In need of new computer/editing software

[Uhooru]

<p>Oops! Sorry Michele, didn't see your last post. Yeah, that should work great! </p>

[Richard Williams]

<blockquote>

<p>Richard W, my camera came with a CD (Nikon ViewNX2). When I tried to load it on this computer, it couldn't. That is what brought me here. I'm going on a long trip very soon, and am trying to decide if I should just shoot all of my photos in JPEG because I will not have the knowledge or equipment to work with RAW files. I am a little bummed because I know some of the scenery will be beautiful and while I hope to get back there again one day, I don't know that I will.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>You might find that quite a bit of modern software isn't compatible with older Macs, but everything mentioned in this thread (including ViewNX2 and Capture NXD) should work on the 2015 MacBook. ViewNX2 is also a free download if you don't have a CD drive for the MacBook:</p>

<p>http://nikonimglib.com/nvnx/</p>

<p>If you want to keep your options open, you could shoot both raw and jpeg at the same time. I think the D750 can be set up to write both a raw file and a jpeg copy to the same card, or raw files to one and jpegs to the other if two cards are installed. Of course this may mean you'd have to buy more cards, but they needn't be expensive, especially if you're shooting landscapes and don't need the fastest versions. It's best to use a reputable dealer like B&H for cards, as there are a lot of fakes on ebay etc.</p>

[eric_brody]

<p>Hi Michelle, I certainly did not intend to offend and do apologize for my incorrect conclusion... but if you were to look at your initial very broad question, my response, your initial response, and the fact that you did not identify which camera you have until the last post of the second page of this thread, it is not unreasonable to wonder if you were trolling. It's all in the details.<br>

I'm glad you have a D750. It is an impressively sophisticated camera which will likely serve you for many years. Without wanting to discourage anyone, I was simply reminding all of us that it's way more than a camera and computer; it's cards, card readers, printers, continuously changing software, (I just updated Photoshop 10 minutes ago), backup systems, (perhaps more important than anything else), and everything else that goes into the increasingly complex process called digital photography. <br>

I do wish you the best of luck and hope you'll have fun.<br>

PS. Shoot RAW on your upcoming trip. Don't shoot only jpegs. You can keep the RAW files separately, and convert a COPY of the RAWs to jpeg if you want to get started immediately playing with them before your RAW managing skills are better. When you're more comfortable with a RAW management program, you'll have those precious files and will make much better images. Bring a backup system on the trip and use it... every day if you're doing lots of photography. There are many articles which explain why shooting RAW makes sense for important images. With RAW files you can do most anything, jpegs are quite limiting and you can go from RAW to jpeg, but not the other way. The analogy from the film era is the difference between having a skilled printer work with your negatives versus having ONLY the 3x5 "drugstore" prints and no negatives at all. <br>

Best,</p>

[michele_anderson2]

<p>Richard W, After reading yours and Eric's thoughts on RAW files, I will set my camera to the RAW + JPEG format. I purchased 2 64GB memory cards so I will write to both. I've only got those two cards, and perhaps should go out and get an additional one for slot #1 because I have no idea how many RAW files my card will hold. I like the idea of saving them until I am prepared to deal with them.</p>

<p>Eric, The fact that I didn't answer your question about my camera was just an oversight. Just like when you replied to me and had forgotten to answer my question about "camera clubs with rules" question. I read your reply and just answered without paying close enough attention to all that you had asked me. I do this often (short attention span). In my world, a "troll" is someone who comes onto boards and stirs up trouble and makes inflammatory comments, so I was confused by your calling me that. I didn't see any motivation to come to a board like this and be seen as disruptive, especially because I thought I did a good job explaining myself (obviously I didn't). My intentions were genuine, but I appreciate your last post because I was hurt. I think you and Richard have given me great advice about how I will deal with my travel photos. I am very excited and hope to take a lot of photos. </p>

<p>To All, I have a few additional questions that will probably sound silly but I will ask them anyway!</p>

<p>1. When you go out and shoot tons of photos, do you keep them all? or do you get rid of them as you go to save room on your cards? (Again, thinking of my RAW files). I ask this because I leave on my trip in a few days and over the last few days I've been backing up my photos to the cloud. It's been running 24/7 and I only had 11,000 pictures. I bet it won't be finished backing up for another couple of days. I am going to a very remote location, and I will have WiFi, but I don't know how good it is. Also, I still continue to worry about taxing this computer since it's so old. (Maybe this isn't a valid concern?) I am making sure I have all my present photos backed up just in case something happens. Anyway, at this rate, if I go out and shoot a few hundred photos each day, this computer will be constantly working on trying to back up all of the photos. I'm just wondering if I should only save ones that appear to be worthy as I view them on my camera? I know you can't always tell until they are actually downloaded onto your computer.</p>

<p>2. If I were to make a copy of all of my RAW files to play with, as Eric suggested, and then later want to make another set of copies when I'm actually good at working with them, will it degrade my original files too much? I was reading my book last night, and I had the impression that everytime you make a copy of them, it takes a little away from them, or am I misunderstanding this?</p>

<p>3. If I were in a special location taking both RAW + JPEG, then went to another location where the pictures aren't as important and I didn't really desire a RAW file of some of the photos, could I shut off the RAW card midstream? This will probably come up in my book, but I'm still not far into it yet.</p>

[Uhooru]

<p>In order:<br>

1. I think if the photos are worth keeping, I generally make a back-up copy of the raw files on external drives, sometimes two different back-up drives. I then have a working set on a fast external drive. I haven't used the cloud for storage yet. But others do.<br>

2. If I understand the question, the answer will depend on the image editor you use. A program like Lightroom for example, is a so called "non-destructive" editor, simply meaning that the underlying file is not altered. Instead, a set of instructions are created relating to the image file that produce the changes you see in the image editor but don't actually alter the original. When you are done and export the completed image, it then creates a new file, usually a tif or jpg, as you choose, which is the final product reflecting the adjustments you've made to it. The original file isn't touched, and you can go back into the program and change it back, or make other changes, make virtual copies to try different techniques etc. If however, you use a program like Photoshop or Elements, when you make changes to the image in various adjustment layers etc., when you collapse the layers you alter the underlying image file, so the digital process is different for those programs and you will for sure want to make a copy of the untouched files before you edit if you want to go back and process them differently in the future. Clear as mud? :)<br>

3. Yes, you can change that on your camera in mid-stream when you want.</p>

[eric_brody]

<p>Michele, a couple of suggestions/answers since we're now back on good terms, I hope. I'm a retired bum so have plenty of time to give detailed answers.<br /> 1) backup- there are two kinds of computer people, those who have a good backup strategy and those who have lost data, e.g. precious photos. Please have a robust hard drive backup system set up before you leave. All you really need is an inexpensive couple of small USB hard drives, easily available almost anywhere (I assume you're in the US?)(I just got a 2TB drive for my daughter for less than $80US). Wifi cloud backup in a remote location is likely to be so slow as to be unusable. On the same subject, with my D800E, I always have the camera write simultaneously to both cards. Once, and that's all it takes, in the Galapagos, on a ship, I had a card problem and having that second card really bailed me out. Get a few more cards, with a D750 you'll do fine with 32GB cards, or get 64's either way, it's cheap insurance. Problems never seem to happen when you're prepared, only when you're not.<br /> With a good backup system in place, I'd save them all, except those with obvious technical issues, such as out of focus, blurred. Even those poorly exposed can often be salvaged in post. When I travel, I look at my images at the end of each day but never do any serious editing, save it for when you're home. In the best of all possible worlds, you'll not erase ANY cards while traveling, good insurance. That way you'll not have the question of "did I just erase a card full of new images I've not yet downloaded?" and will avert tragedy. I look at ALL the possible things that could go wrong (my wife thinks I'm a pessimist, but I think I'm just careful, VERY CAREFUL.) and try and think of ways to avoid them, ahead of time. <br /> 2) RAW files are NOT degraded when copied, nor are jpegs. JPEGS ARE degraded when manipulated in a post processing program and re-saved, another reason to shoot RAW. Except in rare cases of file corruption, that exact copying principle is what is behind backups, they're exact copies of the originals. While I agree with Barry's first point, I respectfully disagree with his second about switching back and forth. I'd not try to be too clever and shoot jpegs in some situations, you're just asking to make a mistake and forget to change back to RAW. Shoot RAW, you'll be happy later. Storage, whether it's cards or hard drives is really relatively cheap. In the late 80's I paid $600US for a 40MB, that's MEGABYTE, not gigabyte, hard drive. The other day I bought a 6 TERABYTE hard drive for just over $200US! The math is boggling. <br /> I hope you have a fabulous trip and do try to stop and smell the roses, wherever you are, and do not, like me, get so focused on the photography that you miss out on something more important. I know I'm having fun when I can say I don't even care if I have a camera, it's so lovely.</p>

[eric_brody]

<p>Another quick but important point, set the camera to record 14 bit, lossless compressed. You'll save a bit of space and lose nothing in quality, that's what lossless means. </p>

 

[michele_anderson2]

<p>Thank you Barry and Eric for your additional help. I was hoping to save my photos in a few different places. I will definitely bring a few memory sticks. At this time I have an external hard drive that is a few years old. It's a GoFlex 500MB hard drive. Do you think that is too small? Because I could go out and buy another if that doesn't seem good enough. I will back up the photos I take each day on the cloud as well (assuming I can). By the way Eric, my husband calls me a pessimist too. I tell him that I'm a realist! Like you, I am always thinking in "what if?" mode. I don't want to be caught without solutions. I will purchase a few extra memory cards just in case something happens to the ones I have. I will be in the US, but getting these things there would be difficult there because I'd have to drive over an hour to get to a good shopping area. I will be sure to try to enjoy my time aside of taking pictures. I know what you mean about getting too caught up in photography to enjoy the other things that there are to offer. My husband will be working some so I figured I'd go out on my own while he's doing that. I did sign up for a photography class in the nearest town. I'm very excited about that. I figured if I shoot pictures with the locals, I will find the best locations to shoot. :)</p>

[Uhooru]

<p>Well 500GB will last a bit, of course depending how much you shoot but you'll end up getting larger drives. A 1 TB portable is more the new normal and desktop external drives can be much bigger and that's not even talking about multiple drive set-ups. So you can start with that, but you'll need more and bigger as it fills up.</p>

[eric_brody]

<p>I agree with Barry, get at least 1TB, 2TB is even better and minimally more money. Remember what Mae West said, "Too much of a good thing is never enough." That is absolutely true with storage, be it cards or hard disk space. I've never heard anyone complain that they had too much storage. What do you mean by "memory sticks"? </p>

[Uhooru]

<p>Aren't memory sticks what some of us call thumb drives?</p>

[michele_anderson2]

<p>I found a 2TB Seagate portable hard drive on sale at Best Buy. I think I will pick one up tomorrow. Barry is right that memory sticks are the same thing as a thumb drives or jump drives. They have the 32 GB memory cards on sale too, so I'll get another two of those. I'm finally starting to feel prepared! </p>

[michele_anderson2]

<p>I didn't end up getting a new external hard drive because they wouldn't be compatible with this computer. I'll just take along the one I have, and will get a new one when I inherit my daughter's computer. I did pick up some thumb drives and another memory card for my camera. Hopefully this will work. I want to thank each of you again for all of your thoughts and comments. I have appreciated them all. I will have WiFi in the house we will be staying in, so you may hear from me again if I have any problems! :) Wish me luck!</p>