Post Processing Sfwr - What Is Everyone Using and Why?

[Akira]

My files are uncompressed while significantly larger they promise beter iq; tiffs will open in pn also.
However they donot convert into tiff or be opened by PN.

I once converted a RAW file straight to TIFF and couldn't recover the highlight, although I could recover the highlight very well on the very same original RAW.

[Frank Fremerey]

I use NX-D as a pre processor and do the main work in Photoshop. Depending on the situation I use JPEGs anyway. If the contrast of the scene is well with in the dynamic range of the sensor, if my post processing time is not paid for, if I managed to have a great camera day and avoided the 0.5 deg rotation I do correct often, if I do not want to create a special look and mood....

[Birna Rørslett]

My angle of rotation is consistently 1.2 degrees ... thus RAW is the way to go for me.

[Frank Fremerey]

My angle of rotation is consistently 1.2 degrees ... thus RAW is the way to go for me.

;-) ++++

[Hermann]

Nikon NX-D. It has gotten better and better over the years. Control points are pretty useful as well. Faststone for quick culling of shots.

Hermann

[Hugh_3170]

It is a shame that cameras don't measure the angle of rotation and include it in the image EXIF data. 

OK probably not so helpful if the camera is being pointed down at the ground, but would be handy for those shots where the camera is more or less parallel to the ground.

My angle of rotation is consistently 1.2 degrees ... thus RAW is the way to go for me.

[Akira]

I use NX-D as a pre processor and do the main work in Photoshop. Depending on the situation I use JPEGs anyway. If the contrast of the scene is well with in the dynamic range of the sensor, if my post processing time is not paid for, if I managed to have a great camera day and avoided the 0.5 deg rotation I do correct often, if I do not want to create a special look and mood....

My angle of rotation is consistently 1.2 degrees ... thus RAW is the way to go for me.

It's a relief to know that you experts are suffering from the same problem as mine.  Strangely and unfortunately, the electronic levels in the viewfinder or on the screen don't always help. 

[Matthew Currie]

After a bad accident, I got a mashed trochlear nerve, so my angle of rotation is way worse than Birna's. It's actually between 4 and 5 degrees in plain vision at each eye (each slopes down at the nose end), but the dominant eye sets the level, so the image in my left eye is perceived to tilt up on the left at about 10 degrees.  I've gotten used to getting it right in a horizontal viewfinder with the grid turned on,  but am always off by about 5 degrees in verticals unless I consciously turn on the level, and in Live View it's hopeless, because everything looks level when it isn't.

From birth to age 64 I had a dominant left eye.  I woke from the coma with a dominant right!  For a while I listed and bumped into things.

What I have to remember, and don't always, is to shoot a little wider than I intend, so there's room to level later. When I used a D3200, it was easier because the viewfinder wasn't 100 percent.  Now with a 100% viewfinder I have to remember not to frame so tight.

Faststone has a pretty good leveling function that works fine on JPG, not that that's a good reason to give up Raw.

[Ethan]

I use C1P.

I hope you do realize that LR and PN and Affinity....etc use different algorithm to translate the RAW files with a huge difference in color and Lum variation.

Unless you shoot with camera on neutral and open the files on neutral and process from there.

I did compare the same files on the different apps and diff platforms and C1P gives the best result..........unless you are shooting and processing from neutral......which I do do for certain shoots using medium format P1

I did a test on the Z7 files with C1P and LR and the difference is glaring.

[pluton]

I always shoot raw, no JPEG, lately with Nikon Advanced D-Lighting turned up to the max.  This allows maximum tonal detail---shadows and highlights--- on the camera rear LCD display. Upon import into Lightroom,  User Presets are applied that deliver a starting point already advanced past what the off-the-shelf Nikon or Adobe neutral would yield. Half-way home. It still doesn't look as nice as the C-1 default rendering, but accepting the default raw conversion as the final version is extremely rare for me.

[Ann]

I always shoot RAW and I always keep the original NEFs regardless of whether I have processed them and saved copies in other formats. My reason for saving the NEFs is that processing software is continually improving.

When I return to photographs which I converted only a few years ago, I find that I can get even better results today if I re-convert from the NEF using the updated software.

[Bent Hjarbo]

I normally use Lightroom, but today I had to see more information on a specific image and opened Capture NX-D.
It is very slow on my iMac, where LR runs reasonable fast. Am I the only one that fells that Capture NX-D is very close to unusable due to the slow speed?

[Fons Baerken]

I normally use Lightroom, but today I had to see more information on a specific image and opened Capture NX-D.
It is very slow on my iMac, where LR runs reasonable fast. Am I the only one that fells that Capture NX-D is very close to unusable due to the slow speed?

For some unknown reason i can't get capture nx-d installed on my laptop, i mostly use photoshop, a few others as well, dxo photolab3, photoninja etc

[MEPER]

I have NX-D on an almost 10 years old PC (i7 - 860 CPU at 2.8 GHz).
It is not unusable but slow. If I zoom in to 100% in an image it may take 5-10 sec before the image is 100% crisp. So there is a delay when performing various functions.
Nikon image processing software has always been a bit on the slow side compared with other programs. 

[MFloyd]

I'm working in an Apple OS / iOS environment, for more than 10 years now. Started an Adobe subscription for Photographers in 2014, after I had to dump Aperture. I'm using, on a daily basis, Lightroom Classic (9.2.1), Photoshop (21.1.2) Camera Raw 12.1 (the engine), CC / Lightroom Mobile, and Portfolio The yearly subscription costs me about €130 or €12/month.

Lr has an excellent Digital Asset Management (DAM) engine, which is a must for me; the image processing and editing tools give me full satisfaction. I process about 10% of my pictures further in Ps. The Adobe Cloud features allow me to process my pictures across my entire Mac platform (MacBook Pro, iPad Pro, iPhone) and distribute selected images to clients, and media.

I'm striving for continuity and stability, which a big firm as Adobe can provide. BTW, i'm only shooting NEF raw files (smartphone, excepted).