The Photography thread!

Guys, I am kinda new to RAW photography, well, NEF in my case. So, what's the best way to edit Nikon's NEF files? I tried their own software, ViewNX, for that and couldn't do jack shit and also was unable to find a manual.
 
ssBaldy said:
Guys, I am kinda new to RAW photography, well, NEF in my case. So, what's the best way to edit Nikon's NEF files? I tried their own software, ViewNX, for that and couldn't do jack shit and also was unable to find a manual.
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The big one to dl is Lightroom (Lr) but I prefer CaptureOne.

Basically all they are are raw converters with editing tools, contrast saturation etc to lens correction and noise reduction.

Very powerful tools.

Lr is subscription based (fuck you Adobe) and CaptureOne is packaged to sell.

Having said that I also use photoshop and affinity.
 
TheLinguist said:
The big one to dl is Lightroom (Lr) but I prefer CaptureOne.

Basically all they are are raw converters with editing tools, contrast saturation etc to lens correction and noise reduction.

Very powerful tools.

Lr is subscription based (fuck you Adobe) and CaptureOne is packaged to sell.

Having said that I also use photoshop and affinity.
Click to expand...
Thanks, that's what I thought. That Nikon tool did not look too promising. Since I already use Photoshop (yarr, shiver me timbers torrent edition) I should probably buy the subscription.
 
ssBaldy said:
Thanks, that's what I thought. That Nikon tool did not look too promising. Since I already use Photoshop (yarr, shiver me timbers torrent edition) I should probably buy the subscription.
Click to expand...
Canon have a similar one called dpp which I don't use either, I strongly recommend you to check out CaptureOne.
 
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all my good photos are from pearl harbor and are on photos. guess i suck
 
I HIGHLY recommend these free plugins:

https://nikcollection.dxo.com/nik-collection-2012/

That's the older free version that's no longer supported. But they work great. The pro-contrast filter in the Color Efx plugin I use on nearly every photo. It really makes things pop.

Also there black and white plugin is amazeballs.
 
ssBaldy said:
Guys, I am kinda new to RAW photography, well, NEF in my case. So, what's the best way to edit Nikon's NEF files? I tried their own software, ViewNX, for that and couldn't do jack shit and also was unable to find a manual.
Click to expand...

Besides just correcting your photos, you can also use a RAW editor to do multiple versions of your photos and cool effects. I usually do a normal photo and sometimes go to the saturation and turn down all the colors except one to get the selective color look.
 
rj144 said:
Besides just correcting your photos, you can also use a RAW editor to do multiple versions of your photos and cool effects. I usually do a normal photo and sometimes go to the saturation and turn down all the colors except one to get the selective color look.
Click to expand...
Aside from obvious things like shadows correction such stuff is exactly what I want to experiment with, also I want to achieve a better BW than Photoshop's "desaturate" command.
 
dJlzYfI.jpg
 
ssBaldy said:
Aside from obvious things like shadows correction such stuff is exactly what I want to experiment with, also I want to achieve a better BW than Photoshop's "desaturate" command.
Click to expand...

Download the plugins I mentioned above and use Silver Efx.
 
ssBaldy said:
Aside from obvious things like shadows correction such stuff is exactly what I want to experiment with, also I want to achieve a better BW than Photoshop's "desaturate" command.
Click to expand...

Good B&W conversions aren't really done from RAW, it's done mostly from channel mixer, filter, other colour related settings once you've got a good colour photo loaded up in your image editor. Basically, it's the photoshop equivalent of putting various colour filters on a B&W film camera when taking the photo, then working some darkroom magic to finalize the negative & print.

This tutorial gives a pretty good overview on how all the various conversion methods work along with the end results.
There is no one ideal method, everything changes depending on the photo you're starting with and the result you want.
https://www.photoshopessentials.com/photo-editing/black-and-white-tutorials/black-and-white-intro/
 
aerius said:
Good B&W conversions aren't really done from RAW, it's done mostly from channel mixer, filter, other colour related settings once you've got a good colour photo loaded up in your image editor. Basically, it's the photoshop equivalent of putting various colour filters on a B&W film camera when taking the photo, then working some darkroom magic to finalize the negative & print.

This tutorial gives a pretty good overview on how all the various conversion methods work along with the end results.
There is no one ideal method, everything changes depending on the photo you're starting with and the result you want.
https://www.photoshopessentials.com/photo-editing/black-and-white-tutorials/black-and-white-intro/
Click to expand...
Yep, I know there's no magic button for BW. Thanks for the link, I'll give it a read!
 
Most of the time I simply end up messing around a bit with the channel mixer seeing what gives me the result I want, the above image was quite heavy on the green and the blue turned down pretty low, still needed a lot of localised editing after that though.

Whilst theres obviously a place for extremes I tend to think a lot of the time its more learning a path towards subtly, not just turning the contrast up to 11 globally on every single picture. Use the entire range of black to white most of the time but with the view to a smoother graduation.

As with taking the pictures the best advice is I'd say to simply spend a lot of time messing around with it and of course look at a lot of quality photography/cinema.
 
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aerius said:
Good B&W conversions aren't really done from RAW, it's done mostly from channel mixer, filter, other colour related settings once you've got a good colour photo loaded up in your image editor. Basically, it's the photoshop equivalent of putting various colour filters on a B&W film camera when taking the photo, then working some darkroom magic to finalize the negative & print.

This tutorial gives a pretty good overview on how all the various conversion methods work along with the end results.
There is no one ideal method, everything changes depending on the photo you're starting with and the result you want.
https://www.photoshopessentials.com/photo-editing/black-and-white-tutorials/black-and-white-intro/
Click to expand...

The Silver FX plugin I mentioned above, is really flexible and has a lot of presets. It's really good for BW.
 
rj144 said:
Why don't just use your phone? I'm being serious. Trust me, that won't be any better at pics and video than any phone made in the last 2 to 3 years.
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I do use my phone a lot, while phone cameras have improved tremendously, they are still very limited in what you can do with them and are a lot harder to just set down and have them fire etc.

I’ve used my phone on a tripod , and even with a rode micro book mike and a lav at times

I’d rather just have a small camera. The tiny sensors in the phones are a huge drawback and also needing apps to adjust settings and shit.

A real camera is 1000x better in functionality in so many ways.
 
ssBaldy said:
Guys, I am kinda new to RAW photography, well, NEF in my case. So, what's the best way to edit Nikon's NEF files? I tried their own software, ViewNX, for that and couldn't do jack shit and also was unable to find a manual.
Click to expand...
Nikon NX is quite capable when you learn it , it’s pretty similar to PH or LR
 
90 50 said:
Nikon NX is quite capable when you learn it , it’s pretty similar to PH or LR
Click to expand...
Possibly, it's just non-intuitive and they dont have a guide for it.
 
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