Converting Nikon D7000 Raw files to .dng

PrettyKitty

I just bought a Nikon D7000 and didn't even THINK to see if my software would read the RAW files. I have lightroom 2 and Photoshop CS4. Well looks like they won't read the RAW files.

I downloaded a converter from Adobe's website to convert them to a DNG format so that lightroom and photoshop could use them. Has anyone done this? Does it change anything else in the file or can I still get the same results?

I'm wondering if this is just a subtle hint that I should upgrade to CS5? I prefer photoshop over lightroom so if I have to upgrade one, i'd rather it be photoshop. I mostly only use lightroom to organize, sort, and upload them. I'm taking a photography class at my local Junior College so I believe I can qualify for the student version of CS5 (that's how I got CS4 a couple years ago...)

Any thoughts? Thanks!

pathfinder

LR3 should read your Raw files or dng files, as will CS 5.

I strongly prefer to do my initial Raw conversion in LR3, rather than ACR, but either will recognize and edit dng files. I do convert to dng on import of all my RAW files into LR3. Most of my editing that needs selection, I can do in either CS4 or CS5. I use either depending on whether my PS plug ins run in 32 or 64 bit modes.

Icebear

In the meanwhile, can't you set your D7000 to give you TIFFs? Sure, you'd have bigger files, but hey . . . any port in a storm.

PrettyKitty

Any port in a storm
I have the adobe converter so I have an option.... just takes a few extra minutes to covert them all.... But I'm also taking a class at my local Jr. College which has CS5 so I can just wait and look at them there too....

until I decide what to do!

basflt

meantime , try FastStone Image Viewer

it can ;
edit
[batch]convert
resize
add frames and watermarks
and a lot more .......

and its free too

eur0ed

Adobe Camera RAW 6.3 will not support cs4. They never support software that old in versions of acr this new, you typically only see 6 months of overlap at the max. My suggestion to you would be to use adobe's dng converter. DNG's tend to be about 35% smaller as they use lossless compression, and you only have one physical file per photo, where with NEF's you have an NEF and an XMP sidecar with any acr or lightroom changes stored in it. The ONLY downside to DNG's over NEF's is you will lose some of the extra functionality inside Nikon's CaptureNX...which is a notoriously hard to use and complicated program that very few people willingly bash their heads against.

My established work flow starts with a homebrew script that copies all the data from my memory cards to two places, the files that land in my working directory are converted to DNG, while the copy that lands on my backup server are left as NEF, which are then sent across the wire to a mirrored server at home (or if I'm working from home they're sent to the office). The working directories are also ultimately sync'ed to the same servers, so at any given time I have 4+ copies of any one image ranging from strait OOC raw to finished PSD. I have quite a few reasons for this:

#1 Depending on where I am, what kind of shoot it is, and my schedule.. my working directory may be on my laptop or one of 2 desktops.. if I'm working from my laptop, I only have 500gb of space total between my partitions, saving the 35ish % is important.

#2 I only ever even open captureNX once every couple of months (and that's normally when I seriously error with my in camera settings and need to apply a new profile to a whole batch of pictures) Or if I'm dealing with clipping in a color channel on a specific shot as CaptureNX handles this better then any software I've ever touched.

#3 In my working directories, I often have hundreds of images per folder.. Cutting the number of objects per folder in half is not a bad thing.


Cliff Notes:
Set yourself up to just convert everything to DNG, using adobe's batch tool.. there's no real reason not to..and a whole lot of reasons why it's good. In the longer term though, read into the changes in CS5, it's IMHO the best upgrade to photoshop since 5.0 came out. The feature list is huge, and it's only 200 bucks to upgrade.