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NEF Raster image file format

NEF (Nikon Electronic Format) files are RAW files of photographs taken with Nikon cameras. The metadata of such files contains information about lenses, settings, camera, etc. RAW files describe images that are not yet ready to be processed, printed, or edited by editors raster images. RAW files are a record of data captured by camera sensors. In this case, NEF files recorded in the camera's memory are saved either in uncompressed form or in a lossless compressed format. NEF files are the digital equivalent of film negatives.

Technical information about NEF files

NEF files can be modified without any impact on RAW files. File processing in the camera itself (changing white balance, shades, tones, sharpness) does not occur in the NEF file. These are just instructions that are written into the file. They can be changed at any time without any reduction in the quality or content of the file. NEF files can contain 12-bit or 14-bit data, allowing for a larger palette of colors (compared to eight-bit JPEG or TIFF images). NEF files contain metadata as well as thumbnails and the file version in JPEG format to quickly view the file. NEF files can be edited and saved as NEF, JPEG, or TIFF files for greater ease of storage, sharing, printing, and editing.

Additional information about the NEF format

Greetings, dear readers. Today's article will be of interest to all amateur photographers, and especially owners of Nikon cameras. If you are the owner of a Nikon digital camera (the model does not matter), you may have noticed that when you transfer the received images to your computer, they are in an unusual NEF format.

By the way, what is noteworthy is that the NEF photo format is used for RAW images, which are created using digital cameras.


Photos in this NEF format take up a fairly large amount of memory, which makes storing them much more difficult. You may also have difficulty viewing them, because without special programs it's impossible to do. To solve your problem, I have compiled a small list of free programs for opening photos in NEF format:

The problem with opening and viewing seems to have been sorted out. Now let's return to “heaviness”. The large amount of memory occupied by NEF photos can be reduced by converting. Let's take a look at three as an illustrative example. best programs, which will allow you to convert NEF to JPG, JPEG or any other formats you prefer. So, let's begin.

PhotoScape


First free program, which will help us in converting NEF format photos - PhotoScape. In general, it is a very popular and multifunctional graphic editor. If you like to take photographs very often, be sure to install the PhotoScape program on your computer.


Let's start converting. To do this, open the program and in its main menu select “ ConverterRAW».




A dialog box with the same name will open. Click the " Add" and select the required NEF photos from the folders on your computer that you want to convert to JPG.



After downloading, click the " Convert" Then confirm by pressing the button " Yes».



Now the actual process of converting NEF to JPG will begin.



In the photo below you can see that the original image weighed 34 MB, and the converted one weighed 2 MB. By the way, earlier a very interesting article was published on satay, which describes detailed instructions About, .




Download PhotoScape for free


(downloads: 1405)


XnView


Now let's move on to the second program - XnView. This program is a universal “viewer” of video, audio and photos. It supports several hundred various formats, including the one we need - NEF.

XnView should also be considered as a converter. The program can handle converting NEF photo format to JPG without any problems. By the way, in the previous article we described the process of converting image formats and other formats using XnView program.


So, to proceed to the conversion you need to run the program itself. Then upload the image itself (or several) using the button " add file"or simply drag and drop.




Have you loaded it? Then go to the “ Output».




In this tab you need to: select the folder in which the converted file will be saved; specify the name of the future file; the format you want to receive (in our case JPG).




After which you need to click on the “ Convert", which will launch the process we need.




Converting one photo will take no more than a minute. In my case, at the end of the conversion, the new image weighs 600 KB, and the outgoing one weighs 32 MB.




Based on this data, XnView is still better than PhotoScape. Converted images practically do not differ in quality, but in terms of weight - XnView compresses the image into a little more than three times.


Download XnView for free


(downloads: 500)


Raw Therapee


This program is designed directly for editing images obtained from digital cameras (RAW images). At first I thought it was like this multifunctional program will be paid, but it turned out that it is freely available on the Internet.


When you first launch Raw Therapee, you should not be intimidated by the English interface. The language can be changed in the settings by clicking on the " Settings", and then in the section " Select language» choose Russian. Then simply click "OK" to accept the changes.





Unfortunately, for reasons unknown to me, I was unable to change the interface language settings on my laptop. But on the work computer everything worked out fine.


Let's get back to converting our NEF image to JPG. First you need to select the photo itself. This can be done using a small window " Folders».


Now you need to click on the photo right click mouse and in the appeared context menu select the command " Put to queue».




After which the image will appear in the “ Queue" Let's go into it.







Then, after setting all the settings, click the “ Start processing».




Upon completion of conversion from NEF to JPEG image weighs 3 MB. But at the same time, the Raw Therapee program also automatically changed the brightness and contrast in the photo.




Download Raw program Therapee free


(downloads: 287)


Now you should draw your own conclusions and choose for yourself exactly the program that you like best.


Finally, I would also like to list a list of free online services, with which you can also convert NEF format photos:


  • Online-converting;

  • RAW Pics.io;

  • Office-converter.

Why does a camera save photos in NEF format? The answer to this question will be too long. In a nutshell, NEF format is needed to receive best quality photos And further very convenient and professional processing. I’m not a photographer, but out of logic I recommend, even for beginners, to set the saving format in their cameras to NEF or RAW.

Typically, photographers then open NEF photographs one by one in Photoshop, process them and save them in JPG or other common format so that they can be viewed on any device and program.

In our case, we need high-quality without processing convert a bunch of photos from NEF to JPG. I’ll say right away that you shouldn’t convert online, the output will be a photo with very poor quality, and it will also take a very long time. What then should you use?

The first option, which takes longer, is save photos from NEF to JPG one by one using Photoshop. If there are not many photos, then this method will do. Nothing complicated, open the photo in NEF in Photoshop, click “Save as...” and select the JPG format, done.

The second option will allow convert hundreds and even thousands of photos at once without losing quality, without distortion of brightness and contrast. We will do this through the FSViewer42 program. The official website no longer works, but I managed to download it a long time ago and uploaded it to this site for you. Download . The program does not need to be installed, just unzip and run. Next, I'll show you how to use it in screenshots.

We launch the FSViewer42 program and look on the left for the folder with photos in NEF. Then we simply select these photos.

Now we need to select the conversion tool. At the top, hover over “Tools” and select “Convert Selected.”

A window with conversion settings will open. It is enough to select the format into which the photos should be converted, in our case we are converting NEF to JPG, so we select “*.jpg”, and also select the location for saving new photos. Click the button with the green triangle “Convert”. We wait until the photos are processed, then we check. Ready. Conversion time depends on the number and size of photos. 10 Full HD photos will be processed in approximately 30-50 seconds.

Thank you for reading my blog. Always happy to help, ask questions, write comments, suggest ideas for interesting articles.

The NEF (Nikon Electronic Format) format saves raw photos taken directly from the Nikon camera sensor. Images with this extension are usually of high quality and are accompanied by a large amount of metadata. But the problem is that most ordinary viewers do not work with NEF files, and such photos take up a lot of space on your hard drive.

The logical way out of the situation would be to convert NEF to another format, for example, JPG, which can definitely be opened through many programs.

Our task is to carry out the conversion in such a way as to minimize the loss of the original quality of the photo. A number of reliable converters can help with this.

Method 1: ViewNX

Let's start with Nikon's proprietary utility. ViewNX was created specifically for working with photographs created by cameras from this company, so it is perfectly suited for the task.


It takes 10 seconds to convert one 10 MB photo. Afterwards, all that remains is to check the folder where it should have been saved. new file V JPG format, and make sure everything worked out.

Method 2: FastStone Image Viewer

The next contender for NEF conversion is FastStone Image Viewer.


Method 3: XnConvert

But the XnConvert program is designed directly for conversion, although it also provides editor functions.


Method 4: Light Image Resizer

The Light Image Resizer program can also be an acceptable solution for converting NEF to JPG.


Method 5: Ashampoo Photo Converter

Finally, let’s look at another popular program for converting photos – Ashampoo Photo Converter.

NEF is a type of RAW format that is taken directly from the camera sensor and is the original image that the camera receives.

NEF cannot be viewed using applications common to most users and will require the use of special programs to open it.

Picasa, XnView, Faststone Image Viewer programs work with NEF images. These applications allow you not only to view the image from the camera, but also to transform the raw document. The photo can also be opened in Photoshop. Download any of the above programs to your computer from the official website of their developer and install, following the instructions on the screen.

You can also install Nikon View, which will allow you to read a photo with this extension. Compared to Picasa and Faststone, this app from the developer certainly has more editing tools and NEF-derived shooting tools, but it's a paid program.

You can install Nikon View from the official Nikon website or using the disk that came with the camera.

After installing the program, double-click on the .nef file to perform the open operation. If the file launch fails, select fresh installed program manually from the proposed list of applications.

Changing and saving NEF to JPG

Wait for it to appear NEF file in the selected editor window. Using the tools of the selected program, edit the brightness, contrast and color parameters of the image. Once the editing operation is complete, go to the "Save As" option on the top bar of the application window to convert the document and save it on your hard drive.

In the new window, specify the options for saving the image file. For the “Name” field, enter a custom name for the photo. Click on the drop-down list in the “File type” field and select the extension .jpg or .bmp to save all the settings made in the image in a format that will open on any computer and mobile devices. Click on the “Save” button and wait until the saving procedure is completed.

To convert the format, you can use a special NEF to JPG converter. Go to the NEF to JPG website and then download and install the program. Launch the application and in its window specify the path to the NEF file on your computer. After that, click on the Convert button and wait until the operation is completed. Save the received document on your computer. Conversion complete.

Sources:

The .nef format is a specific format for photographs obtained using Nikon technology. You can open it with several professional photo editing programs and a number of others. free applications.

Many users of modern photographic equipment are faced with the need to open and convert specific formats in which photographs are saved. A striking example is modern Nikon cameras, as a result of which images are saved in the .nef format. This format allows for maximum quality pictures, which is the main reason for using it. However, ordinary users face significant problems, because after copying photos to a computer, they are unable to open and view them. Standard Applications and graphic editors simply do not support specified extension, so they can't open the images.

Using professional programs to open the .nef format

A common way to open and convert .nef images is to use professional graphic editors. They support all image extensions, including those formats that are created only by certain techniques. Files in this format are quite heavy, since the images retain maximum quality, but after opening in a professional editor, their size can be reduced during conversion. Most common paid program to open the .nef format is Adobe Photoshop. In addition, a special professional program called Nikon View is sometimes used. The disadvantage of these editors is their cost, since for the average user it means incurring constant additional costs, while the programs themselves are only needed by professional designers.

Using free programs

There are several free alternative options applications that allow you to open photos in .nef format. Please note that when using them, the ability to convert files is often limited. One of the simplest and most popular programs of this type is FastStone Image Viewer. It is characterized not only by guaranteed positive result, but also simplicity and ease of use. This program should be installed on own computer, and then place all the files that need to be opened in one folder. After this, just open the installed program, select “Open” from the “File” menu, and select all the images in the folder.





File extension .nef
File category
Example file (12.4 MiB)
Related programs Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom
digiKam
Paint Shop Pro
Picasa