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Adobe Bridge and NEF files


mike_doyle2

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Hi, I am just in the process of changing my workflow from Nikon NX to Adobe

Camera Raw in Bridge, fortunately for me I had backed up the NEF files I had

downloaded to my PC to a DVD before taking the images into ACR to make

adjustments to them. After completing my work I then processed all the images

as high quality jpegs again from ACR, and on completion of my work I closed

the PC down as normal, this morning returning to the PC I find the NEF images

are corrupted and will not open, checking the jpegs, they are fine, my

question is of course has anyone else experienced this problem? And of course

what could I be doing wrong. Although I have given up on Nikon Capture NX due

to continual system crashes, I never experienced any file corruptions like

this before and I have used Nikon Capture up to version 4 with absolutely no

problems at all. I would be interested to learn what workflow anyone else uses

with NEF's and Adobe Camera Raw in Bridge, and if they have experienced any

problems with file corruption, incidentally my version of Photoshop is CS3,

and the camera's I use are the D200, D2Xs and D3. Thank you for any advice in

advance. Mike

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".. my question is of course has anyone else experienced this problem? "

 

This can happen and is one of the reasons to verify the written DVD (or CD) after burning. It is a simple click on a check-box in my burn program.

What did you do wrong? Exactly this - did not verify after burn. It is good practice to have another independent backup preferentially on another medium like an off-line external hard drive stored at a different location.

 

You could try and see if the files copy from the DVD to the hard disk and try open from there. There are data commercial data recovery services available but usually not cheap. CD and DVD are often hard to recover data from. Good luck.

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I have never had this problem, nor have I head of it.

Can you confirm that the problem is in the NEF files (e.g. by opening them in Capture NX)? I

find it extremely odd since ACR does not write into the NEF file. It only reads them, it writes

its data into XMP files (same name, same directory, different extension).

 

Have you tried erasing the XMP files to make sure the corruption is not there?

 

--ben

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To clarify - what do you mean "will not open."

 

Do you mean you don't get thumbnails in Bridge or if you double click them from the folder they won't open in ACR or Photoshop?

 

I've had a similar problem where Bridge did not display thumbnails; but before I suggest a solution I want to understand what application won't open your NEF files.

 

M

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Hi Michael, In response to your question, let me take you through what I did in the stages that I performed the tasks, I placed the compact flash card into the PC card reader and downloaded the images using Windows XP Explorer, I next copied them to a file and gave it a name, I then renamed all the NEF Files. I then burned the NEF Files to a DVD as a backup. I opened Photoshop and went into Bridge and opened Camera Raw, opening the file I had created with the new NEF files I made all the necessary adjustments to my images, I then converted the images to Jpegs and after saving my work I closed down the PC. The following morning I opened up Photoshop and when I opened the file containing the NEFs the icons were there but no image. Going into the file in Windows Explorer I clicked on the file to open it and all the NEF's were icons and had strange characters instead of file numbers, when I clicked on another file containing NEF's they were fine, only the ones I had processed in ACR were corrupted, I am at a complete loss as to what I did, or am doing wrong as it seems many people use ACR with no problem at all, I have of course got CS3 and also the latest plug in support, as I now have a D3 and will obviously need the latest plug in for this. One nagging doubt I have, and that is regarding XMP Files which I understand hold all the Data containing adjustments, is there some kind of setting that has to be put in place before I can move the files about from one folder to another? I welcome any suggestions as to setting up and using ACR as a workflow with NEF files in ACR. Thank you all for your comments so far, Mike
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A few questions:

 

After making the edits in ACR, how, exactly, did you save them as jpegs? After saving as jpeg, did you return to Bridge to select the next image for editing, and was the previous nef image still there with the icon showing it had been edited? Are the jpegs intact? Based on what you have told us so far, your experience is really strange. I have not heard of any similar problem.

 

As for the xmp files that are created when you edit a nef file in ACR, If you move the nef files to another folder using any method outside of Bridge, you must make sure the xmp files stay with the nef files.

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Hi Mike, Sorry for the delay in responding, in answer to your question, when I batch processed the NEF files to Jpegs in Photoshop the Jpegs were fine, the corrupted files were the original NEF files that I worked on in ACR, and after saving and closing down, when I next tried to reopen them the following day the NEF's were corrupt, luckily this was only one folder of images and because I took the precaution of backing the NEF's up to DVD after downloading them to the PC I have lost nothing.

I am however unsure of the step by step process of adjusting NEF Files in ACR, and is it better to have them saved with a sidecar XMP file, that moves everywhere with the images, or allow the changes to be stored on the photoshop database, I feel very comfortable with the layout and working interface of ACR as opposed to Nikon NX, but am just not that confident in the workflow, and will need to purchase a book that will guide me through the process more thoroughly, any recomended publications would be welcome. Thanks Mike

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Hi Mike,

 

Thanks for all the clarifications. As a caveat, I use CS2 so there might be something in the CS3 work that applies that I might be missing here - but from my understanding of CS3 I think my following comments are sound.

 

1) You've encountered a strange problem and I don't recall anything like that happening.

 

2) Your workflow is sound thus far, making adjustments to NEF in ACR then saving as JPEGs should have no deleterious impact on the NEFs.

 

3) One item - all the changes you make in NEF are saved in the XMP or sidecar files, I don't know that there is a "Photoshop database" that saves changes to those NEF files - all the changes are in the XMP file.

 

3a) Whether or not the XMP file is co-located with the NEF files should not render the file unreadable. You could delete all the XMP files and the only result should be that your NEFs now open in their original state - without any of the changes you made in ACR.

 

Now the next step would be to download a few of the NEFs from your DVD and make sure they are intact.

 

Sounds like you had some kind of weird corruption to the NEF files, likely from some part of the ACR process.

 

Maybe try moving some of those unreadable NEFs to a different folder, away from the XMP files and see if they open. Do you use Microsoft RAW thumbnail reader? (it's a separate download from the MS site - see if you can actually see a thumbnail of the file.)

 

Otherwise, everything looks sound in terms of your workflow so it may just be some one-off corruption. Have you tried to take additional photos, download them, duplicate your workflow and see if the problem repeats itself?

 

Good luck - I'll keep an eye on this thread out of interest and contribute where I can, but frankly I'm baffled.

 

Michael

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