Anyone familiar with Bibble? Compare to Nikon Capture?

[davidmichael]

Actually, if you are a serious amateur, I would recommend that you start shooting more in NEF. Once you realize the control you have, you will never want to go back to JPEG Fine again! The problem with JPEG, as you probably know, is that the format has already made exposure decisions for you that are irreversible. Why not start with everything your camera captured and make your own decisions?

If you do shoot NEF, I would recommend Nikon Capture. It is surperior to Photoshop in how it handles NEF images, and once you learn how to use it, it will speed your workflow. I am not sure which version of PS you have, but be sure to download any patches you need and keep it up to date.

While I am at it, I will heartily recommend Photoshop CS2 (I get nothing out of doing so--I am a lowly professional photographer and do not work for Adobe--but it is an excellent program once you master its steep learning curve).

[BrianFoster]

Davidmichael, thanks for that suggestion on giving NEF a try. No one has ever really pushed me to use this format, but your post has intrigued me. Who knows, maybe I will leave JPEG Fine behind!

Great advice, thank you all.

[davidmichael]

Brian,

I think you find the versitility of shooting RAW intriguing, but I did not mean to suggest that you completely abandon JPEG Fine. There certainly is still a place for it in your toolbox, but you have less control of the image.

While it is a bit off-topic (forgive me, all), if you do decide to shoot RAW, an efficient workflow is:

1) Do your initial exposure/tint/etc. corrections of the image in Photoshop (again, I recommend CS or CS2) and save it as a PSD (Photoshop format). Then do nothing else to the RAW file except to be sure to back it up to another drive, CD, or DVD taht is preferrably off-premisis to preserve it as you would a negative. In other words, don't touch it. Ever. Oh, and be sure to use the Export Cache command in Bridge to preserve your metadata, sorting, flagging, etc. when you burn to CD/DVD or that information will be lost in the event of a disaster because it remains on the computer to which you originally transferred the RAW files.

2) On your PSD that you cerated, don't touch the background layer! Simply make new layer copies of it to do any retouching. By doing this, you always have the ability to turn layers off and return to your original image because it has bene preserved.

3) Save the final image as a TIFF and print from there. By doing this, you can simply create a mask for your varying image print sizes without ever having to resize the image. Pretty neat trick, huh? I learned that one from Jack Davis, my PS guru.

Whatever you decide, I hope the best or results for you. Don't let Photoshop get you down because of the learning curve. I was originally a film guy who said he'd never touch digital, and now look at me!