Shooting Raw Format

[smoothassilk]

I was in Arlington just for Wednesday an went on the tour of the ballpark for the Ranger's. I took all my pictures in the RAW format. Whats the best program to open these with? I m new to this format.

Mark

[Hogleg 44]

The one I like the best is Capture One Pro, http://www.phaseone.com/ But it is very expensive. There are a number of others out too. Best to trial several and see what works best for you.

[janetg]

the most common 3 programs, are photoshop, capture1, and bibble. i don't know much about the first 2, i'm sure there are others. i do know bibble has a 30 day trial so you can check it out. if they all have trials (except photoshop) give everything a whirl and see what you like best in terms of workflow.

[rages4calm]

Apeture ^_^

[David Whatley]

For a FREE program try Raw Shooter Esiantials

[ChuckW]

If you have, or are considering purchasing, Photoshop there is Adobe Camera Raw. You might also simply check the software that came with your camera. I know that many manufacturers provide raw conversion software as part of the camera purchase. As far as third party software there is the previously mentioned Capture One; other well known ones are Bibble and Rawshooter.
Chuck

[DEMDeepEllumMusic]

First what is your gear? Did the manufacturer give you some software to open raw files with? Can you say transfer all of the files to your computer and then load a few back onto your memory storage device put them into the camera and convert them to JPG just for quick review? (This way you still have the RAW files to work with along with a quick group of JPG's to figure out which of the pics you really want to work with).

[Hogleg 44]

Originally Posted by David Whatley

For a FREE program try Raw Shooter Esiantials

I don't think this is still avalable, since Adobe bought it.

[Bartman01]

Originally Posted by smoothassilk

Whats the best program to open these with? I m new to this format.

There is not all around 'best' or EVERYONE would be using it. There are many different tools that fit different cameras/styles/workflows. Each tool takes some getting used to, and in many cases the 'out of the box' settings are not the best ones for you and/or your camera. This makes direct comparisons even harder since very few people are equally proficient in more than on converter, much less all of the popular ones.

Best advice would be start with what you already have. If you have CS2, try Bridge/ACR (get the latest version of ACR from Adobe.com first). If you have a tool from your camera mfg, try that.

[JohnT]

If you shoot Canon and don't have Photoshop, you can use Canon's free program called Digital Photo Professional. Some folks don't like it, but it does a decent job for a freebie.