Downloadable raw software (1 Viewer)

[Ghostly Vision]

Hi all

It really is time I was taking photos in raw instead of using Photoshop elements 7 to edit my jpegs.

But I'm not keen on spending hundreds of £££ to do so, as my pohoto's aren't good enough to merit the spend.

Can anyone recommend a relatively user friendly piece of software, especially one that could be downloaded free?

Thanks

Sean

 

[john-henry]

Hi all

It really is time I was taking photos in raw instead of using Photoshop elements 7 to edit my jpegs.

But I'm not keen on spending hundreds of £££ to do so, as my pohoto's aren't good enough to merit the spend.

Can anyone recommend a relatively user friendly piece of software, especially one that could be downloaded free?

Thanks

Sean

You could give 'Faststone Image Viewer' a try, it's free, supports Raw files and easy to get your head around.
It's quite simple to use and will convert raw files to Tiff (or Jpeg) then has some further editing tools to use on your Jpgs or you can send them to another editor to finish them off.

 

[kitefarrago]

The maker of your camera may well provide free software that deals with the raw format you require. Have you checked that? This might come with the camera, or be available as a download. If you want to try out raw this isn't a bad place to start.

Andrea

 

[Roy C]

i agree with Andrea above - why not try the RAW software that came with your Camera. If shooting Canon for instance then you will have Canons DPP which is an excellent RAW converter.

 

[GrahameNZ]

Raw Therapee, open source

http://rawtherapee.com/blog/features

 

[Ghostly Vision]

Thanks all

After some research I downloaded Lightzone, which I haven't properly tried yet.

If I can't get on with it, I'll get the software out of the camera box (it's a D90)

Sean

 

[Keith Dickinson]

Sean,
even though I have Photoshop CS6 and it's in built RAW support - I get better results by using the RAW program that came with my Fuji HS50EXR bridge camera, so I second the use of makers software