Raw file support for D600

[LaneRushing12]

I cannot open raw files for new D600 in CS5

[Bo_LeBeau]

The D600 has only been out less than a week.

None of the camera manufacturers share the details of their formats , ex NEF, CR2 etc.

Each single model has a slightly different version of their proprietary file formats. So the NEF from a D600 is different from the NEF of the D700, D4, D800 and so on. The same with Canon, Sony,  etc.

It takes time for Adobe to reverse engineer the NEF for the D600. They usually release new versions of ACR that support the newest cameras every 3-4 months.

Until then you can download the latest DNG converter and convert your NEF to DNG that can then be read by any version of ACR.

For Mac:   http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=5388

For Windows: http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=5389

But be aware that the newest version of ACR when it is released will only work with CS6

If you have CS5 or earlier, you need to continue with the DNG workaround or upgade to CS6.

You could also get Lightroom which is cheaper. But neither PS or Lightroom can directly open the D600 at this moment. Patience grasshopper!

[station_two]

Bo LeBeau wrote:

...None of the camera manufacturers share the details of their formats , ex NEF, CR2 etc.

You mean Canon and Nikon don't.    Pentax has always shared the information with Adobe, ever since ACR 2.x. 

Additionally, newer Pentax DSLRs shoot and record DNG files natively, so they are supported from day one. 

[TrevisT]

Not only newer pentaxs'. We were shooting DNG out of the camera with our first dslr the k10 back in 2007.

[station_two]

TrevisT wrote:

Not only newer pentaxs'. We were shooting DNG out of the camera with our first dslr the k10 back in 2007.

The Pentax K10D is definitely a newer Pentax compared to my *istD. 

[TrevisT]

Good point. New is relative!

[Houston.Brown]

"Until then you can download the latest DNG converter and convert your NEF to DNG that can then be read by any version of ACR." -Bo LeBeau / Post #2

This does not seem to work either. Neither LR4.1 nor Adobe's DNG converter will take a D600 NEF file and convert it to DNG. You get an error in both cases that says it does not reconize the format.

I have never purchased a camera this close to relese so I have never been faced with not being able to see the images from my new camera. This is tourture. Am i doing something wrong? Please dont tell me that I have to wait on Adobe to be able to vuew my images.

Many thanks,

Houston

[Noel Carboni]

Did you read this thread, htown?  Nikon supplies software that can read the images.

And yes, you're going to have to wait on Adobe to roll out support for the D600.  It does take time to reverse-engineer each camera.

-Noel

[station_two]

htown wrote:

…Please dont tell me that I have to wait on Adobe to be able to vuew my images…

Sorry, but that is exactly what I'm telling you in this post.

Adobe Camera Raw, Lightroom and the DNG Converter are released simultaneously in an orderly fashion three to four times a year, which means a new dot version every three or four months.  The release of a new camera does not alter this regular cycle.

Your best bet is to hope that the soon to be released version includes at least preliminary, unofficial support of your camera; other wise you'll have to wait another three to four months.

If "this is torture" for you, ask yourself whether you bothered to check whether the camera you were about to buy was supported by your software of choice before making the purchase.

[Houston.Brown]

Well yes I understand the process, just never had to give it a lot of though before but as much tourture as it is, I dont think i would have let the ACR version affect my buying decission. I was commenting modtly from the FUN side of all of this, not really the literal side.

Cheers

[Andreamh3]

I've settled into a temporary process until Adobe releases an update.

I'm shooting in RAW + JPEG FINE.  Loaded up the ViewNX2 (which came on a disc with my D600), transferred all my files using that.  Exporting all the ones I want to edit to a 16-bit TIFF, then importing to LR4 to process.  Not as good as processing a RAW, but better than a JPEG.  Hope that helps.

[TrevisT]

The failure here is really on nikon's closed ecosystem and a lack of concern for their customers.  I'm a new, first time Nikon user with the d600.  I have past experience with brand new cameras but i've never had these issues with lightroom because Pentax shoots in DNG natively.  I knew that this would be an issue with Nikon because of their propritary system, but it is still frustrating. With all of effort and development to go into such a magnificent machine it's telling that they didnt even bother to care enough about the large share of customers who use lightroom for image management to provide Adobe with everything they needed to have support for their propritary format. 

I finally dumped some cards from the d600 last night to see what my options are.  I think that in the mean time that i'll just shoot RAW+Jpeg, copy the jpegs to a local folder and then import them into lightroom. After they're in LR i'll copy the nef's to my archive allong side the imported jpegs.  That will at least allow me to inspect, filter and proof the images with clients and then when i need to edit i'll use the nikon software to convert to a tif and send that tif into ps. 

[station_two]

Bo LeBeau wrote:

…Until then you can download the latest DNG converter and convert your NEF to DNG that can then be read by any version of ACR…

Oooops!  You had a major brain short-circuit there, Bo LeBeau 

If a camera is not supported by the latest version of ACR, it will NOT be supported by the same version number of the Adobe DNG Converter either. 

[Bo_LeBeau]

Guilty as charged. Wouldn't be the first time nor is it likely to be the last.

Unfortunately I can't edit my response to add that Nikon should have supplied a CD with the camera for the latest version of View NX2.

Nikon claims that the D600 is supported. This should at least allow new D600 owners to open the NEF as save and 16 or 8 bit TIF or JPG.

Not as good as being able to open directly in ACR, but at least its something.

Note I haven't downloaded and testing this, so NO guarantees!

Message was edited by: Bo LeBeau   After some more research it is unclear if the D600 is supported or not. If it isn't, shame on Nikon for released a new camera without updated software.

[subscriptions@achernar.us]

Hi...

I can confirm that at the time of posting this message, my brand new beautiful Nikon D600  NEF (RAW) format is still not supported.  Same thing happened when I bough a Nikon D5100, but after a few months they released an update and it worked. 

Personally, I feel that it's the sign of a great company when the only major complaint is that they don't support a brand new camera model 2 days after it's released. 

I'm curious, does Adobe purchase every camera model they support for testing/development or do you just use NEF files supplied by the community?

Chris

[Noel Carboni]

subscriptions@achernar.us wrote:

it's the sign of a great company when the only major complaint is that they don't support a brand new camera model 2 days after it's released.

Have you found such a company?

All I see around here is Adobe, and frankly there are a WAY too many major complaints.

-Noel

[JC434]

I, like many others, didn't research this issue before purchasing my D600 but I found that you can use the software that came with the camera to convert the RAW files to JPG. I would just recommend shooting in JPG until the new ACR becomes available. 😕

[martincphotos]

Having a similar problem - don't be an early adoptor lol

D600 went on sale in UK yesterday and I was lucky enough to get one...

However, should have realised no RAW support yet from Adobe - also I am still on the previous versions of Lightroom and photoshop !

The suggested DNG converter above also does not work - or hasnt been updated for D600 NEF files yet so that's not an option either - so I'm stuffed !!!

Any other suggestions???

[TrevisT]

I did a little resarch on this yesterday.  My d600 should be here any minute so i dont have the camera yet but it seems like the work around (an ugly hack, but it seems to work) is something like this:

Use the exiftool open source application to switch the d600 nef into a d800 nef, then LR reads it just fine. 

The tool can be downloaded here:

http://owl.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/

This command will convert all of the nef files in a folder from being d600 nef's to being d800 nef's:

exiftool -model="NIKON D800" ext *.nef

I tested it this morning on a sample nef that i downloaded from the web. After the conversion i imported the file into lightroom 4.1 and it seemed happy.  I was able to go into the develop module and do a lens correction. 

The exiftool does a *lot* more than just this simple task and i have only researched it for a few momoents.  You may want to investigate it farther for other features.

Good luck!

[Andreamh3]

Did you get your D600 and give this a go?

I DLed ExifTool and ran it with the terminal on my MacBook Pro, but I cannot seem to figure out how to convert my files through the terminal.  Would you be inclined to give me a few step-by-steps?

Thank you kindly!

[ssprengel]

The exact command line for Terminal was giving in reply #6:

exiftool   -model=”NIKON D800” ext *.nef

It is assumed your NEF files and exiftool are in the current folder, although the Mac might need ./exiftool to indicate the executable is in the current folder.

[Elcaracho87]

Thanks for the tip with Exiftool! But I have one probleme. When I convert the files of my D600 and import to LR 4, it will be a little crop. I think its because the D800 have 36 mp. LR shows me a Imagesize of 4800x3200.

Have you any tip, what command line in exiftool is fine to fix this problem?

PS. Sorry for my bad englisch...I am from German 🙂

[TrevisT]

Very interesting about the crop.  I only played with this process for a few minutes and the sample that i used wasnt an image that i had shot i didnt notice the crop.  I did get my d600's yesterday but i havent dumped the cards yet. (I'm new to Nikon so i'm still getting a feel for where they put everything) 

I'm hoping to use this camera on a job this saturday (a portrait session).  Maybe i'll set it up to shoot raw to one card and jpeg to the other and just import the jpg's into lr to get the proofing done and then just convert one nef at a time to tif for retouching.  Pretty lame that Nikon doesnt work with Adobe to get this stuff working on day one for their most passionaiate users (aka, early adopting nut jobs).

One other thing that i've heard is of people converting to D3X (instead of d800).  I tried that but lr 4.1 didnt seem to like it.  Might be worth a try for someone fiddling with it.  I think that the d3x and d600 have the same res.

[Andreamh3]

Okay, I figured it out, thank you for the tips.

I too am running into the crop problem, they are coming in LR at 4800x3200, and losing a significant portion of the frame.  I too am curious if there is a patch for this.

[ssprengel]

Terminal is something you type into, not drag things to, as far as I know, unless that changes the current folder of terminal to the folder you drug onto it, then it would be ok to do.

In general, you’d put COPIES of your NEFs into an arbitrary folder that you create for the purpose of the experiment, copy exiftool into that location as well, open a terminal window and make its current folder the same arbitrary folder (does cd work to change directories like on Windows?), then into the terminal windows you’d type:

./exiftool –MODEL=”Nikon D800” –ext NEF *.NEF

However, you will only get the central 4800x3200 of the image visible in ACR or Lightroom so it’s relatively useless. 4800x3200 is one of the smaller formats that a D800 can shoot in, so perhaps ACR and LR are confused by the 6080x4028 sensor dimensions and choose 4800x3200 as the best guess for the D800 known sizes.