Doug, this isn’t possible with Elements. You either have to use the Canon software or the Adobe CS raw file converter.
Elements 2 is based on PS7. Maybe a future Elements 3 might be based on CS and include a way to process RAW data. But I don’t expect such a feature from a marketing point of view.
Leen
Actually, it used to be possible w/ Elements until recently but it no longer is. Prior to the release of Photoshop CS, Adobe sold a downloadable plug-in for $98. It was the same plug-in used by Photoshop 7. When they released CS they pulled it off their website plus all of their partners’ websites as well, forcing Elements users to upgrade to their $650 Photoshop CS for raw file support.
One thing that helps – if you can do it – is to run your Canon raw file program on the fastest cpu you can. Decoding the raw format is very cpu intensive so twice as fast a cpu means twice as fast opening for each raw file.
Another thing that helps is to make a pass through your pictures in the Canon program and save as a TIFF file any picture you even think you want. That way you can peruse your interesting images in Elements and leave the non-interesting ones in raw format and go back to them later. That will keep you from having to wait for them to open again and again in the Canon program, which is probably as slow as my Minolta raw file viewer.
Finally, the ones you know you’re going to delete, delete them right away. Each one you keep takes that much more time to open.
Robert Ash
Another idea is to contact Canon and ask them to write an Adobe raw file plug-in of their own. Minolta and the other companies should be doing that, too. It’s not that hard for a photography company to creat a plug-in and all the camera mfrs ought to be doing that anyway.
At one time I used to have a couple of disks with the demo version of Photoshop 7 on them ……. they were give aways with magazines.
I knew I should have kept them.
Wendy
Yes. If you can find the acr1 plugin it can be made to work with Elements2. The Canon software is too slow to be useful, you might try C1 from Phase one, BreezeBrowser or the new PSP 9 which is in public beta and now includes a RAW converter for most major camera brands.
—
Have A Nice Day, 🙂
James Hutchinson
http://www.pbase.com/myeyesview http://www.myeyesviewstudio.com/ wrote in message
Does anyone know how to open RAW formats with Elements 2? Canon
includes the program with their cameras, but Elements seems unable to open this image format.
Minolta and the other companies should be doing that, too.
There’s a reasonably good third-party plug-in that supports the Minolta MRW format. It sells for the princely price of $20. I don’t use it, but those who do say it is quite good.
<
http://www.dalibor.cz/minolta/plugin.htm>
Note that even if you can find a legitamte copy of the ACR1 plugin it will only work with the cameras that were then available – it won’t work with newer cameras such as the 300D. The CS plug in has been updated at least twice to take into account new cameras. But even so because Canon etc refuse to release the full proprietary file info to Adobe, for some cameras it requires tweaking of the defaults to get consisitent results. Once tweaked it is good. C1 only works with DSLRs, not the compacts which shoot RAW (or I would be using it!). For a Mac user with a non-DSLR shooting RAW the options are very, very limited. (Breezebrowser is Windows only)
Sure it will. All you have to do is use a hex editor and make a few minor changes. Such as D60 to Rebel, etc.
—
Have A Nice Day, 🙂
James Hutchinson
http://www.pbase.com/myeyesview http://www.myeyesviewstudio.com/ wrote in message
only work with the cameras that were then available – it won’t work with newer cameras such as the 300D.
Hmmm. This is getting ugly. Susan makes a great point and that makes it even more unfortunate that the camera mfrs don’t make their own Photoshop plug-ins.
Can’t blame them for not wanting to share their proprietary info but then they should fill the gap themselves. Third-party products like BreezeBrowser which James mentions and the Dalibor plugin which Stu mentions have to reverse-engineer the raw file formats and they have only partial information so they can get close but not quite there (at least not with my setup). BreezeBrowser didn’t work as well for me as moving my Minolta Dimage Viewer environment from a 1.4GHz to a 2.8GHz cpu. That made the Dimage Viewer fast enough to be tolerable, though it’s still very slow to go through hundreds of shots after an active day or two of shooting.
In addition, BreezeBrowser never got the color quite right even on my calibrated monitor.
James has superb color management so it would be great to learn how he does it. Would also be great if Leen weighed in on that topic as well…
In the mean time in the near future I’ll probably try as well the plug-in Stu recommends and let everyone know how it goes if this thread is still active. Thankfully Minolta’s view is (barely) bearable so for me it’s not disaster if alternatives don’t work.
Robert Ash
James -I’ve never tried a hex editor and I’m not sure that I’d know where to start!… I know that this approach worked on some cameras from the same brand where the sensors and RAW files were sufficiently similar – I’m not sure it would work on one where for example the pixel dimensions were very different (the new 8mpixel cameras for example). There are enough grumbles in the Adobe RAW forum for those waiting for an update that will allow the Canon S60 RAW files to work, to make me think that it might not be quite that simple!
I agree with Robert – if the camera manufacturers are not going to be actively marketing a software product that allows their excellent cameras to be used fully, (and apart from Nikon I don’t think any of them actually try to sell a better software solution to RAW processing) then surely it is in their interest to have the cameras as usable as possible and make the RAW formats as open as possible. It would be a selling point I would have thought – "we provide a RAW workflow solution that will function quickly and efficiently and interface with photoediting software (including the one we bundle in the box with the camera)" sounds very convincing to me.
My colour mangement – as far as getting what I see from the camera to screen goes – works pretty well but I had to go to CS to get it to work with RAW files.
Robert, I’ve used Dalibor’s plug-in and it works very well with PE, much better, IMHO, than DIVU, although I do prefer the latest version of ACR over either one.
The biggest drawback with Dalibor was that it didn’t respect file rotation, but I believe the new windows version has overcome that.
"Would also be great if Leen weighed in on that topic as well… "
Most of my wedding work is shot as JPEG; just only the images I know that might be printed larger than 8×12 are shot in RAW. A typical wedding takes me about 300 shots of which I use about 80. The images describing what has happened are all shot in JPEG fine as this takes less time and card space. The more or less "creative" ones, expressing beauty and love, I usually do in RAW.
That’s the main reason why I bought CS.
Leen
Susan, I have a question for you about RAW from canons using the digic processor. I borrowed an s60 to try it out and I was pretty appalled at the quality of the raw files I got from it, even with camera settings turned down to neutral–they were very over-saturated and I couldn’t seem to settle them down to a realistic level with the few sofftware choices I had available, at least not without mucking up something else.
Is that typical of RAW from the non-DSLR Canons or is it just unique to that model? Since it’s new I could believe that software hasn’t been properly updated for it yet, but it was very disconcerting–quite eliminated any advantage to shooting RAW.
According to Michael Reichmann at Lumninous Landscape, Canon does indeed process its RAW files.
Barbara,
Thanks. Sounds interesting. Does the plugin support the new 8MP formats?
Leen,
Thanks. What you’re saying makes sense. My Minolta Dimage A2 default jpegs looked fantastic and would blow up just fine, I think, I just changed my default to RAW because my shoots tend to be non-predictable. I get 162 shots on a 2GB storage medium and carry 2 x 512MB backups plus a laptop in the car/hotel/etc. so that works ok for my shoots so far. The only thing about jpegs is that you need to save them as tiff images before working on them or else they’ll degrade in quality every time you save your work.
Raw is great, though because it takes 1/4 the space that tiff does, it’s just slower until cpus speed up more.
Questions:
1) if you own CS then what do you use Elements for?
2) what is your end to end, camera to print color management setup? do you get the colors printed that you see on your monitor?
Robert
Robert, yes, Dalibor works with the A2 also. ACR works, but you need the very latest version for decent results from the A2. Was your question about workflow for both of us or just for Leen?
Personally, unless I particularly need something that’s only available in CS, I just prefer the PE interface. I have CS because I need it for commercially printed CMYK work, and the RAW converter is nice, but there’s a lot of stuff in CS that I personally don’t need at all, too. On the whole I prefer to use the simplest tool that will get the job done well, and for me PE fits that most of the time if I’m doing something that I’m going to print myself.
I’m on a mac, so my workflow will be different from Leen’s, but I use a reader, drag the folder with the images in it to the desktop, burn it to cd for backup, then in the original copy I delete the .thm files, rename the folder so I know what’s in it and move it to the external drive where I store the working copies of images. I use the file browser to locate the ones I want to work on, assign keywords if needed (in CS), and delete the duds.
If I’m using PE I use the .MRW plug-in to open the raw files, or ACR if I’m working in CS. If I’m lucky that’s all the correction the image needs. If I’m not, I’ll open it up in PE/CS depending on what’s needed and tweak some more.
I have an imac and a canon i9100, a combination which gives very accurate color. I set PE/CS to no color management or Adobe RGB, colorsync (it’s a mac thing) to my monitor profile, and choose the settings for paper/quality in the print driver, and ‘bubblejet standard’ for color there. I mostly use ‘same as source’ in print preview if I’m using "no color management" and the monitor profile if I’m using Adobe RGB.
FWIW, I prefer .psd to tiff when saving a jpg for editing, but either works equally well.
Barbara – I presume with the s60 you were using the Canon software to process the RAW files as ACR doesn’t support it yet? I find with the Canon RAW processor on my G3 files not only is slow and inflexible, it produces tiff files that look just like the DIGIC processed jpegs – punchy contrasty, rather over saturated, particularly greens, and there isn’t enough control to do anything about it (the Canon G3 RAW converter just allows you three options for contrast, three for sharpness and three for saturation plus the standard range of white balance – no control over exposure etc at all – some of the higher end and newer cameras have more options. Why they crippled it like this I don’t understand) . Unless you have access to a better RAW converter there is no reason to use RAW at all unless you mess up white balance regularly… which is why I shot jpeg until a couple of months ago when I got CS. The ACR conversion gives much softer (both sharpness and colour wise) less contrasty images.
Robert – I actually very rarely use Elements now – I use CS 95 per cent of the time. I run Elements in OS9 or Classic (I’m on a Mac too!) every now and then to run legacy plugins that won’t wotk in OSX (CS is OSX only). I get a fairly precise colour match sending edited images out to a lab (with the odd exceptions – I had a couple of images in my last batch where a particular blue just died completely – it must have been out of gamut for the printer used). As it’s an unprofiled Fuji Frontier which assumes sRGB I use that colour space as my working space -also that way things look better on the web and on screen in non-colour managed apps like iphoto -and all my old jpeg shots are sRGB or something close to it too.
If I get the better printer I would like to have which (like Barbara’s) can take advantage of the wider gamut of AdobeRGB I’d probably switch to that as my working space for images I plan to print myself – the nice thing about PS is that it is easy to switch between working spaces if you are careful about what you are doing and tag the images with the correct profile to start with. My own printer is average – I don’t have profiles for the different papers (it’s a low end Epson and the canned profile only provides one standard profile) and it does better on some papers than others – it’s reasonable on Epson matte, but not so good on the glossy.
Hi, Susan. Thanks, that’s about what I was thinking about the Canon converter–it does seem kind of pointless. I love the raw files from my A1 because there are two good options for converting them and both offer many options for tweaking, but the s60 was a bit of a disappointment. It was almost as noisy as my A1, too, which surprised me, given how smooth the images from my s400 are–I wouldn’t have thought that one MP could make such a difference.
Barbara – even with my 4MP G3 I’m a big fan of noise reduction software! (I use Noise Ninja on the Mac where necessary). The 5mp plus small sensor cameras all have more noise than I like. That’s the main reason I plan for my next camera to be a DSLR.
Robert, I use Elements for some tools I prefer over CS, like the selection brush. Moreover, often PSE works faster on my pc than CS.
My workflow? Uploading images to the pc, burning these original files to cd, selecting the ones I like to use and convert these images to TIFF. Working on the TIFF images, resizing and saving to a "to be printed" folder.
Printing, checking which images didnot come out the way I expected and adjusting the files, reprinting these, removing the files like they came from the camera and the "to be printed" folders and saving the basic files to cd (portraits etc.) or dvd (weddings). Often I try to combine files together on a cd.
Finally I store these cd or dvd into my archives in a way it can be retraced easely.
Archiving: each portrait session has a unique number, based on the year and the following order. My first session this year has been 04.001, next 04.002 and so on.
Right after the session use a booklet and write down the date, the session#, the name and the postal code. This is to prevent mixing up people with the same name. Before delivering prints to the customer I write the # of the image on the back of the print with archival ink, like 04.126/045. If they want reprints at a later date, they have to tell me either this number or the date and I will always be able to find it pretty quickly.
Leen
imo, most often times it’s the user and not the camera. I happen to know someone who bought a digital camera that has numerous optional settings….but he keeps it on ‘auto’ mode. I told him he may has well have bought a point n shoot if he was not going to use the other settings. He said he didn’t care either way. So, it’s the user in this case….a clueless one.
Jodi, I resemble that remark. 😉
Believe me, with canon digis with the digic processor, you’ve got sat. to the max whether you want it or not, no matter how much you try to neutralize the settings. (SLRs are a whole ‘nother story.)
Just for fun I’ve tried to see how much I have to pump the settings on my minolta files to equal the baseline setting for my s400. I have to set saturation up +14 to get into the ballpark, and that’s with the neutral filter on in the canon.
Stu
"According to Michael Reichmann at Luminous Landscape, Canon does indeed process its RAW files."
I happened to be talking to a few of my Canon friends last night and mentioned this to them. Needless to say they were very interested in all of this. I have been trying to hunt down this information but Luminous Landscape is so large… could you send me to a link about this so I can pass it on.
Grant
The quote from Reichmann:
"Minolta is trying to provide you with as virgin a file as possible, and it’s then up to you to make the most of this. I much prefer this approach to the one taken by Canon, which has admitted that it even sharpens RAW files in-camera. Mother, please! I’d rather do it myself." [Italics in original]
It’s at:
<
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/cameras/minolta-a2 -location.shtml>
Stu
Thanks, it is now officially passed on.
Grant
"I happened to be talking to a few of my Canon friends last night"
Grant, isn’t that high treason?
Or: if you cannot beat them, join them?
😉
Leen
wrote in message
: "I happened to be talking to a few of my Canon friends last night" :
: Grant, isn’t that high treason?
: Or: if you cannot beat them, join them?
: 😉
:
: Leen
Leen
I would suspect you would have to ask them as the foolish people are seeking advice from a Nikon owner.
Grant
Grant:
When opening Canon RAW files in the free, distributed utility for the Digital Rebel (FVU or File Viewer Utility), one can change contrast, saturation and the like up or down.
I downloaded the free Canon EVU (EOS Viewer Utility), which seems like an update to FVU. When you open a picture in EVU, the settings are already at MID-HIGH for a number of parameters. You have to step ‘back’ to STANDARD.
I have never changed the standard ‘in-camera’ parameters because I read somewhere that they were ignored with RAW. But perhaps not! (Or maybe I just got it all mixed up). Anyway, while it might not mean anything, EVU gives you more settings to REDUCE than to INCREASE things like contrast, saturation and sharpening. And that gives one the impression, at least, that there’s some out-of-box bumping going on.
John,
You are almost right, as far as I can tell.
RAW files are bit-for-bit copies of the CCD (the chip containing the photo image). All color modifications and color space mappings are overlaid by software — either internal in the camera body, or by external software such as the camera manufacturers’ viewers, Elements2, 3rd party plug-ins, etc. The raw file is saved along with accompanying color space mapping information that tells the software how to adjust those raw bits for display.
However, in-camera settings that make sense (especially as defaults) are worth making because when the software sees the saved accompanying information it can adjust automatically instead of manually. Also, some adjustments must be made in the camera internal software and cannot be made by external software. But the raw bits that make the core raw file never actually change (they are determined by lighting/exposure, focus, aperture, shutter speed and camera/subject motion at the moment of exposure just as they are with a film camera).
Hope that helps. Comments/clarifications/corrections welcome.
Robert Ash
That explanation makes sense to me, Robert. Thanks.
Oh, oh, pick me … this is where I really get a chance to be a digithead.
All chip data is processed before we get what we call raw. Processed don’t mean adjusted. The light is captured, the signal then goes through an Electron Voltage Converter (QV), next it is passed through an Amplified, then on to an Analogue to Digital Converter (ADC) It is then place into a matrix that is the "RAW" data, A meta file is added ( A file header if you will) and this is where camera setting are stored and the combination of both collections of data is what is called a RAW file.
CCD and CMOS do the processing slightly different hence the big fight over which one is better. CCD gathers the data then processes it . CMOS processed the QV and Amplification on the chip then runs it through a column and row bus before performs the ADC. The final results in both cases is a matrix.
If you elect to save as TIFF the Raw data is passed through a Bayer interpolation algorithm, then all the stuff like colour balance sharpening and what not is applied and out comes a TIFF. If you Decide to save as JPEG then instead of a TIFF file being created a jpeg compression is performed.
Grant
Oh, oh, pick me …
Very good, grasshopper 🙂 You have snatched the pebble out of teacher’s hand…. And if anyone understands what I just said, it means you’re too old.
If anyone didn’t understand 100% of Grant’s advanced electronics lecture, he just explained at a PhD level:
1) how raw image files are fixed by the time they’re copied to long-term media (Lexar chips, microdisks, etc.).
2) why making certain in-camera adjustments makes sense and why those adjustments sometimes cannot be made by external software
Very enlightening.
Only addition I’d make is to advise anyone never, never to work on an original copy as a jpeg. Save the raw (or even jpeg) image as a TIFF first, then work on the TIFF file then save a jpeg copy of the TIFF file.
The reason is that all jpeg is compressed, even the finest quality settings. That wouldn’t be a problem except that jpeg uses lossy compression, which means you lose pixel detail information each time you compress. More compression = more pixel detail loss.
So even though compression is only 10% or so at the finest quality setting, if you’re working on the jpeg doing color adjustments, etc. then every time you save the image it recompresses so you lose 10% in the quality of what you had last time you saved. Doesn’t take long before it’s hopelessly and irrecoverably degraded.
TIFF images, on the other hand, lose no detail even when they’re saved over and over. That’s one reason they take up much more space.
So if you need to work on the image and want a jpeg as your final copy then save it as a TIFF, work on it, then save a jpeg copy with all the adjustments you want.
Professor Grant, please feel free to weigh in again if you’d like.
Cheers,
Robert
Very good, grasshopper You have snatched the pebble out of teacher’s hand…. And if anyone understands what I just said, it means you’re too old.
Raises hand. I guess that means it’s time for the long, lonely walk out of town.
Oh please, it aint that old..even I remember that ! 😉
Remember when the characters from such shows as Kung Fu, Then Came Bronson, and even The Mod Squad seemed so very cool? All the girls at my school wanted to look like Peggy Lipton, and the guys wanted to be ‘Kwai Chang Caine’. Oops, gone bit off topic, now…
Warning! Warning! Don’t get the ‘boomers reminiscing! 🙂
hey Canadians ! Anyone remember ‘ Ultraman ‘ ?
oh, come on now. this is going too far. next Jodi will be asking if any Americans remember Ultraman, which will date us all of us who say ‘yes’ back to the 18th century, or at least the late ’60s. this is getting embarrassing…..
Robert, so you do remember 😉
Jodi 1 : Robert 0
Robert now you are learning why most of us will not cross swords with Jodi! 🙂
Grant
Jodi,
Ultraman is still on BBCA<g> at times, anyway. You gotta love him and his buddies<g>.
Bob
"ultraman"??? Good grief, am I THAT old? Or have I just never watched enough TV? I don’t have a clue who/what you guys are talking about, even after looking at Jodi’s link.
Beth
Slide on over in your rocker and let another old coot sit down as I have no idea who Ultraman is either.
Grant
relax, it was just a silly show that started in the 60’s. While I was eating my campbells soup and crackers you guys were probably…..hmmmm, just what were you doing in the 60 ‘s ?
Anyways, PS, I rarely shoot in Raw, I’m not a pro, i don’t see the advantage. I get 9 pics in rAW mode from my 64MB card…ya think I’m going to bother with RAW when i’m happy with my JPEG’s ?? I have a great photo printer…that makes the difference !
Jodi
: …..hmmmm, just what were you doing in the 60 ‘s ?
The 60’s? Hay man if you can remember the 60’s you weren’t there.
: Anyways, PS, I rarely shoot in Raw,
But it would be very interesting to see you shoot in the raw.
Grant
Oh please, Grant, you were reading books and watching through the curtains 😉 ….you know you were 🙂
Raw ? Did you say Raw or raw >?
The 60’s?
It is the only time of my life I can remember just like it were yesterday. It was a time of never ending "amazing discoveries".
Bob Dylan
Leon Winter
Jimi Hendrix
Janis Joplin
Ravi Shankar
I could go on for hours…….
The first time I saw the Cuban national baseball team with short stop Armando Capiro…. I remember Sandy Koufax, John Rosbero, Withney Ford…
And I discovered something about women it seems I cannot quite remember any more… 😉
Leen
Jodi 1 : Robert 0
Robert now you are learning why most of us will not cross swords with Jodi!
Grant
Actually, I was agreeing with Jodi, not crossing swords…. guess you missed that one… Ok, grasshopper, back to the dojo for you 🙂 it’s 25 rice-paper walks by tomorrow morning hehehe
Jodi 1 : Robert 1 : Grant 0
Robert 🙂
Regarding the topic at hand, I pretty much shoot exclusively raw. I carry two 512MB Lexar chips and a 2GB microdisk, plus the 16MB and 64MB Lexars that came with my cameras.
The raw files for my 5MP Minolta Dimage 7HI are about 6MB each and generate 25MB TIFF files when I save them as TIFF. For my 8MP Dimage A2 the raw files are 9MB each when I shoot at full 8MP resolution and they generate 45MB TIFF files when I save them as TIFFs.
Shooting raw I get 52 5MP photos w/ the 7HI on a 512MB Lexar or 162 8MP photos with the A2 on the 2GB microdrive.
The Dimage A2 default jpeg photos are very, very good and would enlarge very well. I’ve been thinking about shooting more with them but haven’t done that yet.
Robert
Jodi
Go easy on your elders. After not quite 41 years a go I was roaming around Quebec but do remember having a great time … oh my … I wonder? … na …. but then again you are lippy enough to be mine.
Grant
: Jodi 1 : Robert 1 : Grant __??
Robert
Points given to yourself don’t count … unless you are a politician.
Grant
Good one….
Jodi 1 : Robert : TBD : Grant : 1
better?
I’m the new kid on the block. Just started digital shooting with a Sony 828. Picked it because I liked the full auto, semi-auto, and full manual capability. I’m an ex-35mm dude who wanted auto-focus to compensate for aging eyes.
This list is a great source of information for a newbie like me.
Just got a copy of Elements and am puzzling my way through it. I had some experience with LView 31 so I’m not a total novice.
Was saddened to learn that Elements won’t handle RAW files, but delighted to learn that I can get around that by shooting TIFF.
That said, I’ll be quiet now, read and learn.
Ciao,
Merlinius
LEGXF
Welcome aboard James ! Nice to have another new kid on the block ! Don’t be saddened…tiff is a great format to shoot in. Besides, who knows what the next version will bring 🙂
wrote in message
: who knows what the next version will bring 🙂
What there is another version of TIFF?
Grant
All,
Incidentally, I recently posted a request on the Feature Requests forum asking for raw file support to come back and have yet to see a response posted. It might be worthwhile for a number of us to start separate threads asking for it, as my one thread will get pushed down the stack soon enough.
James,
Welcome, indeed. Before shooting TIFF please consider that each photo will take up 5-10 MB depending on what megapixel count you’re shooting at. It’s way more space-effective to shoot raw, pull up the photos you like using the camera’s viewer software and save it as a TIFF. Minolta raw images take up 4x more space when you save them as TIFFs, so I just save as TIFFs the images I like the most.
However, it’ll be a bummer if I ever change camera manufacturers. Thankfully Minolta stays ahead of the game really well, hope that will continue.
Regards,
Robert
Because of the possibility of camerara manufacturers (or future versions of photoshop CS) no longer supporting the RAW files from my camera I’ve taken to archiving converted Tiffs to CD as well as the original RAW files and jpegs of the final edited images. That way I hope to improve the chances of being able to access the files in future years. Assuming the CDs survive that long of course…
Thanks to all for the advice and the welcome.
Most of my shooting these days is of my wife’s ballroom dance classes and when I shoot TIFF, the LONG save time precludes rapid action shots.
How would it be if I shot 5 to 8MP JPGs, then immediately converted them to TIFF after transferring them to the computer? I’ve a 512Mb card in the 818 and can store quite a few fat files.
Jim Merlini
Jim,
That’s exactly what I do w/ my 5MP and 8MP cameras — shoot raw, use the camera’s viewer software to peruse the photos, then save the ones I like as TIFFs.
Minolta raw files take up only 1/4 the space of TIFFs so it’s a reasonable balance. Takes too long to open up the raw files but as processor speeds increase hopefully it’ll get a little better unless raw file sizes increase faster.
Susan,
Make sure you keep your camera viewer software CD around as well. That way if it’s obsoleted for some reason you’ll still have a copy and can do mass conversions to TIFF at that point.
Robert
Thanks again for the help.
I’m still learning my way around DigiWorld. Pretty sure the Sony will convert from RAW to TIFF. If I get some time at work today I’ll experiment.
It was important to learn that JPGs deteriorate with each open and save. Now ALL important photos are TIFFed.
Ciao,
Merlini
James, no problem shooting JPEG and converting the files of the keepers to TIFF. I am doing that with a lot of my images.
The main exception is when I have to shoot in contrasty situations; On these occasions I have to shoot in RAW as I can compensate quite a lot with the RAW file converter by processing two TIFF images fom the RAW file, one for the light tones and one for the dark tones and combine in Photoshop. This gives me an extra 3 stops of exposure latitude.
Leen
Now that is an interesting idea — the two TIFF files. There’s a lot to learn about Elements and Photo Shop in general, I see.
Just experimented with the Sony and it apparently will not convert RAW images internally. At least nothing in the instruction book or the menues indicate it can be done. Guess I’ll keep hoping for an Elements’ plug-in update.
Jim Merlini
Leen,
That’s a great technique. Thanks.
James,
Again, that is another reason I shoot raw — because I’m still new to digital and I don’t know some of these things. But one thing I do know is that if I shoot raw then I preserve all photographic information captured during the shot. That way if I learn techniques later on like Leen is sharing I know I’ll have the right type of file available to take advantage of them (like Leen explained, you can’t do that technique of his if you shoot a JPEG original).
Given the current state of the technology every choice involves tradeoffs until the technologies improve. For me, right now I’d rather not think about when to shoot which format. Or remember that I’d better save this once-in-a-lifetime JPEG original shot as a TIFF before I start working on it and ruin it by saving over it again and again.
Thus raw files are a decent though not ideal compromise for me — bigger than JPEG but smaller than TIFF, plus they contain full photo information. I just buy larger media to get the number of shots I want (e.g. a 2 GB Lexar card or microdisk holds 162 raw 8MP photos).
But that makes it a LOT slower to process 1,000 pictures like Leen shoots sometimes (I can easily shoot several hundred photos in a day or two and opening lots of raw files really does slow down your workflow). And given the surprising quality of the JPEGs my new 8MP Minolta A2 produces JPEG might be a decent tradeoff for some work nowadays. Have to experiment more, I guess.
Robert
Just experimented with the Sony and it apparently will not convert RAW images internally.
What does that mean?
A previous post said:
"That’s exactly what I do w/ my 5MP and 8MP cameras — shoot raw, use the camera’s viewer software to peruse the photos, then save the ones I like as TIFFs.
Minolta raw files take up only 1/4 the space of TIFFs so it’s a reasonable balance. Takes too long to open up the raw files but as processor speeds increase hopefully it’ll get a little better unless raw file sizes increase faster. "
My brain interpreted that to mean that the RAW files could be converted to TIFF in-camera. Possibly I misunderstood. I do that a lot. 😉
Merlini
I just only sometimes shoot 1000 images a week, but that is an exception. This week I have to cover 2 weddings (about 250 shots each), a few portraits (about 200 shots) and reportage about the reconstruction of some historic ships (100 shots), so all together about 800 shots of which I will use probably 250 images. But I am glad this is quite exceptional as I will have to adjust all these 250 images and this will probably take me another week. Next week two weddings again, so you will probably understand my absention in the "Challenges".
If business stays this way I will soon be able to retire… 😉
My average is probably about 500 shots weekly. Just imagine how much going digital saves me yearly on film and film processing!
Leen
Leen
Back when I shot a lot (but — with one exception — never as many as Leen) and had a much more practiced eye and hand, my "wedding present" to a friend getting married was to buy and shoot five or six rolls of 35mm color print film. The friend paid for the processing.
I always stalked the edges of the event looking for candids, using 120mm and slightly longer lenses. The newlyweds were invariably delighted with the results. On my last "shoot" I remember climbing up on a rickety chair and shooting over a crumbling stone wall (it was outdoors) to catch the bride and groom over the pastor’s shoulder. God’s own Reflectosol(TM)(sic) (medium thick overcast) softened the shadows perfectly.
The downside was that I never saw the finished prints. They got shuffled in with hundreds of others shot by family and friends. My personal quirk is that I don’t get a sense of completion until I see the finished product. The participants may say the pix are "wonderful", but their interpretation of "wonderful" and my own are poles apart.
What’s that old "Rule of 72"? Out of 72 frames you might get four real photographs.
Jim Merlini
My brain interpreted that to mean that the RAW files could be converted to TIFF in-camera.
Jim, the Minolta Ax cameras let you choose between shooting JPEG, TIFF, or RAW. Those TIFFs are gigantic!
Jim,
By shooting raw and converting to TIFF, I meant the viewer software installed on your computer can convert the images to TIFF after you transfer the images to your machine. Can’t do it in the camera and if you could you’d eat up all your card space fast. With some models you can switch from JPEG to TIFF to RAW as often as you like until you fill the card.
What’s that old "Rule of 72"? Out of 72 frames you might get four real photographs.
Depends on your skill, working style and subject matter. That had better not be the case if you’re shooting large format, gets really expensive that way 🙂 But with moving subjects that could be the case.
Actually, sometimes I get "in the zone" and it seems like I can’t shoot a bad picture even in a day-long outing. Other times I can return without a single shot I like. It’s usually somewhere in between. Depends on the subjects I’m shooting, the shooting conditions and also the intent of the photos.
I feel your pain re: the undeveloped film, though. I right now have 30+ rolls of undeveloped film in my refrigerator, some from 5+ years ago.
Robert
Leen,
I couldn’t agree more regarding cost savings. That’s literally money in the bank, lots and lots of it. During the Montreux Jazz Festival last month I shot 150-200 photos per night. I’d fill up my 2GB microdisk then upload to my laptop each night (I carry it with me on important shoots), delete the pics from the microdisk and do it again the next day. It’s so great.
Best to your business was well. Hope you can retire early and meet my wife and me at Montreux someday.
Robert
Robert,
Thanks for the clarification. Here I was thinking I had a hidden feature on the machine. 😉
All,
The Sony shoots RAW, TIFF, Voice, e-mail, and "normal", which is JPG. "Voice" is a few seconds of voice-over-still-photo. Mixed formats on the card are allowed. It also has what I call "mo-pic" mode: video that will play back through the Windows Media Player. Only used it twice and can’t recall how many minutes will fit on the card.
Barbara is right: those TIFF files are monumental. Think I can get around 100 on the 512 card. I shot a TIFF of the Confederate Memorial on the capitol grounds and sent it to a friend. I think it took about 15 to 20 seconds to send it through the DSL link. If "felt like" it took that long for the camera to process the image and store it.
Robert,
I think the last time — maybe the only time — I "got in the zone" was shooting a friend’s wedding reception about 25 years ago using an ancient Pentax Spotmatic and a nice strobe. One bad frame out of four 36 exposure rolls — and that due to a defective synch cord. Some days you get chicken; most days you get feathers — at least in my case. 🙂
Merlini
DS,
Sounds interesting. Anything useful in it for Elements users who don’t have the raw plug-in? Adobe stopped supplying the plug-in as soon as CS went production.
Jim,
Some days you get chicken; most days you get feathers — at least in my case.
I know the feeling sometimes. But I do love the chicken days, I’ll say that for sure!
Robert
Robert,
I’m not very far into it, but it does appear to be very specific to the Camera RAW plug-in for Photoshop CS. I’ll try to mention it here if I run across something that may be useful for Elements users.
The CS RAW converter isn’t just useful.
IT IS HEAVEN!!!!!!!!!!!
😉
Leen
Leen,
How fast can CS display the files? The Dimage viewer takes 10+ seconds to display each photo even on a 3 GHz cpu computer. Is CS faster at opening the raw files than your camera manufacturer’s viewer software?
"JesusIsGod" posted:
"…
Sounds interesting. Anything useful in it for Elements users who don’t have the raw plug-in? Adobe stopped supplying the plug-in as soon as CS went production. …."
I noticed earlier this afternoon that IrfanView has a Canon RAW download on their ‘PlugIns’ page … see
http://irfanview.tuwien.ac.at/ and click on Plugins (it’s a frame-based site).
A direct URL for their download would be
http://irfanview.tuwien.ac.at/plugins/canon_crw.zip Worst case would be downloading the Canon RAW files into IrfanView … and saving them (in IV) as something like a TIFF file.
wrote in message
DS,
Sounds interesting. Anything useful in it for Elements users who don’t have the raw
plug-in? Adobe stopped supplying the plug-in as soon as CS went production.
Jim,
Some days you get chicken; most days you get feathers — at least in my case.
I know the feeling sometimes. But I do love the chicken days, I’ll say that for sure!
Robert
How fast can CS display the files?
In maybe 20% of the time as DiMage Viewer; I haven’t timed them, but that’s pretty close, I think.
The UI also makes DiMage Viewer look sick.
I agree with Leen. The Adobe Camera RAW converter is worth the price of CS if you shoot a lot of RAW.
stu, leen,
oh, great. now i have to start begging my wife for money again 😉 thankfully she’s my #1 supporter!
incidentally, i started a thread on ‘are you successful at color management? if so, what’s your solution.’
would you mind taking a few minutes there to share your product stack and a few pertinent hints to get your printer to print the same colors your monitor displays? my product stack is in the question itself, any feedback would be much appreciated.
thanks,
robert
