Software questions

[Finno]

Which software do you use, and why? Picture project or Nikon View?

What does the improve image function actually do in picture project (seems to add a lot os size).

What software do you use for panorama stitching?

[Onyx]

Nikon View. More functionality I believe, compared to PP. I have no idea what improve image does in PP, I suspect it runs auto contrast and auto levels - this gives "pop" to the majority of snapshot type pics.

Panorama Factory.

[Killakoala]

- I use Nikon View to view the pics on the CF card before deciding whether to delete or keep.

- Nikon Capture so i can play with Curves and WB etc.

- Photoshop CS for final post processing, USM, levels, cropping, borders, copyright etc.

- Panorama Factory for panos. It's the best, no doubt about it.

IMHO Picture Project is crap. It came with my D70 kit. I installed it and five minutes later, deleted it. Never to be used or seen again.

[birddog114]

The reason Nikon bundle the PP with it cos would like to make the box look "heavy" when the salesmen at the outlet can give his/ her customers a list of free softwares.
Who's going to use PP??????

Remember the tactis of many PC resellers advertised:

"Free software worth 2K to come with PC as : crappy stuff and no one uses"

[Nnnnsic]

I use strictly Photoshop at the moment... but I'm contemplating giving NikonView a try as I hear it handles NEF's better than Photoshop... which wouldn't be hard at all.

Picture Project is crap... it's terrible. I wouldn't recommend it to a monkey with a Canon lodged up its arse.

[Onyx]

NView crashes too - at least for me. When I browse NEFs too fast, it collapses in a heap and gives me the option to send a report to Microsoft. Never had a sim. problem with Capture or anything else.

[birddog114]

NView crashes too - at least for me. When I browse NEFs too fast, it collapses in a heap and gives me the option to send a report to Microsoft. Never had a sim. problem with Capture or anything else.

Just one of your case Onyx, NV never crash on me!

[nigels]

What does IMHO MEAN

I'm really quite slow, haven't taken my medication yest

NIGE

[Nnnnsic]

In My Honest Opinion

[nigels]

Thanks
nige

[MHD]

In My Humble Opinion?
(thats what I always meant)

[Kristine]

I use Nikon View; does not crash on my XP notebook.

Cheers
Kristine

[mudder]

G'day,

I use Nikon View for browsing (seems reasonably quick and fairly functional too) and PaintShop Pro (v9) for editing, but hope to lash out on PhotoShop CS soon though...

Being a lazy mongrel, I've been using Autostich lately for pano's but if I get revved up I'll give Pano Factory a go... Seems the goods...

Cheers,
Mudder

[MHD]

Gimp-2.0 for PP Does almost everything PS will do but does not work with NEF plugings

Arcsoft's Panostitch prog... simply because its what came with my cp5400.... will investigate more down the track

[leek]

As I only shoot in JPG at the moment, I use Adobe Photoshop Album to download, view, review & categorise my photos. I use Photoshop Elements to perform edits / corrections...
Elements doesn't have all the bells and whistles of the full Photoshop, but it seems to cover my needs for the moment...

Nikon View, Picture Project and Capture are still in the wrapper...

[birddog114]

As I only shoot in JPG at the moment, I use Adobe Photoshop Album to download, view, review & categorise my photos. I use Photoshop Elements to perform edits / corrections...
Elements doesn't have all the bells and whistles of the full Photoshop, but it seems to cover my needs for the moment...

Nikon View, Picture Project and Capture are still in the wrapper...

leek,
It's time for you to start exploring and discovering the wonderful of Nikon Capture.

[gstark]

In My Honest Opinion

In My HUMBLE opinion.

[MHD]

Thats what I said!

[leek]

leek,
It's time for you to start exploring and discovering the wonderful of Nikon Capture.

All available brain cells are trying to absorb the complexities of the D70 & the SB-800 at the moment... I might need to wait a while before I can take anything else on...

[Geoff]

I like to view my NEF's in PP then I work on them in Photoshop CS which I am continually being impressed with..so so so much to learn in it, I figure if i can learn a new function/trick/skill in PS a few times a week then I'm doing well. So yeah, PS pretty much all the way. I yearn to attend a photoshop workshop at Birdy's in the near future.


Geoff.

[sirhc55]

I did a comparison test between Nikon Capture and PS - the result was that I still prefer PS. I also used the new Adobe converter and did not like it at all.

Chris

[Geoff]

I also used the new Adobe converter and did not like it at all.

Hi Chris,

What does this do exactly?

Geoff.

[sirhc55]

I also used the new Adobe converter and did not like it at all.

Hi Chris,

What does this do exactly?

Geoff.

Hi Geoff

The DNG converter is a free download from Adobe that is a archival format for RAW

http://www.adobe.com/products/dng/main.html

Chris

[Kristine]

Gimp-2.0 for PP Does almost everything PS will do but does not work with NEF plugings

Arcsoft's Panostitch prog... simply because its what came with my cp5400.... will investigate more down the track

To View & Edit NEF (RAW) Files In GIMP (Using Default Windows Paths):

Rawphoto plug-in from http://www.princeton.edu/~mplough/rawphoto.html
(rawphoto-windows-binary-1.18.zip); put "rawphoto.exe" into
C:\Program Files\GIMP-2.0\lib\gimp\2.0\plug-ins

dcraw from http://home.arcor.de/benjamin_lebsanft/
Put "dcraw.exe" into C:\Program Files\GIMP-2.0\bin

HTH


Cheers
Kristine

[Raydar]

Photoshop CS
NC
Pan factory

I would use PS 90% of the time but some times I can get a better curves result with NC on the hard to get right images

Cheers
Ray

[kurokaze204]

Hi Geoff

The DNG converter is a free download from Adobe that is a archival format for RAW

http://www.adobe.com/products/dng/main.html

Chris

I downloaded this, but all it does is change the NEF to a DNG. Then I have to open up each photo and re-save it as a PSD.

Can anybody tell me what I'm doing wrong? How do I convert a bunch of RAW (NEFs) to PSD?

I'm using Photoshop CS. Very happy with it. Birddog live in Sydney, but I have the same yearning to do a PS course and get a beeter grip on it.

While I was in New York, at Calumet (where I got my 70-300G) I mentioned post processing and the guy told me there is only one program I should consider. I told him I used PS and he said "trust me, try this and you will never go back" and gave me a trial version CD of PhaseOne. I haven't loaded it yet. I think its limited to 30 days and I want a free 30 days before I load it up and the clock starts ticking.

Anybody else used this software? Info at http://www.phaseone.com

[stubbsy]

I've been playing around a lot with this over the last month and have finally settled on:

• Nikon View for thumbnailing and browsing the images
• Depending on what I want to do either Photoshop CS (if I want to play with layers or use PS plugins for special effects) or Nikon Capture editor otherwise.

In Nikon View I have NCE as my default editor since I use it most

[sirhc55]

You could set up a batch action but why do you save as PSD?

If you are keeping the original NEF most people would probably save as JPEG although I always save as TIF - just something I have always done because of the trade in am in. PSD used to be the way to save layer files although you can now save layer files in TIF as well.

Chris

[stubbsy]

Anybody else used this software? Info at http://www.phaseone.com

See my post above - it was one of the programs I tried (along with Bibble, Thumbsplus, ACDSee, PS Elements) and it was one of the first I discarded since I thought it's interface sucked and it's features were a little lacking compared to NCE or PS