help white balancing RAW images

[pascal32]

I have been using Capture NX2 to process RAW NEF files from my Nikon D3100. as great of a job as it does, the SW is using more resources on my laptop than it can handle The 60 day trial is out, and I'm reluctant to purchase solely because it is verrrrrrryyyyyy slow on my laptop (much more so than all the packages I tried)

The goal is to use a picture with a gray card in tank lighting to balance the image (using a dropper/selection of the gray card), and then apply to other images. In Capture NX2 I could copy and paste the settings.

I ventured off and downloaded quite a few packages to do this with:

view NX2 - unable to copy/paste the settings
lightroom - unable to balance my ReefBrite LEDs
DNG Profile Editor - unable to balance the ReefBrite LEDs
fastStone - very slick - don't believe it can color balance
IrFanView - have to adjust using sliders (which I;m apparently not very good at :rollface

and then I ended up with GIMP. added UFRaw which opens the NEF files and has a dropper to select color balance against the gray card :bounce3:

I adjust the picture and it opens in GIMP which is great.

unfortunately I can't find a way to save the white balance settings and typing in the numbers isn't working for me.

Can someone help me overcome this struggle? I have some awesome pictures I would like to color balance!

thanks!

some teaser pictures

 

[pascal32]

Played around some tonight. interesting results. I downloaded another trial of Capture NX2 and installed on another machine. Capture NX2 does a MUCH better job retaining details and presenting a sharper image than UFRaw. I had one picture which was slightly overexposed - with Capture NX2 the image was presentable, though with UFraw it was very washed out.

Seems that RAW image processing (at least for my Nikon 3100) is much better in NX2. I'm wondering if UFRaw doesn't deal with my 3100 well - when the camera was released it took Adobe a while before you could import RAW even though the 3000 wasn't an issue.

any thoughts from all the photo takers out there?

 

[Lego&Jacub]

Sorry, I'm absolutely no help, as I have no clue how to do PP. But I just wanted to chime in here that I just LUV the second photo! Colour is outstanding IMO.

Hope someone can help with your questions.
Sandra