Completely new to RAW editting.

[Northstander]

Hi,

I shot a few shots in RAW today, for the very first time. I've had my D7000 for 3 weeks now, but have shot JPG up till now (and I shot JPG on my bridge camera for the previous 4 years).

I have View NX2 (as Elements 5 ACR isn't compatible with the D7000's RAW files), and if I'm honest I don't know where to start.

Is it best to start with a bit of sharpening and correcting the whitebalance?

Thanks in advance?

 

[Craikeybaby]

I always find white balance is the best place to start, then exposure, then black/highlight clipping.

Lightroom applies some input sharpening automatically, I don't know about the Nikon software though. The main sharpening should be done as the very last step, after you have resized/exported your image for print/screen.

 

[Suvv]

The normal recommendation is to leave sharpening until last, apart from that just start at the top of the edit list and work down, although you will not need all the available adjustments for all images.
With experience you will find that you change the order to suit your preferences.
The beauty of View NX2 is that it preserves all the camera settings so if you have got those right you do not need to edit the NEF at all