For about the past year I've been using a Nikon D50 camera to shoot RAW photos and then have been editing them in Photoshop Elements with a plug-in that will allow RAW import in the NEF file format. It's been doing a reasonably good job, but the controls are somewhat limited.

Recently I learned about a free RAW editor that was created by a Hungarian named Gábor Horváth. It is still a little bit rough around the edges, but overall works extremely well and offers plenty of control. For example, It has tools like two-channel color boost (saturation) and color shift abilities, and good sharpening algorithms, which I use on all photographs as well as multiple adjustments to remove noise from photographs that were taken at high ISO values.

I've also tried to adjusting a few CRW files that I had taken with my old Canon Rebel with no problems.  Supposedly it handles several other formats, but I don't have any way to test that.

Using software like this can cover a multitude of issues, both camera related and operator errors, that make those field trips less than successful when shooting background photos or acquiring bitmaps. I don't believe that I have ever taken a photograph that hasn't been greatly improved with just minor adjustments, usually to contrast and saturation.

You can download the file at http://www.rawtherapee.com/ .

I've been using it for several months and it seems to play well with the other software on my machine and I haven't noticed any significant bugs.  It is new software, however, and developed and written only by one person, so you may want to try it on your personal machine before you take it into the corporate environment.