Looking for an inexpensive RAW converter?

K1W1 · #1 07-25-2007, 04:14 AM

I came across this one

Tone UP S3

Looks like it has some okay features and the price can't be argued with. It may be worth a try for anybody who wants to get into RAW without breaking the bank.

toriaj · #2 07-25-2007, 02:22 PM

I highly recommend Silkypix. And it's free! It has a higher-end version available for purchase, but I use the free one. I tried the trial of Lightroom, and although I liked it, it was just too much $$$. The only thing I miss from Lightroom is the dust cloner. It was really good. Silkypix also has some auto color modes that have saved me a lot of time.

e_dawg · #3 08-07-2007, 08:41 PM

How about free? Raw Therapee is a great RAW editor/converter, especially since it's freeware. Doesn't do some simple things like resize, but it does allow you to do more advanced things like compress shadows/highlights, recover blown highlights, adjust curves, noise reduction, USM, crop, and correct for lens distortion and chromatic aberration.

fionndruinne · #4 08-08-2007, 12:32 AM

Raw Therapee works, but is kind of a cluttered and imperfect program (due to being freeware no doubt).

Picasa, by Google, is a free photo cataloging and editing program which actually does convert RAW pictures. It is limited in features, yes, but is fast, stable and allows for much of the basic editing functions of other programs. I much prefer Lightroom's exhaustive toning and highlight/shadows options, but as expressed above, that program has one hefty price.

erichlund · #5 08-08-2007, 08:05 AM

I know Capture is not cheap, but Nikon just released version 1.2. Fixes a lot of little bugaboos. Oh, and another thing - they made it faster. So far... Substantially faster. Might want to give it a whirl. There's a 30 day trial.

e_dawg · #6 08-08-2007, 12:12 PM

Capture NX is now substantially faster, you say? I'm all over that. v1.1 can bring my A64x2 5000+ with 4 GB of RAM to a crawl.

erichlund · #7 08-08-2007, 02:10 PM

My 2.6GHz Pentium Duo with 2Gb ram does just fine with NX 1.10, but it seems much quicker with NX 1.20. Even my 1.7GHz Pentium Duo Centrino Laptop with 2Gb handles both fine. Of course, I'm running nVidia 8800 graphics on both, and that helps.

e_dawg · #8 08-12-2007, 02:34 PM

Eric,

Thanks for the heads-up on CNX. 1.2 is indeed noticeably faster. They also managed to fix some bugs that weren't documented either: the cropping function was all messed up for me in version 1.1 and now it's fine.

e_dawg · #9 08-12-2007, 02:38 PM

And to add to Eric's recommendation of Capture NX, I think it's a fabulous program if you don't already have Photoshop. In fact, I prefer it over Photoshop for pure post-processing adjustments (i.e., not photo editing, where you're actually manipulating images beyond levels, colour, exposure, WB, NR, sharpness, and lens distortion adjustments, etc.)