RAW Processing software?

[matthew_h]

Up until now I have just been shooting large jpeg due to not having a computer capable of dealing with RAW file sizes.

I want to move into shooting RAW but want to know what the best software is.

Any recommendations?

[graham@edinburgh]

I like Pixmantec's Raw Shooter Essentials. They've been bought out by Adobe though so you can no longer get the free version (Essentials rather than Premium) from their site. Googling should turn it up though.

I've used Phase One's "Capture One" in the past too but prefer Raw Shooter's splitting of contrast adjustment into separate shadow and highlight sliders.

But then a lot of people like the "integratedness" (made up word ) of Photoshop's in built RAW convertor.

[jason-l]

You can still get Rawshooter Essentials here www.pixmantec.com/products/rawshoo

Regrettably you can not get Premium anymore

Essentials runs well even on a dinasour cr*ptop like mine - PIII 700/196Mb, which is more than can be said about any other RAW processing options I've come across. Got it on a recommendation, and not looked back so far

[TRACKDEMON]

Another vote for Rawshooter: quick, good array of adjustments, small hardware footprint, able to output files whilst your still working on selctions.

[graham@edinburgh]

jason-l said:

You can still get Rawshooter Essentials here www.pixmantec.com/products/rawshoo

Regrettably you can not get Premium anymore

Ah, wrong way round then, sorry

[fergusd]

Use Rawshooter Premium myself . . . haven't come across any other application that doesn't look very amateur by comparison yet . . . they all seem to have unusable user interfaces and/or require 200Tbytes of RAM and 4 crays to run it on . . . neither are acceptable when you see how well RSP and RSE works . . .

I certainly dont plan to change any time soon but do fancy a more involved play with the new Nikon capture stuff . . .

Fd

[m12_nathan]

Don't you have a mac? Aperture does for me.

[matthew_h]

Cheers guys. Looks like Raw shooter for me.

Nathan, I have a Mac laptop which is what I have been using but it is only a 12" ibook and hence too small for processing really.