This is because in step 1, we installed version 4.6 of the plugin. It will load another dialog box as shown below (click on the picture for an enlarged view): Make sure to select "Camera Raw 4.6 and later" option in the "Compatibility" drop-down. To do that, click on "Change Preferences" button.
Its fairly simple - you don't need me to tell you how to install that!
Once the download completes (its about 50 megabytes in size!), run the installer. Download and install the Adobe DNG converter from here.8bi file might be a good idea, you know, "just in case"! If you had an older version of the Camera Raw plugin, you might need to replace the existing file. Place the "Camera Raw.8bi" file to "C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Bridge CS3\Plug-Ins" folder.
For Mac users, the steps will be the same except that you will need to get the Mac specific files since some of the below URL's point to Windows specific files. There are two assumptions that I'm making: 1) I'm assuming that you have Adobe Photoshop CS3 already installed on your computer, and 2) You're on a Windows machine. I tried, and it worked like a charm!įollowing were the steps I did. That sounded great! I read further that DNG is essentially a RAW file format which would preserve the original image information, and that was even better news. And the workaround was to convert the NEF files to Adobe DNG (Digital Negative) files, which could then be used in CS3 easily. And that is how I learnt that this was a very well known issue with CS3. Today I thought I'll give this whole cycle one more try. It was depressing enough to convince me to get back to shooting JPEG.
But the biggest problem that stopped me from continuing was that when I copied the NEF files to my computer and tried to open them in Adobe Photoshop CS3, the software would just say that the file was invalid! That was very pissing off! I researched on the Internet like crazy, downloaded the latest plugins, followed all the instructions that people had to say but CS3 refused to recognize my NEF files. Recently I've been trying to shoot RAW using my DSLR Nikon D5000. Canon has its own extension, and so has almost every camera maker out there (Sony, Pentax, Olympus, etc). NEF is Nikon's version of the RAW files which stands for Nikon Electronic Format. It's almost like getting a second chance to take a photo. So, if you botched the white balance, you can change it in your RAW editor, with no ill effects. Thanks to this, you can adjust all kinds of image properties without degrading the quality of the image. So what is RAW, anyway? The RAW image format (Nikon calls it NEF) stores unprocessed data from the camera's sensor. Still not clear? This is how Jeff Keller, DCRP Founder/Editor explains it in almost all his DSLR reviews: This gives the photographer leverage in post-processing, which is "tinkering" with the photo in an image editing software manually to make it look optimum. These are huge files because none of the picture information is lost, and everything is stored by the camera. These RAW files are essentially the same image files without any of your camera's magic applied to it. In DSLR's and some high end point and shoot cameras, there is another type of file that you can get from your camera: RAW. It also depends a lot on what kind of settings you choose in your digital camera. In this internal processing, the camera does what it thinks is best for the final outcome to look "optimal". What is RAW? Well, consider this: before you get your JPEG image files from your digital cameras as the final output, the camera (after taking a photograph) does some internal processing "automatically". But as the hobby started getting serious with a lot of investment (time and money) going into it, I wanted to start shooting RAW because almost everyone whom I looked up to in photography advised so.īefore we continue with my story, some basic explanations first.
And all along, I've been only shooting JPEGs. I've been into photography as a serious hobby for about one-and-a-half years now.