Nikon Z9 and Lightroom Classic: Hello friends. Apologies if this issue has been addressed before, but could somebody kindly explain the nature of the incompatibility between Lightroom...

stringplayer Loc: Atlanta, GA

Hello friends. Apologies if this issue has been addressed before, but could somebody kindly explain the nature of the incompatibility between Lightroom Classic and Nikon Z9's "High efficiency*" setting for RAW compression. Has the incompatibility been resolved - and, if not, when can we expect Adobe to come up with a fix? Thank you.

chasgroh Loc: Buena Park, CA

I've tried Lossless and High Efficiency* and haven't noticed anything...so it's just the High Efficiency that's giving you problems? Have you tried the others (HE is the low end of the offerings).

Strodav Loc: Houston, Tx

I had tried both Lossless Compression and HE* and have not had any problems with Lrc or PS under win 10.

stringplayer Loc: Atlanta, GA

chasgroh wrote:

I've tried Lossless and High Efficiency* and haven't noticed anything...so it's just the High Efficiency that's giving you problems? Have you tried the others (HE is the low end of the offerings).

Thank you for the reply. I have been using Lossless without encountering any difficulty. The problem is supposedly only with High efficiency* - and I have been hesitant to try it.

stringplayer Loc: Atlanta, GA

Strodav wrote:

I had tried both Lossless Compression and HE* and have not had any problems with Lrc or PS under win 10.

Good to know. Thank you.

ecobin Loc: Paoli, PA

stringplayer wrote:

Hello friends. Apologies if this issue has been addressed before, but could somebody kindly explain the nature of the incompatibility between Lightroom Classic and Nikon Z9's "High efficiency*" setting for RAW compression. Has the incompatibility been resolved - and, if not, when can we expect Adobe to come up with a fix? Thank you.

Here's a work-around.
Download NX Studio from Nikon - it's free.
Open your High Efficiency files in NX Studio and then export them as tif files. See if Lightroom Classic can read the tif files - I expect that it will. Affinity Photo still cannot read the High Efficiency files but can read the exported tif files from NX Studio.
I'm shooting in Lossless Compression so that I don't need to do the extra step, but will switch to High Efficiency when Affinity Photo can read them.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

ecobin wrote:

Here's a work-around.
Download NX Studio from Nikon - it's free.
Open your High Efficiency files in NX Studio and then export them as tif files. See if Lightroom Classic can read the tif files - I expect that it will. Affinity Photo still cannot read the High Efficiency files but can read the exported tif files from NX Studio.
I'm shooting in Lossless Compression so that I don't need to do the extra step, but will switch to High Efficiency when Affinity Photo can read them.

This is a miserable workaround given the extra time / effort and the waste of diskspace for a TIF 'middle file'. Just shoot the uncompressed NEF, or lossless compression if known to be 'no problem', and save all this time, effort and space.

cjc2 Loc: Hellertown PA

HE* works perfectly with Lr Classic and a iMac PRO, at least for me. Both are the very latest versions. Best of luck.

fstoprookie Loc: Central Valley of California

Been shooting my Z9 since I got it (Jan) with no problems - I shoot it in HE* raw file format with no issues and process my files in LR Classic on my iMAC. If I were you I'd contact Adobe Tech Support for some help. It shouldn't be a problem. They have always been my experience very helpful.

Robertl594 Loc: Bloomfield Hills, Michigan and Nantucket

I shoot plain vanilla RAW without any issues whatsoever. Easy workflow.
RL

stringplayer Loc: Atlanta, GA

ecobin wrote:

Here's a work-around.
Download NX Studio from Nikon - it's free.
Open your High Efficiency files in NX Studio and then export them as tif files. See if Lightroom Classic can read the tif files - I expect that it will. Affinity Photo still cannot read the High Efficiency files but can read the exported tif files from NX Studio.
I'm shooting in Lossless Compression so that I don't need to do the extra step, but will switch to High Efficiency when Affinity Photo can read them.

Thanks for the advice. Seems a bit awkward for me, but I appreciated your giving this issue some thought.

stringplayer Loc: Atlanta, GA

cjc2 wrote:

HE* works perfectly with Lr Classic and a iMac PRO, at least for me. Both are the very latest versions. Best of luck.

Thank you. I am using a Windows 11 PC, but I'll give it a shot. Perhaps I'll try HE* and Lossless for a few bursts to make sure.

stringplayer Loc: Atlanta, GA

fstoprookie wrote:

Been shooting my Z9 since I got it (Jan) with no problems - I shoot it in HE* raw file format with no issues and process my files in LR Classic on my iMAC. If I were you I'd contact Adobe Tech Support for some help. It shouldn't be a problem. They have always been my experience very helpful.

Great idea to contact Adobe Tech Support. Why didn't I think of that? Duh! Thank you.

stringplayer Loc: Atlanta, GA

Robertl594 wrote:

I shoot plain vanilla RAW without any issues whatsoever. Easy workflow.
RL

Uncompressed RAW takes up a lot of memory, no?

chasgroh Loc: Buena Park, CA

stringplayer wrote:

Uncompressed RAW takes up a lot of memory, no?

...I put a 4TB M2 drive in my 'puter as the C drive, took the 2TB drive left over and put it in the other M2 slot to use as my scratch drive (the one I write to) after copying the old drive onto it. I'm future-proofed for awhile, anyhow! So, yes, space is, or will be, an issue.