Converting RAW

I just purchased a Nikon D300. I've taken some pictures in RAW and downloaded them from the card to my

computer. How do I convert these to JPEG or TIFF now and still save the RAW originals ? I have Photoshop

Elements 6 and the Nikon NX that came with the camera ?

You have Capture NX2? Use either that or the version of Adobe Camera Raw for Elements 6.

I don't use Elements 6, so I don't know if it can open your RAW files, but I'm sure the software that came with your

camera can do it. I'd also recommend that you try ACDSee Pro 2 (actually, they just upgraded it to 2.5) as an all

around digital image management software and RAW converter. It's only $130, half the cost of Adobe Lightroom, and

can do so many useful and cool things you'll wonder how you got along without it. It can convert your RAW files to

any format you like, can batch process a whole folder of images, even RAW files, which is a real workflow

improvement. The RAW converter built into ACDSee give you very detailed and comprehensive adjustment and

control of your RAW images. And, at $130, you can't go wrong.

 

Download the free trial version (fully functional) and check it out. You can google it to get to their website. I've been

using this program for years and use it for 95% of my pro work.

Glen,

 

Check and see what version of ACR you have for your Elements 6. You can update it to open the D300 raw files. Since you just purchased the D300, most likely you did not get the free Capture NX license, as this was only available early on in the production of the D300. Elements 6 Works pretty good, and is farily easy to use.

I too own a Nikon D-300 and for quick sharing purposes I have may camera set to make both RAW and JPEG images, the JPEGs I can share on the fly. I did receive the Capture NX2 with my camera and it gets the job done okay, but I find it a bit cumbersome and less intuitive than the software I am now using.

 

While Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Elements are great software programs for doing all sorts of enhancements and tricks; I find for my own uses that they are mostly what I call bloat-ware, since I have no need for so many of the features offered, especially in Photoshop which is loaded.

 

For just plain old photography, with no gimmicks etc., I really like Adobe Lightroom for using my RAW files to produce DNG, (digital negative) files, which I then develop in Lightroom and export, (Save) to any other file type of my choice.

 

Note: Lightroom never changes the file format of any image file unless you purposely make it do that. Instead Lightroom creates a virtual image on a file and all conversion and other work is done to the virtual image, so your RAW and other files are left as is for archiving or whatever.

 

There is a new version out Lightroom 2, which I have upgraded to and like a lot. You can go to the Adobe site and download a free 30 day full working trail version to see if it suits your needs.

I think there are two issues here. One, how to convert RAW to JPG and two, should you be even taking photos in RAW format if you don't have a RAW editor. There is no point in taking RAW pics unless you intend to post-process them in a RAW editor. That's why the excellent suggestion was made to look into buying Adobe Lightroom or something similar. There are a lot of things you can adjust nicely in a RAW editor before exporting them as JPGs or printing them.

 

If you're taking RAW and just want to convert them to JPG for PS Elements, you should probably just take the pics as JPGs and save yourself a step. Picasa is free and you can convert RAW to JPG with it if you don't have another editor that can handle these files. picasa.google.com.

I though of something that might be important to Glen DeKlein (the original poster) and anyone else who might care.

 

You may not want to convert RAW files to JPGs if you plan to do any further work on them. JPG is a compressed format, which in order to compress has to remove some of the image information in a subtle way. So right away you are lessening the quality of your image and every time you resave a JPG after working on it you are compressing it once more and further lessening the quality.

 

I would suggest you convert your RAW files to a non-compressed TIFF format, which can be worked on and resaved with no loss, plus it can also be printed, which means you don't have to use the JPG format at all, unless you plan on emailing a lesser quality facsimile or preview of the image to someone else, then the smaller compressed file format size of JPG comes in handy.