PM 4 says Nikon Scan 4 NEFs are "Unsupported Formate Vairant"

[Khatsalano]

When PM 4.6.1 looks at a folder of NEFs created by Nikon Scan 4, all the thumbs are flagged as "unsupported format variant'.  If I open one of the NEFs in Nikon Capture NX2 and save it as a NEF, PM happily displays the saved image thumb.

Why can't PM open Nikon Scan 4 images?

Doug

[Hayo Baan]

My guess is that the scanner does not embed a JPG for PM to show you and hence gives you the error. Saving the file in Nikon Capture does embed a JPG so that's why it shows in PM again.

To make sure the NEFs indeed do not have an embedded JPG, you could use e.g., exiftool to check for it.

Another possibility is that the NEF from the scanner is in a different format altogether (though I don't think so) and therefore is not directly supported by PM.

Cheers

[jimb]

Nikon Scan NEF files aren't really NEF files like RAW Nikon images are. For some silly reason, Nikon uses a NEF filetype when saving images generated by Nikon Scan software. If I remember correctly, you can also save them as TIF files which will allow the scanned images to work with other software.

[Hayo Baan]

Nikon Scan NEF files aren't really NEF files like RAW Nikon images are. For some silly reason, Nikon uses a NEF filetype when saving images generated by Nikon Scan software. If I remember correctly, you can also save them as TIF files which will allow the scanned images to work with other software.

If they are in fact (or at least look like) TIFF files, PM could perhaps be made to understand them out of the box.

Kirk, your thoughts on this one?

[Khatsalano]

The lack of an embedded JPG seems like a plausible reason for PM to object to the Nikon Scan NEFs.  It is not much of a problem to run them through a Capture NX2 batch function and fix the problem as far as PM is concerned.  I suspect there are more differences between the Nikon Scan NEFs and Capture NX2 NEFs since I can't adjust the exposure in NX2 even though the scanner was set to 12-bit depth.  When I get more time, I plan to explore this in a Nikon forum.

Thanks for all the suggestions.

Doug

[Kirk Baker]

Doug,

The lack of an embedded JPG seems like a plausible reason for PM to object to the Nikon Scan NEFs.  It is not much of a problem to run them through a Capture NX2 batch function and fix the problem as far as PM is concerned.  I suspect there are more differences between the Nikon Scan NEFs and Capture NX2 NEFs since I can't adjust the exposure in NX2 even though the scanner was set to 12-bit depth.  When I get more time, I plan to explore this in a Nikon forum.

Could you send us a sample file? Please click on my name to the left of this message, then click on the 'personal message' link.  I will respond with upload instructions.

Thanks,

-Kirk