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.

 

Use the colour temp control and see if that helps.

www.alldigital.fotopic.net

 

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.

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.

 

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..

 

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.

 

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.

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.

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.

 

If you want to use and save sRGB then set PSE3 for limited, not full color
management. Edit => Color Settings => Choose Limited Color Management.

 

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.

 

It's available on the Nikon Tech Support web site
http://support.nikontech.com/cgi-bi...WFyY2hfdGV4dD1uaWtvbnZpZXc*&p_li=&p_topview=1
and I would highly recommend it as substitute for the braindead Picture
Project app shipped with all Nikon cameras these day. 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.