Alternative to Nikon View/Editor

[Ausyuppy]

Hi all,
Just before christmas I purchased a new D90 which superceded my dead D70. In the past I have used Nikon view 6.2.7 to view the photos and used nikon editor (attached to nikon view) to do the minor adjustments (exposure, white balance) prior to fiddling with photoshop CS.

The D90 comes packaged with ViewNX which I find slower, however the file sizes are double what they used to be with the D70. (10meg vs 5meg). The other problem is that the D90 images are no longer compatible with Nikon Editor.

So my question is, is there an alternative to Nikon Editor which is compatible with the D90 Raw images, or have I missed something?

Cheers
Steve

[chrisk]

the amount of programs out there are a dime a dozen mate. try adobe photoshop elements i guess. most good editing programs should recognise d90 nef's by now.

[Ausyuppy]

Does photoshop allow you to adjust the exposure and white balance?

[Ben.bb]

Adobe Lightroom is a great tool, i recommend trying it.
I use it with my 40d and have never had an issue with it, works perfectly for what i want every time.
As of version 2 it will support the D90.
And will do pretty much all of your standard editing for .raw files and conversion
http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/cameraraw.html

Good Luck
Ben

[chrisk]

Does photoshop allow you to adjust the exposure and white balance?

yes. it uses "adobe camera raw" which allows you to make all universal raw adjustements. lightroom as mentioned above is a great program aswell, forgot about that one.

personally i only use viewNX as my raw viewer. all my editing is done with captureNX2 but it can run slow unless you have a kick ass computer. i dont even bother trying on my laptop.

[ATJ]

Adobe Lightroom is a great tool, i recommend trying it.

Plus it adds keywording and cataloging. It is very easy to use and it makes it very easy to find photographs in your catalog.

[radar]

I also use ViewNX as my initial raw viewer. You can also do bulk conversions and some basic editing. I find it really good to go through the photos and weed out the bad ones and rate the good ones.

I then use Capture NX2 to do most of my editing. You can get a trial license from the Nikon site.

cheers,

André

[Jeff]

I also use View NX and find it to be good and the price is good (free download)
There is great discussion about Capture NX2 or Lightroom I like both but do most of my PP in NX.

Jeff

[Ausyuppy]

Thanks for the replies,
I have now got a copy of Adobe lightroom and am impressed. However I think it will be under utilised with me as I will only use it to adjust white balance when necessary and adjust the exposure.

I do like the catalogueing function and will need to look more into this. At present I move all my images into folders relating to what they are, ie family, houses, scenery etc.

I will have to get a newer version of photoshop to fiddle with, however, now that I have lightroom 2.2 installed, photoshop CS now will open the D90 Raw images.

Cheers and keep the advice coming.
Steve

[ATJ]

I have now got a copy of Adobe lightroom and am impressed. However I think it will be under utilised with me as I will only use it to adjust white balance when necessary and adjust the exposure.

I don't think Adobe will be too concerned. It is actually very handy for adjusting white balance and will even do the basic ones (Daylight, Cloudy, Shade, etc.) for you if you forget to do them in the camera (and you shoot raw).

Don't forget to look into Camera Profiles to ensure that the results you get in Lightroom are similar to what you get with Nikon ViewNX/CaptureNX.

I do like the catalogueing function and will need to look more into this. At present I move all my images into folders relating to what they are, ie family, houses, scenery etc.

You won't need to move any images as you can just assign keywords (family, houses, scenery, etc.) to the photographs themselves. You can then filter your catalog based on those keywords, e.g. only show ones with the "family" keyword.

[Ben.bb]

Thanks for the replies,
I have now got a copy of Adobe lightroom and am impressed. However I think it will be under utilised with me as I will only use it to adjust white balance when necessary and adjust the exposure.

I do like the catalogueing function and will need to look more into this. At present I move all my images into folders relating to what they are, ie family, houses, scenery etc.

I will have to get a newer version of photoshop to fiddle with, however, now that I have lightroom 2.2 installed, photoshop CS now will open the D90 Raw images.

Cheers and keep the advice coming.
Steve

My photos where all over the place, totally unorginised and in random folders most likely worse than yours are, then when i started useing lightroom i found all my photos agian and now their nicely orginised.