Software supported cameras and replacing camera?

Camera Fun

Senior Member
What happens if I purchase pp software and then get a new camera that is not listed as supported by the software? Would I have to wait for an updated version of the software?
 

cwgrizz

Senior Member
Challenge Team
It really kind of depends on the software. In some cases there are work-a-rounds to get you to what you need until new updates come out. In some cases a newer version of the software you purchased will need to be purchased. It is software dependent.
 

Horoscope Fish

Senior Member
What happens if I purchase pp software and then get a new camera that is not listed as supported by the software? Would I have to wait for an updated version of the software?
.JPG is a standardized, open format so your only concern would be with raw files (e.g. .NEF) since they are proprietary. That being the case a software manufacturer may or may not decide to support the latest version of a particular raw file. You are safe with most of the "big players", such as Adobe of course, but I can't really answer for smaller less well-established software applications.
 
Stick with Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop and Nikon. If you get a just off the boat Nikon there may be a delay with the software but you can always convert to DNG until the update their software to handle the new camera.
 

Fred Kingston

Senior Member
what cwgrizz said...

Even if there's a lag in time between the camera's release, and Adobe adding it to LR/PS/Camera RAW... You can always convert the NEF files to DNG, and import the DNG files...
 

Vincent

Senior Member
Stick with Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop and Nikon. If you get a just off the boat Nikon there may be a delay with the software but you can always convert to DNG until the update their software to handle the new camera.

I'm a LR5 user and I hope to have a D500 soon.
However I did not want to go to LR CC or even upgrade to LR6.

Yesterday I did a test with a D500 test file from the internet and indeed LR5 states it can not read it.
No problem in windows (seems I have the .NEF codec installed).
So I did a conversion to DNG with Adobe Camera Raw (I believe 9.8) and it works a charm. All files converted in one go and readable in LR5.

Is there information on the loss of information in non compressed (even compressed full size) DNG converions?
 

BackdoorArts

Senior Member
Just to tack on to those talking about a DNG conversion, depending on how early you adapt there may still be a lag time between when the camera is introduced and the DNG conversion software is adapted to the new format. But you will always have the option of using Nikon's software to convert your raw file to a TIFF first which can then be imported into Lr/Ps.
 

Vincent

Senior Member
...you will always have the option of using Nikon's software to convert your raw file to a TIFF first which can then be imported into Lr/Ps.
Camera raw is quite fast with updates.

1) you could shoot in jpg till new raws are supported. => loss of info

2) some cameras do support shooting TIFF, etc... => loss of info

3) I think I found my answer:

DNG can be a real lossless compression.
But there is more risk on corruption of the file.
 

BackdoorArts

Senior Member
Camera raw is quite fast with updates.

1) you could shoot in jpg till new raws are supported. => loss of info

2) some cameras do support shooting TIFF, etc... => loss of info

DNG can be a real lossless compression.
But there is more risk on corruption of the file.

So the 6 weeks I spent with my D750 converting to TIFF in Capture NX is just a bad dream? The initial Adobe DNG beta that supported the camera was horrible, particularly at higher ISO's (colors were off), so I stuck with the TIFF conversion until Lr & Camera Raw updated. I'll never convert to DNG again.
 

Vincent

Senior Member
... particularly at higher ISO's (colors were off), ...

Thanks for sharing this, it was exactly the information I was looking for.
Knowing you from the forum, a stupid question: is the conversion losing data, or just entering it in LR with the wrong settings?

e.g. my Sony files are converted by LR to DNG by default, similar issue it looks awful in LR, the white balance is completely off. I need to do major corrections, but it is possible, all the data is there.
 

BackdoorArts

Senior Member
Thanks for sharing this, it was exactly the information I was looking for.
Knowing you from the forum, a stupid question: is the conversion losing data, or just entering it in LR with the wrong settings?

e.g. my Sony files are converted by LR to DNG by default, similar issue it looks awful in LR, the white balance is completely off. I need to do major corrections, but it is possible, all the data is there.

The DNG conversion doesn't lose or even change the available raw data, it just changes the file structure. Camera Raw/Lightroom then interprets the light information within that file based on the camera model defaults Adobe engineers have specified, and this is where the issue is - with the interpretation, not the conversion. This is something that was corrected in the release of ACR/Lr that fully supported the D750, but according to some (Nasim from Photography Life in particular) even the final release had color issues compared to Capture NX-D and other raw converters.

There are more than a few people who aren't crazy about the way Adobe interprets raw file colors off the bat (see here) and I see their point. I've personally invested a lot of time into learning Lr & Ps, so I'm less concerned with the idea that I have to adjust to Adobe's defaults for my work because I'm not someone who needs to process hundreds of raw files every day for customers, I do my work for myself and "fixing" colors is all a part of it. Only when I'm doing something like product shots for a friend's website will I painstakingly worry about getting colors absolutely spot on, in which case I'll use a color checker on site so I can create a custom camera profile when I get back. That's something that pros will do anyway regardless of their raw converter because it always has to be spot on.

What I personally don't like about DNG's is that unless you back up the original NEF file you lose what some consider to be the "unaltered original", which can sometimes be required as proof for a contest photo. Not all contests consider a DNG as "altered", but some do, so I'd rather keep that around. In cases like the D750 what I did was create TIFFs for all my NEF files and keep them in the same directory in my Lr catalog. Once Adobe caught up I imported all the NEF files and copied my Lr settings from the TIFF file to the NEF file (this was a little tedious, but not awful), then deleted the TIFF files. As a rule I don't save Ps edits to a TIFF, I use PSDs, so all the Photoshop edits were preserved. (Note: you can actually choose to embed the raw file into the DNG on conversion which technically means you can extract it later, but that just makes for an even bigger raw file)

Now your Sony thing is weird. I suspect it's just that the first time you imported them into Lr you used Copy as DNG instead of just Copy and it has continued to use that setting for that camera (under preferences there's a box that can be checked to have import presets be camera specific). Next time you import use Copy instead and it'll stay that way.
 

Blacktop

Senior Member
The DNG conversion doesn't lose or even change the available raw data, it just changes the file structure. Camera Raw/Lightroom then interprets the light information within that file based on the camera model defaults Adobe engineers have specified, and this is where the issue is - with the interpretation, not the conversion. This is something that was corrected in the release of ACR/Lr that fully supported the D750, but according to some (Nasim from Photography Life in particular) even the final release had color issues compared to Capture NX-D and other raw converters.

There are more than a few people who aren't crazy about the way Adobe interprets raw file colors off the bat (see here) and I see their point. I've personally invested a lot of time into learning Lr & Ps, so I'm less concerned with the idea that I have to adjust to Adobe's defaults for my work because I'm not someone who needs to process hundreds of raw files every day for customers, I do my work for myself and "fixing" colors is all a part of it. Only when I'm doing something like product shots for a friend's website will I painstakingly worry about getting colors absolutely spot on, in which case I'll use a color checker on site so I can create a custom camera profile when I get back. That's something that pros will do anyway regardless of their raw converter because it always has to be spot on.

What I personally don't like about DNG's is that unless you back up the original NEF file you lose what some consider to be the "unaltered original", which can sometimes be required as proof for a contest photo. Not all contests consider a DNG as "altered", but some do, so I'd rather keep that around. In cases like the D750 what I did was create TIFFs for all my NEF files and keep them in the same directory in my Lr catalog. Once Adobe caught up I imported all the NEF files and copied my Lr settings from the TIFF file to the NEF file (this was a little tedious, but not awful), then deleted the TIFF files. As a rule I don't save Ps edits to a TIFF, I use PSDs, so all the Photoshop edits were preserved. (Note: you can actually choose to embed the raw file into the DNG on conversion which technically means you can extract it later, but that just makes for an even bigger raw file)

Now your Sony thing is weird. I suspect it's just that the first time you imported them into Lr you used Copy as DNG instead of just Copy and it has continued to use that setting for that camera (under preferences there's a box that can be checked to have import presets be camera specific). Next time you import use Copy instead and it'll stay that way.

Very good read and thank you for taking the time. This got me curious, so I downloaded Capture NX-D to do some comparisons between it, and LR.
I do have one question. I converted the RAW file in NX-D to TIFF, but which camera profile should I use in LR when converting that RAW file to TIFF?

I normally import RAW into LR to automatically import with the Camera Standard setting. Should I just keep that when I convert to TIFF for comparison purposes or should I use Adobe standard?
 

BackdoorArts

Senior Member
Very good read and thank you for taking the time. This got me curious, so I downloaded Capture NX-D to do some comparisons between it, and LR.
I do have one question. I converted the RAW file in NX-D to TIFF, but which camera profile should I use in LR when converting that RAW file to TIFF?

I normally import RAW into LR to automatically import with the Camera Standard setting. Should I just keep that when I convert to TIFF for comparison purposes or should I use Adobe standard?

The Camera Profile you use on import should match the camera profile you use in the camera if you want it to most closely match the JPEG preview. Otherwise it really doesn't matter and in general you'll simply choose something that gives you the best possible starting point for your image. I keep my camera on Standard and import using that unless I am shooting JPEG for something specific that prohibits me shooting raw.
 
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