The NEF format gets its name from the abbreviation Nikon Electronic Format. Files with this extension contain unprocessed RAW images, which are obtained in the process of photographing with Nikon. Photos in this format can be opened both in a specialized program from the manufacturer and in some third-party applications.
Format Opening Applications
NEF is a variation of the RAW format that is taken directly from the camera sensor and is the original image that the camera receives.
NEF cannot be viewed with the usual applications for most users and will need to use special programs to open it.
Picasa, XnView, Faststone Image Viewer work with NEF images. These applications allow not only viewing the image from the camera, but also transforming 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 and NEF-derived tools, but it is a paid program.
You can install Nikon View from Nikon's official website or using the disc 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 the freshly installed program manually from the list of applications provided.
Modifying and saving NEF to JPG
Wait for the NEF file to appear in the window of the selected editor. Using the tools of the selected program, edit the parameters of brightness, contrast and color of the image. After completing the editing operation, go to the "Save As" option at the top of the application window to convert the document and save it to your hard drive.
In the new window, specify the options for saving the image file. For the "Name" field, specify an arbitrary name for the photo. Click on the drop-down list in the "File type" field and select the extension.jpg
To convert the format, you can use the special NEF to.jpg
