I'm dipping my toe into the world of photography. Wondered what software people use and recommend to process RAW images?

I use Aperture, which I like.

I also use Aperture, but if you have a pc Adobe lightroom is as good. If you have a nikon camera the Nikon Capture NX is pretty good, but I could never get past the horrible user interface.

Dxo Optics pro6 has the ability to correct problems with camera and lens distortion/flaws which you can set up to work automatically if you're using supported kit.
Clicky link for trial download

Will also work well with Lightroom 3

Nikon?

ViewNX is free and does the basics. CaptureNX is pricey (but cheaper than most other options) and does an excellent job. (including lens correction, abberation and vignetting control).
Free trial at http://www.capturenx.com/

Lightroom seems to be the most popular option these days, but I didn't get on with it when I tried it last.

GIMP? – Open Source photoshop

gimp for me as well, if you are using nikon there is an add-on called ufraw which will deal with the proprietary files

What camera? For anything Canon, the DDP bundled in for free is by far the best RAW converter. For anything else, Adobe ACR as part of Photoshop/Elements etc. does a decent job.

I need 4 things for RAW processing

1. Nikon Capture NX
2. A photo the camera got totally wrong that needs to be processed by me in RAW
3. A photo that is that important / good that I MUST correct the cameras mistakes to make a massive print.
4. about 30 minutes to tit about.

As the camera rarely gets things that wrong, I never bother having to process in RAW.

Take the photo correctly in the first place and if JPEG is that bad from your camera, get a better camera / lens.

OK you may see a (very) marginal improvement in RAW than JPEG but I doubt you'll really notice.

Lightroom all the way for me – 95% of my editing gets done in there.
Final 5% in photoshop for the final spit and polish…

Bear in mind that Lightroom (and, I think, aperture?) are not just processing tools – they can 'manage' your digital assets – i.e. setting up 'libraries', tagging favourites etc etc of your images

never shoot in raw, just get the exposure right and you'll be fine.

I dunno, sometimes I've noticed a difference in quality between JPEG and RAW although maybe it was just a placebo effect. JPEG seemed a bit flatter to me.

Take the photo correctly in the first place and if JPEG is that bad from your camera, get a better camera / lens.

The problem with this is that not everyone can expose correctly all the time. Even Pros struggle in certain light types. RAW is good if you need maximum keeper rate i.e. if you shoot a wedding – things are so quick moving that you can't spend ages metering light you go for your best guess for exposure based on experience and most of the time you get it right but RAW gives you the fallback to adjust white balance, tone and exposure to a much larger degree than JPEG does.

If you are really just starting to 'dip in' then you are better sticking to JPEG until you understand the advantages/limitations of RAW.

By limitations I mean that if you don't know what you are doing in Lightroom/Aperture etc then there is a good chance the camera would have done a better job of processing the image.

I dunno, sometimes I've noticed a difference in quality between JPEG and RAW although maybe it was just a placebo effect. JPEG seemed a bit flatter to me.

technically RAW is better quality as most RAW files are 12 or 14 bit i.e. more brightness levels than an 8 bit jpeg. In practice you would find it very difficult to tell in the real world, unless you spend a lot on monitors.

If anyone is interested, my workflow goes like this –

1. Import into Photo Mechanic. It's not terribly pretty but it renders RAW about 50 times quicker than Lightroom so I proof and mark up the ones I want to edit. Move 'edit' files to seprate folder.

2. Import edit folder into Lightroom. Edit.

3. Touch up in Photoshop if required (very seldom as Lightroom handles pretty much everything you could require nowadays)

4. Export as JPEG high res keeper files. Then export for facebook (720px) etc as required.

Camera raw from within bridge – part of the adobe cs suite

I find Lightroom to be a simpler and cleaner interface than Aperture, though that's just about my preference. I trialed Aperture and found the layout a little clumsy and the work flow rather jumbled.

JPEG is fine if you don't want to use developing tools, but RAW responds much better to adjustments so it makes complete sense to use it if you intend to apply any processing/developing. I know that everything I do is going to go through Lightroom as that is how I store and organise my work, so my camera is set as neutral as possible, although I can do a certain amount of RAW editing in-camera. WB and colour settings are applied in LR before the shots are exported to file.

There's some interesting discussion on RAW/JPEG in this thread.

Take the photo correctly in the first place and if JPEG is that bad from your camera, get a better camera / lens.

never shoot in raw, just get the exposure right
and you'll be fine.

This bollocks annoys me.

Shooting JPG is the equivalent of using polaroid film.
The camera does all the development and you get no real control over it.

Nothing wrong with that. But you wouldn't say to someone shooting 35mm film and developing it themselves that they should just "get it right in camera" and only shoot polaroid.

Show me someone that goes through setting every parameter that controls the final jpg before every shot and I'll show you someone that misses a lot of pictures!

RAW lets you set exposure, take the picture and worry about those other details later.

ACR or DPP if its a Canon

Without going into the big RAW v JPEG issue and getting it right in camera, why not use all the tools available to get the best picture

Spent all that money on the camera and lenses, but the software is equally important as is a properly calibrated screen and printer

capture one.
better than canon's own software for .crw files. good for shooting tethered too (the pro version). and easy to move, store and tag files.

if you want a library type system then aperture or lightroom are worth a look (don't use them myself but know photographers that do)

RAW lets you set exposure, take the picture and worry about those other details later.

but if you want the best out of the file it needs to be exposed properly. i.e. to the right of the histogram so only the specular highlights are clipping.

Take the photo correctly in the first place and if JPEG is that bad from your camera, get a better camera / lens.

the whole concept of "correct exposure" is illusory – many typical scenes need different exposures in different place, so the best you can achieve is a compromise

RAW files are not compressed. Jpgs are. If you want to save the best possible image for doing whatever with (who knows what we'll be able to do in the future) shoot RAW. You can always do RAW + JPG

but if you want the best out of the file it needs to be exposed properly. i.e. to the right of the histogram so only the specular highlights are clipping.

Indeed. Shooting RAW definitely doesn't mean you can ignore exposure, despite what some seem to say. But exposing for post-processing is often different than exposing for the perfect instant picture out-of-camera.

I need 4 things for RAW processing

1. Nikon Capture NX
2. A photo the camera got totally wrong that needs to be processed by me in RAW
3. A photo that is that important / good that I MUST correct the cameras mistakes to make a massive print.
4. about 30 minutes to **** about.

As the camera rarely gets things that wrong, I never bother having to process in RAW.

Take the photo correctly in the first place and if JPEG is that bad from your camera, get a better camera / lens.

OK you may see a (very) marginal improvement in RAW than JPEG but I doubt you'll really notice.

You, sir, are an idiot, and clearly know nothing about the history of photography: Many of the finest photographers that have ever been (one good example being Ansel Adams) spent alot of time in the darkroom dodging and burning their photographs to get the exact affect they wanted. The only difference is that we now do it digitally.

You, sir, are an idiot, and clearly know nothing about the history of photography

ignorance isn't the same as idiocy, but the "right straight from the camera" notion is an artifact of digital photography which makes as little sense as the "a fixed lens teaches discipline" school. A fixed lens may teach you to walk around more but many of us mastered that at age one…

Can't believe the amount of crap some people come up with!

Anyways, Photoshop cs3 is my preferred software.

Not sure about "discipline", but going out with just a prime lens is a lot of fun and does force you (well me at least) to take different shots.

Lightroom is my choice I love the interface.

I only ever shoot RAW well there's the odd very rare occasion where I want the photo taken quickly, kids doing something, and the previous settings will be miles off what I need.

Oh and +1 to the just shoot JPEG and get it right bollox.

Maybe if you took better photos you'd appreciate it.

Lightroom 3 is amazing – I trialled Aperture and it is nowhere near as fast or as powerful imo.

Oh and RAW files almost all the time for me. Why bother buying a fancy camera then using one size fits all compressed presets? A big part of the skill of digital photography is processing. Get a medium format film camera if you want to be a purist.

Anyways, Photoshop cs3 is my preferred software.

which is fine if you have an old camera but new models will need the Adobe camera raw update which will only work with the newer cs5. you can use the free DNG converter from adobe but this adds another step and means doubling your storage. (if you want to keep the raws and the DNG)

Get a medium format film camera if you want to be a purist.

get into wet collodion plates and print using platinum/palladium if you want to be a purist.

Photoshop Elements 6 with the free RAW plugin (from Adobe I think) – it came free on the laptop and it does a very good job too, plus it's only about £40 odd to purchase. I use this for all pictures except for HDR's which I'll start in Photomatix and then move into Photoshop later on.

And my tuppence on the RAW/JPEG issue – shoot both RAW AND JPEG if you can!! I only use the JPEG's for previewing which shots to edit properly.

ignorance isn't the same as idiocy

I actually wasn't confusing the two: I was saying he was being both ignorant and an idiot. To spout off in such a manner surely justifies the "idiot" tag, whereas his lack of knowledge on the subject was painfully obvious.

Personally, I use GIMP as it is free and appears to do a good job. Has anyone done a comparison between GIMP and PS? I am considering getting a copy of PS Elements, but I'd be interested to know how the end product compares to GIMP.

I tried UFRaw in GIMP and it was awful! Couldn't get it to produce a useable image, but maybe that was me although I did try a few times with a few scenes. Maybe I was missing something…

Been using ACR in CS2, CS4 and now CS5. The latest ACR is brilliant, saves many unusable photos. Why? Because sometimes I can't expose for the whole scene. Sure, if I'm in the mood I'll shoot sets of exposures for HDR, but for moving scenes or when I haven't got a tripod, RAW and a bit of fill light works wonders for me 🙂

I did back to back comparisons with JPEG and RAW when I first got a decent camera (ok – not a decent camera, but a bridge model that could shoot RAW). The level of detail coming out of the RAW files was head and shoulders above the JPEG, which sold it to me.

Are you talking about processing RAW data files, or postprocessing in general? I find that Capture One gives me the most pleasing results when converting (Nikon) files. Probably other s/w can do the same if you fiddle with the settings, but this gives me the best start out of the box.

Having said that, it is a bit of a faff, so I mostly just use Aperture.

The way I see the general postprocessing thing is that when I look at a scene, it is processed by my brain (???) and what arrives is not an objective result. When I take a photo, the camera is (mostly) objective, so I need pp to recover "my" vision – emphasising the things that were important to me.