help processing raw NEF

I recently got a Nikon D70, previously I had been using a point/shoot which saved the files as jpg's. I'm completly new to image editing. I currently have a trial version of Adobe CS2 (4 days left, will most likely buy it soon).

I'm not used to having to make any manual adjustments, I used to just download the jpeg from my camera and that was it.

Anyway, I've been shooting in raw mode and have a LOT of topside pictures (about 400). I want to get used to working with the images while I wait for my housing and before I do my first UW photos.

When I open the NEF file in cs2, I get a different screen than the screen that comes up if I open a jpeg file to edit.

What do I need to do to prepare these images and convert them to jpg while getting the best picture. I played with the settings for a single image and got it to look pretty nice, but I was hoping there was a easier way to clean up these images instead of adjusting each individual image. How do other people pre-process these images? Do you just batch process all your images using the same settings? What happens if the images were taken in different lighting and with different lens.

Perhaps I'm being lazy, but it seems like a lot of work to pre-process 400 images individually.

When working with a single image, what adjustments should i make when working on the raw image, and what adjustments should I leave for working with post-image. IS there any easy way to auto-adjust an image instead of playing with the slider bars?

Should I jump straight from NEF to jpg, or go some NEF to TIFF, then from TIFF to JPG during the final clean-up.

I know there are a lot of questions here, but I really could use some help on this. Please also reply with links to other topics that might help me here. I did a few searches and found a few topics that were helpfull, but they still left me with a lot of questions.

Hey talahaski

It will be interesting to see what answers you get to this as I'm sure many of us shoot RAW and we probably all have different ways of operating.

I use Nikon View to have a look at the RAW files and then move individual pictures to PS CS to manipulate. I reckon I may only play around with a dozen pics out of a CF card full of around 200. If these come out really well in PSCS, I then print them on A4 using a Canon i960 phoot printer. I've been delighted with some of the results.

If you want 400 finished articles, I would suggest you need to decide what you want them for. If for screen viewing, you should be able to convert/copy them all pretty easily to JPGs - which can then be manipulated quickly as they are a smaller file size. If you want 400 printed pictures, then RAW is the way to go. But, as you rightly say, batch processing may not be practical if they have a variety of lighting - and you will need a second mortgage to pay for them all.

When you use RAW files, PSCS opens them in a pre-manipulation window which allows you to change the result of some of the camera settings: eg, colour balance and EV settings. Once you have finalised these settings, PSCS will flip your picture into the usual full PSCS window so that you can use the full program.

Hope this helps a bit

If you really want to get to grips with Raw files and Photoshop then there is an excellent book called "Camera Raw with Adobe Photoshop CS (2)" by Bruce Fraser which I would strongly recommend you try. It has a lot about the browser system and batch processing which may prove useful.

Bare knuckles: Raw to Tiff then do all of your work. Then jpg.

Joe