Help with RAW post-work

I'm pretty new to shooting in RAW, TIFF or HI. Basically, I have no idea how to open my RAW images in Gimp or PS, and what to do from there. Can anybody give me a few basic pointers? I was able to download the images onto my computer using Nikon View, but when I try to open them in Gimp, they are really small and look distorted. I read a few other posts on Raw converters, but I'm not sure how to use them. help! :confused:

I don't use GIMP, so I can't really comment. But I would be really surprised if it supports RAW files. What you're probably seeing are the imbedded JPG thumbnails in your image files. What version of Photoshop do you have? You have to have CS1 or one of the recent versions of Elements to access RAW files. Your Nikon software will allow you to do RAW conversions and people seem to really like it. I would start there. You would open the files in the Nikon software, do your conversions there, saving them as TIFFs, and then if you you want to do more work, open them in Photoshop or GIMP and do it there.

Hey Photo-John, thanks for the help. I actually don't have PS at all, which is why I have to use Gimp. Not that it's a bad program, it just dosen't have everything that PS has. Perhaps thats that problem then lol. I mean, I can open my RAW images and convert them with the Nikon software, but when I try to open them in Gimp, they are all this really weird bluish-green shade. Anyone else having this problem?

Did your camea come with software to convert RAW images to TIFF? It isn't the same as using a dedicated converter like ACR or Capture One, but it's a way to get the files into your program.

I gather you are running Linux. You prolly need a Linux compatable RAW converter.

Check into a little app called "dcRAW" Its a Linux RAW converter.

You can use UFraw either as stand alone or as part of Gimp. UFraw works on most raw formats and is avaliable for windows and Linux and is free. I use it to convert my Canon 5D raw images.
Frans