Importing RAW files help

[mlg1975]

When I go to import the RAW files from my D80, the black and white images don't get loaded, only the ones in color? Is it possible to download black and white RAW files or am I missing something obvious here? Many thanks for any help!!

Mike

[NickLewis]

Hi, and welcome to the forum :)

You really need a Nikon user to comment, but I don't understand what you mean by a black & white RAW image. The very nature of a RAW file is that includes all the data captured by the camera at shooting time. That includes colour information.

You may subsequently process it into B&W if you choose, but initially the RAW images will be in full colour.

(If Nikon's have some sort of B&W RAW mode, I apologise.)

Nick

[TonyW]

Hi there and welcome to the forum. That's an interesting question as I've never tried (and I have a D80). I assume you have the latest Adobe RAW Converter otherwise you wouldn't be able to load colour ones. I've never used the B&W converter in the D80 - I've always considered it much better to do it in Elements so I never realised that the D80 one converted the NEF file to B&W too. My recommendation would be to stick to colour in the camera and do the conversion to B&W later in Elements especially if you have PSE5.

Tony

[TonyW]

OK - I just tried and there is no B&W RAW file - just a JPEG. Like Nick says the RAW file is raw data and that's in colour - you would do the conversion later in Elements which will give you much more control than doing it in-camera (to me Nikon putting that into the camera is just a bit of waste of in-camera processing space)

Tony

[PaulH]

OK - I just tried and there is no B&W RAW file - just a JPEG. Like Nick says the RAW file is raw data and that's in colour - you would do the conversion later in Elements which will give you much more control than doing it in-camera (to me Nikon putting that into the camera is just a bit of waste of in-camera processing space)

Tony
Never used it (not having a D0) but I bet if you use a Nikon product such as NX it WOULD show as the Nikon B&W.

Now - if I could, would I use it - no, no,no.

I do B&W with the D70, I see and take shots intending them to be B&W, but I use CS2 and other tools to do the conversion.

[mlg1975]

On the D80, when I put the selector on P, I go into the shooting menu and open up the "optimize image" sub-menu, I select Black and White, then I select the "Image quality" sub menu and put it on RAW.

When I take a picture the file name on the LCD display says the following:
DSC.0312.NEF and the little cyan RAW image appears on there as well.

The picture on the display is black and white, and when I try to import it into Elements, it simply isn't there anymore.

Any other suggestions?

Thanks,
Mike

[TonyW]

I see what you mean. I just did it the way you describe and the NEF file is there and the thumbnail in the Adobe Photodownloader is B&W but when I import it it turns back to colour. So I'm guessing that the RAW file is the regular color RAW file but has a flag in it to show as grey-scale on import. The Elements RAW converter doesn't recognize the flag (and nor does CS3 which does have the option to convert a RAW file to gray-scale). So it's probably something that only is recognized by the Nikon software. I was able to import the RAW file into Elements though and to repeat what the other posters said it is far better to take a regular color image and do the B&W conversion in Elements. In camera B&W conversion is not worth the effort.

Tony

[Codebreaker]

Tony is right.....

RAW images from cameras are actually mono-chrome to begin with (note not B&W) but mono-chrome - each pixel is just recording one colour channel but only in gray scale. The RAW processor is resposible for de-mosaicing the image and using the cameras colourimetric interpretation rebuilds the pixels such that each one is now a combination of R,G,B.

Cameras that allow Picture Styles e.g. B&W, Sepia etc don't do anything with the RAW data. (Otherwise it wouldn't be RAW any longer :) ). They just pass the data to the Raw Convertor which then then rebuilds the image as above. The Picture Styles are just flags passed along with the data, so proprietary RAW converters like Nikon's and Canon's can actually use these Flags to render the image accordingly.

Photoshop ACR is not aware of these flags so only re-builds the colour image.

In my opinion this is the best solution anyway if your using RAW as you then get to decide the processing rather than some automatic intent applied by the S/W.

Colin

[Skullman3518]

I have a Nikon D80 also and have not been able to import NEF files into Photoshop without going through the Nikon Picture Project software first. I used to be able to import them with my D70s, but I guess the D80 NEF format is a little different. How are you guys able to import the D80 NEF files?

Thanks,
Greg Gibson

[Codebreaker]

Greg.....

I'm not a Nikon user but have come across similar threads.

Two things:-

1. Have you downloaded the latest version of ACR from Adobe?
2. I've heard that the Nikon S/W can 'hijack' Elements ACR and some folks have had to uninstall it to get Elements to work correctly.

Colin

[Skullman3518]

Thanks a ton, Colin! That was exactly what the problem was. Geez, just when you think you start having this stuff figured out...:rolleyes:

Thanks again,
Greg

[Juergen D]

Greg,
Just curious: Which one was it?

Juergen