RAW??

I just received my D40 today and I want to shoot in RAW but i do not know how to use it with photoshop. i have installed the nikon plugin and i can open the photo in photoshop and i do not see the advantage, am i doing something wrong?

 

It is advantageous if you plan to make changes to things like color, sharpness, etc. (those adjustments in the CameraRAW workbench that you'd normally have to set in the camera). Shooting RAW, those changes won't incur any losses.

Also, there is much more color depth.

 

well if i open a raw file in photoshop shouldn't a camera raw window open? if i open one its as if i open a jpeg or any other kind of picture

 

Ah. Yes, that's a problem. The Nikon plugin must be bypassing CameraRAW.

You should get a small window that pops up with a preview of the image and a bunch of slider bars on the left.

like this:

I don't have the Canon plugin installed. Adobe CameraRAW can read both Canon and Nikon raw file formats in and of itself.

I suggest uninstalling the plugin.

 

well i have photoshop cs and i think that is the problem, photoshop wont open a .nef (Nikon Raw) without the nikon plug-in

 

D'oh. CameraRAW didn't support D40 raw until version 3.7 (which requires CS2 or higher).

Was there any standalone software that came with your camera? Canons ship with something called Digital Photo Professional. I bet Nikon has something similar.

 

well i remembered about photoshop lightroom, i downloaded the trial and that works really well, i can use that for i guess "developing" and then move to photoshop, and i can get lightroom pretty cheap with a student discount