Lightroom 4, Elements 10 and Photoshop CS6. For about 95% of my editing I don't go outside of ViewNX2 and CaptureNX2 (both of which now supprt 64bit processing).
 
digiKam is a free lightroom equivalent, and supports most raw formats.
It is originally based on Linux but there is a port to windows.
It has the same sort of features like collections, etc..
 
hi

just to let you know
- dark table isnt available on the windows (several other os's though)
- digikam I downloaded to test, but it set itself up weird and wasn't user friendly - ended up deleting my only copies of raw files whilst crashing repeatedly.

i managed to get the files back luckily - Recuva to the rescue there.

Thanks for the suggestions
 
GIMP?

ETA: in conjunction with the latest ViewNX as suggested by Steve above.
 
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Bristolian said:
Yep, used Capture NX initially and then upgraded to CNX2. Is it worth it? From my perspective I'd say absolutely! CNX2 is my editor of choice although I have Lightroom 4, Elements 10 and Photoshop CS6. For about 95% of my editing I don't go outside of ViewNX2 and CaptureNX2 (both of which now supprt 64bit processing).
Click to expand...

Is CaptureNX2 any quicker to use than ViewNX2 I like the functionality of ViewNX2 but find it very slow to use, particularly conversion of images to Tiff.
 
I've used ViewNX2 (Free) and Capture NX2 (about £135) and View NX2 seems to do most things that Capture NX2 does apart from more advanced editing options like "control points" for localised edits.

I think I preferred ViewNX2 to Lightroom as it reads all the camera settings from the NEF and it also saves any changes to the original NEF file rather than having to store changes in a separate "catalog" file that Lightroom uses.
 
ecniv said:
@chromatin64
I always use Gimp - like it loads :)
But I dont think it reads raw...
Click to expand...

I think it does; my recollection is that it uses the UFraw plug in.

If you're a Mac user, Raw Photo Processor is worth looking at (it's free but a donation is requested).
 
Vivid Art said:
Is CaptureNX2 any quicker to use than ViewNX2 I like the functionality of ViewNX2 but find it very slow to use, particularly conversion of images to Tiff.
Click to expand...

Hmm, is CNX2 quicker? I don't really notice any difference but both programs are memory hungry. Even with my system (my PC has 8GB of RAM and a fast 64bit processor) it takes quite a while to do conversions - at least a couple of seconds per file.
 
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