What equipment do I need to process raw? Okay, after seeing many posts regarding advantages of shooting raw I am thinking of taking the plunge for the first time. What am I going to...

Red Sky At Night

Okay, after seeing many posts regarding advantages of shooting raw I am thinking of taking the plunge for the first time. What am I going to need to do after clicking the shutter? Do I need special equipment in order to do anything with it? I am going to be using my old but faithful D70 to start but am planning an upgrade to a D750 or 850. Will something I purchase for the D70 be compatible with the upgrade?

tradio Loc: Oxford, Ohio

What are you using for post processing now?
Lightroom is very popular.

repleo Loc: Boston

You need a reasonable decent computer - 8 meg of RAM is probably the minimum. You will also need a photo editing program. Lightroom and Photoshop are the most popular. They are available as a package for $10 a month. There are several other editing programs out there - some free. You may even have gotten one with your camera. There is a learning curve to these programs. You will find more help, tutorials, books, videos etc for Lightroom and Photoshop than most of the other programs.

Red Sky At Night

tradio wrote:

What are you using for post processing now?
Lightroom is very popular.

I’ve been using Microsoft Picture It. But have just started using PS Elements 18. I hadn’t even heard of LR until a few days ago when I joined this forum. LR is something I need to explore for sure.

brucewells Loc: Central Kentucky

Red Sky At Night wrote:

Okay, after seeing many posts regarding advantages of shooting raw I am thinking of taking the plunge for the first time. What am I going to need to do after clicking the shutter? Do I need special equipment in order to do anything with it? I am going to be using my old but faithful D70 to start but am planning an upgrade to a D750 or 850. Will something I purchase for the D70 be compatible with the upgrade?

After you go 'Click', the focus turns to computer equipment. Graphic editing software many times requires a computer that has been embellished with larger/faster hard drives, more RAM and enhanced graphics adapters installed. You should also consider your backup regimen and have sufficient (external) drives to which your backups can be stored. And, if serious about protecting your library of images, one hard drive containing your images should be stored away from your home, in case it burns or gets blown away. Your workflow will change to accommodate the raw files, as well. Finally, if you purchase quality software, I would expect it to accommodate camera upgrades.

anotherview Loc: California

Note that photographs shot in the RAW file format will require software like Adobe Camera Raw to process them, to bring out their potential.

Next, you will need a photo editor like Photoshop Creative Cloud (or Photoshop Elements) to put the finishing touches on the photographs.

Scott Kelby puts it this way: Fix in RAW, finish in Photoshop.

Red Sky At Night wrote:

Okay, after seeing many posts regarding advantages of shooting raw I am thinking of taking the plunge for the first time. What am I going to need to do after clicking the shutter? Do I need special equipment in order to do anything with it? I am going to be using my old but faithful D70 to start but am planning an upgrade to a D750 or 850. Will something I purchase for the D70 be compatible with the upgrade?

Dan R Loc: Way Way Way Upstate NY

There are a lot of advantages to shooting RAW. Many people initially set their cameras up to save the picture in both RAW and JPEG. After a while, many of them switch to RAW only. Take a look at the links below and while Lightroom seems to be the editing software of choice, why not play with one of the free ones to see what you prefer. Then take a look at Lightroom's free 30 day trial. Most of the software's have similar capabilities, they are just in different places and may be named differently.

Another thing you can do is go outside and take the same picture in both JPEG and RAW and look at the differences and then edit the RAW photo. Some people also get carried away during PP and their images look really over processed.

https://photographylife.com/raw-vs-jpeg

https://www.howtogeek.com/howto/41454/how-to-process-camera-raw-without-paying-for-adobe-photoshop/

Whuff Loc: Marshalltown, Iowa

The only requirements for processing RAW is software and the knowledge to use it. There are a number of software programs you can use, some are free, some can be purchased, some are on a subscription basis. You will get a lot of varying advice in this forum on which is best so be prepared. The Lightroom/Photoshop subscription is a super powerful combination and you can’t go wrong but there is a learning curve to every program. There are free tutorials on-line for learning them or you can sign up on-line for paid training. You will run into trouble if you attempt to teach yourself, so no matter what you end up with - even the software that came with your camera - you will be frustrated. I began with the free software that came with my Canon camera and moved on to Lightroom and am now taking a course on Photoshop Elements 15. I also have Photomatix for HDR and use a free program called Photosketcher to create oil painting looks and pencil drawing and line and ink drawings from my photos.
Good luck and welcome to UHH.

Walt

cmc65

I know that this is stating the obvious but you do know that you must tell your camera to shoot raw in the settings, right?

LarryFitz Loc: Beacon NY

First, find the setting on your camera. On a Canon it is call Image Quality, make certain it is set to RAW or RAW plus JPEG.

Red Sky At Night

[quote=repleo]You need a reasonable decent computer - 8 meg of RAM is probably the minimum. You will also need a photo editing program. Lightroom and Photoshop are the most popular. They are available as a package for $10 a month. There are several other editing programs out there - some free. You may even have gotten one with your camera. There is a learning curve to these programs. You will find more help, tutorials, books, videos etc for Lightroom and Photoshop than most of the other programs.[/quote)

Is there any special equipment that I need to get the photos out of the camera or is it just like downloading jpeg?

leftj Loc: Texas

repleo wrote:

You need a reasonable decent computer - 8 meg of RAM is probably the minimum. You will also need a photo editing program. Lightroom and Photoshop are the most popular. They are available as a package for $10 a month. There are several other editing programs out there - some free. You may even have gotten one with your camera. There is a learning curve to these programs. You will find more help, tutorials, books, videos etc for Lightroom and Photoshop than most of the other programs.

GB not meg. Would be better to go with minimum 16GB of RAM on your computer. I have 16GB of ram and during normal use the unused Ram will drop below 8GB which means that if I only had 8GB or Ram installed my computer would start swapping between the RAM and the hard drive which means things would really slow down. My next laptop will have 32GB of RAM.

Whuff Loc: Marshalltown, Iowa

[quote=Red Sky At Night][quote=repleo]You need a reasonable decent computer - 8 meg of RAM is probably the minimum. You will also need a photo editing program. Lightroom and Photoshop are the most popular. They are available as a package for $10 a month. There are several other editing programs out there - some free. You may even have gotten one with your camera. There is a learning curve to these programs. You will find more help, tutorials, books, videos etc for Lightroom and Photoshop than most of the other programs.[/quote)

Is there any special equipment that I need to get the photos out of the camera or is it just like downloading jpeg?[/quote]

Just like downloading jpeg. Same procedure.

Walt

Old Timer Loc: Greenfield, In.

I use the Canon dpp that comes with the camera for ninety percent of my post processing. If needed I use photo shop for finishing up if need. The Canon soft ware seems to work more satisfactory for me in converting and color adjustment. If need I adjust the exposure and white balance and convert and save the ones I want to keep. I probably keep less than five percent of my pics. I usually try to take more than one shot of most things and start culling any thing that does not have sharp focus. I do not use much soft ware for processing except for portraiture beside the DPP program.

BebuLamar

You have a computer right? Download NX-D from Nikon for free. Download PS and LR for 1 month free. If you don't like it its fine and if you like it then you can decide.