I cannot print pictures taken in nef format. Can

You can use the Nikon View program that should have been included with the camera. or you download the current versions of Nikon ViewNX or Nikon Capture available free at Nikon Imaging Products Software

Open the "Shooting Menu" by pressing the Menu button. Press the right Multi-selector and then scroll up or down to "Image Quality". Press the right Multi-selector and you will see the various choices for JPEG and NEF combinations and quality, make your selection by scrolling up or down and pressing "OK".
As for converting you NEF photos to JPEG; you can easily do that in one of several ways on your computer. If you are using Lightroom or Photoshop, all you have to do is open your pictures, select "Save As" and use the pull-down menu to select JPEG and save. If you do not have that program, there are several conversion programs available on the Web; manu for free. I use a program called BatchConverter on my Mac. There are similar programs of PCs.

On my D-90, the camera is set by default to store two images of each picture I shoot...raw(NEF) and JPEG Fine.

The raw image contains far more data than the JPEG image and is therefore the best to use when you want to do extensive detailed editing.

The JPEG image is used when you only want to do minor editing before publishing or sharing the picture.

JPEG images deteriorate quickly when subjected to editing while RAW or NEF images can handle many more editing steps before losing quality.

If you're shooting snapshots, you probably don't really care about extensive editing and you can save a lot of space on your memory card by changing your menu settings to store only one image of each shot.


To do that, go to the wrench icon in the menu then scroll to image quality. Click on "image Quality" and you will find multiple lines to set the camera to your preference. Choose the one you want.

I use GIMP 2, a free open source editor that is very sophisticated.

I think I had to install an add-on so that it would read NEF files. Gimp converts all files that are edited in it to its own "xtg" file extensions. After I finish editing, I save the picture in the "xtg" file extension then I import it in "jpg" format to the same folder where the original NEF along with the XTG formats are stored. During the editing process, I usually scale the image if I plan to send it somewhere on the web.

I think a lot of other editors have a similar function, especially if the proper codecs are installed.


In addition, in the past I have used conversion programs to do the same thing but it's been a long time. Do a web search for NEF converters and you may come up with a free program or two that will allow you to make the conversion without editing the picture.

There are several ways to open NEF files.

With the appropriate codec, Windows can open NEF files for viewing:
http://support.nikontech.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/13869

Recent versions of Adobe Camera RAW can open NEF files and allow you to work with them in Photoshop and Photoshop Elements (this is not free software):
http://www.adobe.com

The free Nikon ViewNX2 can open NEF files and convert them to JPEG. Nikon CaptureNX2 allows you to work with the NEF files directly, though this is also not free software:
http://support.nikontech.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/61

Not sure I see a question as printed but I will assume you'd like some info on NEF versus JPG files. Simply put, if you're shooting simple pictures and just want to download, email, etc. then JPG will be fine. NEF produces an electronic equivalent negative meant to simulate a film negative. This gives you latitude to touch up the negative before printing and provides the most adjustment range and options. Many programs cannot use the NEF format so it will mean deciding how you want to save the pictures. Of course, they take up more file space as NEF - 10-12 MB instead of 6MB or so for big JPG files. I shoot all my pictures in NEF then convert them to JPG for normal use and printing. I burn the NEF to a CD or DVD for archive and future needs. All that takes up more space of course.

The D3000 can store still images in two different formats. JPEG is a standard format, recognized by just about every image viewer and image manipulation program in the world. RAW is actually NEF (Nikon Electronic Format), a Nikon-proprietary format which incorporates almost all of the data captured by the sensor, without the processing of JPEG. JPEG files have the color balance, sharpening, contrast, and all the other camera settings done on the picture. With RAW files, you can change any or all of them and produce new JPEGs. In this respect the RAW file is similar to the original negative you get from processed film, while the JPEG file is like the final print. RAW files need special software for viewing and editing.

All JPEG files are compressed to save space. FINE, NORM, and BASIC represent different levels of compression. FINE does the least compression and takes up the most space, BASIC does the most compression and takes up the least space. Compression always loses some quality, so in general the less the compression the better the quality.

RAW+B simply stores each of your pictures as a RAW file and a BASIC JPEG file.

Having said all that, you should use only RAW or FINE settings. You didn't buy a SLR only to throw away picture quality, did you?

you have change the image quality to "NEF-(RAW) + JPEG basic"
on your camera so it will not be recognized by some programs so change this go to menu on your camera then shooting menu and go down to image quality and change it to something like "JPEG normal" but your other images will be bad quality if you try and blow them up because they are designed for E-Mail and other things

You can use Adobe Photoshop to edit the files in the nikon format or if you just want to view them you could use a .nef to .jpeg converter. I found one that will convert a batch of .nef files to .jpeg by just dragging and dropping them. You can find that here: http://www.reasoft.com/rea-nef-convert.shtml

A file in NEF format (Nikon Electronic format) is data flow from the photosensitive matrix of your camera written without any processing.

NEF contains more information than JPEG or TIFF and is often called digital negative. That's why professional photographers usually prefer NEF to other formats. Besides, many owners of photo cameras store their photo collections in NEF format. This ensures maximal quality of stored photos and lowest possible losses.


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