Rendering monochrome RAW files in colour

[AndyKerr]

Hi. I'd be grateful for help with the following please... I prefer to set my Nikon cameras to monochrome when shooting in RAW. When in ingest the files into Photomechanic is there a setting that would show them in colour rather than monochrome please? Many thanks, Andy

[Mick O (Camera Bits)]

When shooting with some color preset, like monochrome, the camera saves the JPG preview using the same preset effect (the reason for this is that the JPG preview is used when reviewing images in camera.)   

So, when you do this with a monochrome preset, there is no quick way to see the full-color RAW photos without actually re-rendering those RAW files. If you download and install Adobe's DNG Converter, you can tell Photo Mechanic to use that program to render your RAWs. Be aware, it won't be terribly fast.  (This setting is under Preferences > Render Cache)

-Mick

[Mick O (Camera Bits)]

One other thing I forgot to mention.  If you are on macOS, you can set "Preview" as an external editor in: Preferences > Launching > Assign specific editing applications for each file type

If you set "Preview" under Custom editors at the end of the list, you can use this to view macOS' RAW render of an individual file. I just tested this with a RAW file with monochrome preview and macOS showed the full-color render. This might be useful if you want to spot-check a file here and there without getting slowed down by rendering all your RAWs. 

Hope this is helpful.

-Mick