.nef file workflow ideas

SnappyHappy

SnappyHappy

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Craig
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Hi guys,

So i'm thinking about experimenting with raw/nef files. Got some ok pics on Jpeg but the WB is a but off sometimes this is one reason for raw and also exposure now and again. (i

Gear : Nikon D3000, Photoshop V7 (lol), View NX2. Ok PS is old but reckon it will do me.

My style is to do some sharpening, resize (when needed for web), colour adjust, contrast, some levels and hopefully some WB (any suggestions to the order I should be looking at?)

Also, is it best to take them off camera with View NX2 then play around in photoshop and save them as a .tiff? I'm doing about 600 a month and about 200 keepers of which maybe 10 I would print about a4. I need a fairly quick workflow with my minimal editing style.

Thinking the basic Jpeg (sort of a quick preview) might allow me to select which ones to work on rather than taking every raw file that might not be a keeper anyway?

Storage space isn't a problem.

Any suggestions to a good workflow with the above?

Nervous about being not very good at raw editing and being left with only the basic jpeg that the d3000 only allows with raw file if that makes sense!

Thanks.
 
Choosing WB during post-processing is one thing that NEF excels at. And shooting NEF+JPEG can be a good way of sorting the good from the bad, though possibly only on camera as View NX2 should give you an accurate idea of what to keep and what to delete.

The order I would use is: straightening, cropping, white balance, initial noise removal, possibly initial sharpening, tone adjustments (levels), colour adjustments, cloning/healing and other layer work, then a final noise removal and then a final sharpening before possibly resizing for web.

If you do your straightening and cropping first, then a) you'll be working with the final 'look' of the picture, and b) you won't be wasting time and computer memory on adjusting all those extra pixels. Do your WB next so that all of your tone and colour changes will be based on the colours you want. If the image is particularly noisy, remove some of it so that it isn't made worse by your tone and colour adjustments. One you've done your major changes to the picture, remove any residual noise and sharpen according to how you're going to output the photo: full-size for web, resized for web, or printed.
 
Thanks for replying, Garry.
Now you mention it I forgot about cropping etc. sounds good though, I'll give it a whirl for a few weeks see how I do.
I'm trying to cut down on my quantity to be honest (keeping a lot of only half ok stuff) I don't do 'that' much PP but feel like it sometimes with silly volumes :)
Really going for quality now rather than quantity and improve my PP on the select few.
Thanks.
 
One trick with white balance is when shooting use live view and scroll through the wb options, you can then see which "looks" closest to the scene as a starting point, then tweek later in post process.
 
If you use View NX2 it will preserve all the camera settings so if you get it right in camera you do not have to do any editing so don't worry about shooting raw :)
If you need to edit I would suggest doing all the editing you can in View NX2, I would agree with Garry's suggestion for the order.
If you do not need to do any editing in Photoshop you can just save as a NEF which will allow you to re-edit without any loss of data and you can print straight from View NX2.
If you do need to edit in Photoshop you can set View NX2 to open the file as a TIFF in Photoshop using the File / Open With command.
If you use Nikon Transfer to move the files from the camera to your computer you can view the pictures and decide which ones to transfer so no need to shoot raw + JPEG.

Just had another thought - I know that with the D40 you could shoot raw and then select the retouch menu and choose colour balance (or something like that) then without altering the colour balance select OK. This would then create a full sized JPEG in camera without affecting the original NEF, not sure if you can do that with the D3000 or not.
The view NX2 route is much better but it may reduce your worry about shooting raw and not having a full sized JPEG to fall back on.
 
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Thanks for the ideas, guys. That's a bit for me to be going on with. I'll report back after the weekend when I've taken my next batch of pics :) Thanks.
 
If you have a minimal editing style you might get away with using View NX2 for the whole workflow as it can do quite a lot and has the benefit of not having to export to other editing packages. It also works well with Capture NX2 (although that it not free like view nx2 is) and both packages work on the same NEF file seamlessly so no having to "export" as a TIFF like when using some packages.
 
Thanks Adrian, so just a quick a one then - what do you do if you want to print say something like 10 x 8 in a high street place? Do their printing machines look for jpgs off the USB drive?
Same for online places?
Sounds like it might be best to transfer to tiff for printing somewhere (unlikely they would recognise .nef?)
Suppose it's easy for me to convert to jpgs so probably a non issue really, but thought i'd ask.
 
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