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UltravioletPhotography

What Converter/Editor Are You Using for Your UV Fotos ?


Andrea B.

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I've been using mostly Photo Ninja, Photoshop Elements 11 and Nikon Capture NX2.

 

Photo Mechanic is my ingestion, sorting & file naming app. I love this and have used it for years & years now. It is also useful for converting the raws to web-sized jpgs and will add watermarks. It will send a raw to your favorite converter with one keystroke. Or to other editors with a right click.

 

What apps would you recommend to other UV photographers?

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Depends a bit on the camera I use, but as I have almost stopped using my D70s-uvir, with the Pannys G2-uvir and GH3-uvir here they are:

 

I tried

 

Silky Pix (came with the camera version) => works, but not convincing (noise, details)

 

Corels raw converter: works, has some nice simple features, when you want to apply the same setting to several pictures, I do not know the most recent version.

 

PS (coming from Photoshop Elements (version 7 or 8) I had to learn , how to white balance (you have to create a special profile via a DNG file and extra software). It is now my standard for editing software (when you try to learn, how to edit a picture, almost at least every second paper refers to PS). And there is a cute trick now possible in the PSCC-version, you can use the raw filter several times on the picture, to get e.g. the WB ...) Once you get a feeling, how to work with layers, this is the best.

 

Photo Ninja, this going to become my standard raw converter for UV, still learning and trying to understand, how some things work. I think a the moment this is the top for the price.

 

As I now started, from using PCs for almost 30 years, trying a macBook, it is nice that the two last ones are available for Microsoft and Apple.

 

A little tool I miss on the Apple is Irfanview (nothing close to that ingenious little bit of software)

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I used to be an advocate of Bibble, later Aftershot Pro (ASP 2). However, due to lack of camera support I abandoned these and rely on PhotoNinja instead. Combined with Photoshop (CS2 or CS6), I have all the tools I need for processing. Archiving and related chores are conducted with my own software.

 

PhotoNinja has strong and weak sides. Image output quality can at best be outstanding. On the other hand, its lack of file handling and proper batch queues continue to be an annoyance. Plus it is has a voracious appetite for RAM and CPU capacity. I'm now concentrating the PN work on powerful machines with at least 32 GB RAM, SSD disks, and quad-core processors.

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I like freeware, so I have used ImageJ, Gimp2.8, Irfanview, Photofiltre, and FastStone 5.3 (for RAW). On most days I can do everything with Gimp and Photofiltre, but if I want to do addition, subtraction, etc., ImageJ is my choice.

For video I use VIrtualDub.

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I was running Photo Ninja just fine on 8GB RAM and a wimpy little processor until I spilled eggnog on the poor little MacBook Air. Now we are all the way up to 16GB RAM on the MB Pro. I think it has one chip & 4 cores, but I'm not sure. The Retina screen is tops.

 

Reed, thx for the pointer to some open source stuff. I have Gimp, but not Photofiltre, ImageJ or FastStone. I like to keep up with apps, so I'll check those out.

 

Photo Ninja does have its little mysteries !!! I have not been able to convert my D200 UV fotos in PN quite as well as I have done in NX2. But then I didn't really shoot them all too well back in '07 and '08. Thankfully I'm still capable of learning and everything UV looks much better now....I hope.

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For an up to date view of what's needed to put together a computer that works well for imaging have a look at this link

Build PC for Photoshop and imaging applications

http://www.imagescience.com.au/kb/questions/141/Build%20a%20powerful%20PC%20for%20Photoshop%20and%20other%20imaging%20applications

 

I came to UV after getting deeper and deeper into digital imaging (by the PC route) and Photoshop starting with Elements 2 which came free with a Canon scanner (which I still have) and moving up to Photoshop CS5 I copy my images from my camera to PC through Bridge CS5 which keeps track well enough for my purposes. I use a spreadsheet to keep track of my UV shots.

The only bit of software I've purchased specifically for UV is PhotoNinja which I find excellent to open all my UV RAW files and to convert to tiffs which I then work on further in CS5 (usually just a simple levels adjustment of luminosity).

Dave

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I have 3 that I use all the time-on a PC

 

ACDSee is a lightning fast program and I have yet to find a RAW image it won't open. It's lighting sliders/features are some of the best I have seen. It has evolved over the years to be a truly great program with a low learning curve.

This is the program I use to initially view my pics because it is so fast (at least on my computer).

 

Photo Ninja of course--and I agree with it being a piranha on one's Ram.

 

Photoshop CS6 which is loaded and it's clone stamp is tough to beat and is a photo nerds dream, but the denoise program called Imagenomic and Nik Software's Sharpener Pro add-ons are what I really like because they are simply superior if used correctly IMHO.

 

-D

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