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Aperture or nx for raw
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Hi folks, am a nikon user , G5 mac and want to progress to sooting raw plus jpeg. I wish to keep it as simple as possible , will aperture be enough or would nx help as well? What happens if you shoot raw+jpeg and you connect your card to the mac? I have photoshop cs at present with my jpegs automatically opening in iphoto. One other question please, my current mac uses the power pc processor, what happens if i buy an intel mac with my existing pscs, will the current version of aperture work as well on both machines ? Thanks Tom. :?: :wink: :?:
Aperture is such a beast that the G5 may not be enough for it. It’s really designed for the newest machines. Also Aperture is highly dependent on the video card you have in the machine.
Re the number of Licenses? I can’t answer that-no idea!
CS runs a bit slow on Intel macs because it is running under Rosetta (ie the Intel is pretending to be a Power PC and that wastes CPU). Around the speed of the 1.8 G5 I felt on my 2.16 core duo.
Personally I settled on Lightroom for better development and use on older machines.
There is an issue with RAW+JPG in V1.0 but this is being dealt with.Tom,
Just saw this post after PMing you.
I use a G5 imac and Aperture runs fine. It’s the best RAW processor I’ve tried (IMO).
If your question re both machines is will it run on them both, then I think the answer is yes. If your question is does the licence allow you to run it on two machines, I think the answer is no…
As for RAW + jpeg, as I said in my PM, I don’t see the point… Jpeg for some situations (press), RAW for most occasions (anywhere picture quality matters), but RAW + Jpeg? I just don’t see the point…
Hope it helps!
Tim
earthairfire wrote:
…but RAW + Jpeg? I just don’t see the point…
All that means is that you haven’t yet come across a situation where both would be useful. I guess if there really wasn’t any point to it, the camera manufacturers would not have provided this facility. Although I shoot RAW all the time (even for “snapshots”) because it’s a quicker workflow, I could envisage scenarios where a RAW+JPEG workflow would be of benefit. Take press work for example – supposing you’re doing some press shots and later you find out that someone somewhere wants one of the images as a giant poster, for whatever reason. If you’re shooting RAW+JPEG, no problem, but if it’s just JPEG then you’ve got a slightly more difficult task ahead of you (not impossible, just more difficult).
the only person i know who shoots both raw and jpg is a pro wedding photographer. he does both so that he can show the unedited formals of the bride, groom, wedding party and families from the church at the reception on monitors without having to run the raw file through a converter.. but thats the only time he says he uses both.
bethThanks for your views folks, please keep them coming! If you shoot weddings ,as I do, all in Jpeg I add; does it make sence to have the images in raw as well in case your exposure or w.b is off on the odd shot that you might like to include in the finished album. D oesn`t raw give more latitude. Most pros,I am told shoot weddings in Jpeg . Any nikonians using Nx for raw? Tom.
Indeed there are a number of wedding professionals that do just that – their workflow is entirely JPEG but they shoot RAW plus JPEG in order to give themselves some insurance, should the worst happen. Aside from the issue of wider exposure latitude that you’ve mentioned, RAW also has benefits when it comes to White Balance adjustments and possibly if you need to make a particularly big print there may be benefits in doing so with a 16-bit TIFF originating from a RAW file rather than an 8-bit JPEG.
I guess if you’re happy with the results you’re getting out of your JPEG workflow and the customer is too, then why change? Far too many photographers out there get too hung up on the RAW -v- JPEG debate. I can only speak from personal experience having tried both RAW and JPEG workflows and I find RAW a far more efficient way of working than JPEG. But that’s just me – others will find JPEG more efficient. Use whatever works for you.
Thanks T, I couldn`t agree with you more on jpeg v raw etc nikon v canon for that matter also. I think Iwill purchase Aperture , Tim is more than happy with it . Still no reply from any nikon Nx for raw users! Thorsten , you wouldn`t have a link to explain why you find Raw workflow more efficient than jpeg, please and thanks.
Tuanua wrote:
Thorsten , you wouldn`t have a link to explain why you find Raw workflow more efficient than jpeg, please and thanks.
Sorry, no link :( I’ve based my statement on my own personal experiences and not on the basis of what anybody that is pro-RAW may have written, although I admit I have looked at both sides of the argument. I’ll give you a brief overview of my experience for what it’s worth.
When I started out shooting digital, all I ever shot was JPEG. This was when I was still “green” and didn’t appreciate the importance of things like custom white balance. Of course, I knew what white balance was, so I would always set the relevant fixed white balance for any given situation. But I found I was still spending an awful lot of time later on the computer trying to “fix” basic problems such as white balance in my JPEG’s. I figured there had to be a better way, so I started investigating RAW. I read as much as I could about it and eventually determined that there seemed to be definite advantages to shooting RAW so I tried it. Well, things went from bad to worse and I was spending even longer correcting images. This was because I didn’t fully appreciate and understand the power of RAW converters but also, the only decent RAW converter out there at the time was Capture One Pro and I just couldn’t get my head around how it worked. So I ended up going back to JPEG.
However, the continuing frustration of working with “iffy” JPEGs was beginning to annoy me so I had a look at RAW once again. By then, RAW converters had improved quite a bit and I also had a better understanding of just what they do. Over time, I became more and more comfortable with RAW and got to a stage where I was spending less time working on RAW images compared to working on JPEG’s, so I gave up on JPEG’s altogether, even for “snapshots”
During the last 6-8 weeks however, I decided to have another go at JPEG’s as I was hearing so many positives in relation to workflow speed – if there was a way that I could work faster, then I was interested! So I began shooting RAW+JPEG and just worked on the JPEG’s. I tried it for a couple of weeks and decided it wasn’t for me, RAW really was the quickest.
RAW is quicker for me for two main reasons. The first is exposure latitude. It’s so much easier to correct a moderate exposure error in RAW. The second is White Balance. I only need to take one white balance reference shot each time the light changes and in the RAW converter, I can apply that white balance to all other images that were shot in that scene in the same light. The batch processing capabilities in a RAW processor are a key factor in improving efficiency.
So there you have it – a brief history as to why I now shoot everything RAW. There are other benefits which I haven’t touched on here, such as the creation of 16-bit files. But remember, just because it works for me doesn’t mean it will work for you!
Hope that helps.
Thanks again Thorsten . I am at the extreme green end of the spectrum when it comes to raw but am now keen to explore and find out where this leads me. I like the way you describe your journey , frustrations etc. Learning digital capture,workflow etc was once described to me like eating an elephant, one small bite at a time!!I think i`ve just about completed his tail to date! Tom :sick
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