Nikon Picture Project 1.6 vs CS2 w/ RAW (D200)

[james_laughton]

Is it worth installing Nikon Picture Project 1.6 for my Nikon D200 if Ive got

Adobe Photoshop CS2 with all the right plugins for NEF RAW? (its what iam

mainly going to be shooting in) Ive heard that PP 1.6 will overide CS2 when

using RAW.

 

Plus - Anyone have problems with cable release fitting in the socket? maybe

its because ive bought a cheap one but it only goes halfway in and i dont want

to ruin my new D200 forcing it in.

 

Jimmy.

[walterh]

Jimmi is you are not certain about the fitting do not force the plug in. I heard of someone who ruined the pins in the D200.

 

As for picture project - I never found out what it should be good for, especially if you get along with PS. It will "only" overwrite the RAW plugin without asking - hrrr- but you can go back if you read the adobe instructions to install the latest plugin version.

[stevenseelig]

If you do alot of shooting, I suggest you take a look at Aperture. I use the combination of

Aperture and CS2 with nik Color Efex Pro 2.0 and Ninja Noise plug-ins.

 

Aperture manages workflow and minor adjustments. CS2 for more complex processing.

[paul_sokal___dallas__tx]

The only thing picture project is good for is a coaster. Stick with PSCS2. If you shoot a lot of high ISO stuff you may want to get Capture as it seems to do better with Nikon noise than PS.

[Richard Williams]

PP gives you free access to Nikon's raw converter, which some people prefer to ACR, since the Nikon software respects more of your in-camera settings and gives nice colours out of the box:

 

http://www.nikonians.org/dcforum/DCForumID36/16777.html

 

However, you're better off with Nikon View (free download) for anything except batch conversion to tiff. NV has a proper 16-bit PS plugin, and allows rudimentary control over white balance and exposure compensation from both the plugin and the main application (PP only has an 8-bit PS plugin, and no true raw controls in the 16-bit capable main application). Nikon Capture is better than either (full control over raw conversion, like ACR), but costs money. If you delete the Nikon PS plugin, you can keep NV/PP around without interfering with ACR and Photoshop (just save the NV or PP output as tiff and load it into PS in the normal way). This arguably gives you the best of both worlds (a 'reference' Nikon converter, and a fully adjustable Adobe converter).