How to preserve high-bit data from NEF images.

[arnold_theisen1]

I have been using Picture Window Pro to do high-bit editing on

scanned slides from my Nikon LS-4000. It works fine for that purpose

and allows me to do all my editing in 48-bit mode before converting

to 24-bit for printing.

 

Having recently purchased a Nikon D70 I'm now looking for a way to

edit the raw NEF images in high-bit mode, even though they are not

true 48-bit images. I loaded a NEF image into PW Pro, v3.5.0.9, the

latest version, and it opened the image in 24-bit mode and reduced

the size from 2000 X 3008 pixels to 120 X 160 pixels, thus rendering

the image completely useless.

 

I then looked to Nikon's Picture Project software that came with the

camera and which works fine for getting the raw image to a hard

drive. But Picture Project will only allow me to convert the image

to JPEG, not TIFF, thus losing the high-bit info.

 

Is there some way I can get these NEF images into the TIFF format

while preserving the built-in 12-bit data, short of spending $600

for Photoshop?

 

I did a search but didn't see an answer. Any help will be

appreciated.

 

Arnold

[cghubbell]

<p>Check out <a href=http://www.bibblelabs.com>Bibble</a>. It's a raw converter much like Nikon Capture/View which I regularly use to output TIFF (and JPEG).</p>

 

<p>Picture Project is really aimed at the low end of imaging, so falls short in many ways. If you want to use Nikon software, you need to get Nikon Capture (~ $100).</p>

[robert_martin5]

BreezeBrowser Pro will convert your RAW images to 16 bit formats. I don't have this software (use Photoshop CS RAW converter), but I have seen a lot of positive comments about this software.

[arnold_theisen1]

Thanks for your suggestions. I've since learned from the maker that Picture Window Pro definitely will not convert raw files, so I will have to get some better converter than Picture Project.