PS, CS and Canon 5D RAW files

Douglas writes …

I use Photoshop CS … Last week I bought a Canon 5D DSLR camera and CS doesn’t want to read it’s RAW files … The instructions provided seem to refer to (Windows) folders not used or created by CS so I just put it in the plugins/file formats folder and get the message it won’t read the file type. …

I suspect I’ve got the wrong ACR but it’s the only one which I saw saying it supports 5D cameras. Can I get some advise here please?

Pretty sure you’ll need CS2 to run the RAW plugin update for the 5D … Adobe’s way of keeping you on the upgrade treadmill whether you need the other new features or not …

Try RawShooter Essentials or Premium, or Capture One for RAW conversions and you’ll likely not miss Adobe’s RAW converter, plus the upgrades for new cameras are less expensive.

Bill

Bill Hilton wrote:

Douglas writes …

I use Photoshop CS … Last week I bought a Canon 5D DSLR camera and CS doesn’t want to read it’s RAW files … The instructions provided seem to refer to (Windows) folders not used or created by CS so I just put it in the plugins/file formats folder and get the message it won’t read the file type. …

I suspect I’ve got the wrong ACR but it’s the only one which I saw saying it supports 5D cameras. Can I get some advise here please?

Pretty sure you’ll need CS2 to run the RAW plugin update for the 5D … Adobe’s way of keeping you on the upgrade treadmill whether you need the other new features or not …

Try RawShooter Essentials or Premium, or Capture One for RAW conversions and you’ll likely not miss Adobe’s RAW converter, plus the upgrades for new cameras are less expensive.

Bill

Thanks Bill,
I downloaded the latest DNG program and by converting the CRW files to digital negatives, I can use Adobe’s RAW converter as if it were on the file itself. But you are right about Rawshooter. I already have the Premier version but it isn’t quite what I want from Canon files. It’s OK with E300 and Nikon but it renders oddly with 5D files.

—
Douglas…

Bill Hilton wrote:
[snip]

Pretty sure you’ll need CS2 to run the RAW plugin update for the 5D … Adobe’s way of keeping you on the upgrade treadmill whether you need the other new features or not …

[snip]

So far, CS / ACR 2.4 supports DNGs derived from about 25 – 30 cameras and digital backs that were launched after ACR 2.4 was released. 3 cameras and 4 digital backs using DNG as their native raw format, the rest converted by the latest DNG Converter.

Whatever Adobe’s business model is, it doesn’t include forcing people to upgrade just because of new camera models.

—
Barry Pearson
http://www.barry.pearson.name/photography/
http://www.birdsandanimals.info/

Barry Pearson wrote:

Bill Hilton wrote:
[snip]

Pretty sure you’ll need CS2 to run the RAW plugin update for the 5D … Adobe’s way of keeping you on the upgrade treadmill whether you need the other new features or not …

[snip]

So far, CS / ACR 2.4 supports DNGs derived from about 25 – 30 cameras and digital backs that were launched after ACR 2.4 was released. 3 cameras and 4 digital backs using DNG as their native raw format, the rest converted by the latest DNG Converter.

Whatever Adobe’s business model is, it doesn’t include forcing people to upgrade just because of new camera models.

—
Barry Pearson
http://www.barry.pearson.name/photography/
http://www.birdsandanimals.info/

I get the idea subliminal pressure to upgrade is OK then, Barry? The extra step of forcing you to convert to DNG in order to use Photoshop CS with Canon 5D image files is a joke.

How hard would it be to patch ACR? Sorry to tell you this Barry but Adobe makes it’s money from selling software, not from providing free updates. I never had any issues with version 7 of Photoshop. It did all I wanted yet to obtain the RAW camera reader which they stopped selling when CS was introduced, I had to upgrade.

If your suggestion is to have any merit at all, then Adobe would still be selling the version 7 ACR add on. Companies like Adobe and Microsoft didn’t get to be the size they are for any other reason than they profiteer from exclusive products and force their customers to spend more because those products are either unreliable or inadequate. It’s the American business model, not Adobe’s alone.

—
Douglas…
Specifications are good to read but
When it comes to judging Digital Cameras…
I’m in the "how do the pictures look" category.

From Douglas wrote:
Barry Pearson wrote:

[snip]

So far, CS / ACR 2.4 supports DNGs derived from about 25 – 30 cameras and digital backs that were launched after ACR 2.4 was released. 3 cameras and 4 digital backs using DNG as their native raw format, the rest converted by the latest DNG Converter.

Whatever Adobe’s business model is, it doesn’t include forcing people to upgrade just because of new camera models.

[snip]

I get the idea subliminal pressure to upgrade is OK then, Barry? The extra step of forcing you to convert to DNG in order to use Photoshop CS with Canon 5D image files is a joke.

Why does it have to be an extra step? I use DNG totally, without an extra step. I use the DNG Converter as an "obtain images from memory card" utility, in place of (say) Windows Explorer. There are now other tools that you can use to download your raws as DNGs from the card, into folders based on EXIF data such as dates and times, etc.

How hard would it be to patch ACR? Sorry to tell you this Barry but Adobe makes it’s money from selling software, not from providing free updates. I never had any issues with version 7 of Photoshop. It did all I wanted yet to obtain the RAW camera reader which they stopped selling when CS was introduced, I had to upgrade.

DNG didn’t exist then. DNG began with CS / ACR 2.3. Things have now changed forever.

If your suggestion is to have any merit at all, then Adobe would still be selling the version 7 ACR add on. Companies like Adobe and Microsoft didn’t get to be the size they are for any other reason than they profiteer from exclusive products and force their customers to spend more because those products are either unreliable or inadequate. It’s the American business model, not Adobe’s alone.

Adobe would be utterly stupid to keep upgrading old versions. They would screw up many of their customers as well as themselves. (I’m speaking as someone who spent decades helping to design complex multi-vendor computer systems).

If you were happy with PS 7 when you bought it, why not continue with it? If you have extra requirements since you bought it, why expect free upgrades to it to satisfy your requirements? Spot Healing Brush? Vanishing Point? 16-bit adjustment layers? Red-eye tool? Smart Sharpen?

If you were happy with ACR 1.x when you bought it, why not continue with it? If you have extra requirements since you bought it, why expect free upgrades to it to satisfy your requirements? Lots more camera models? Curves? Crop? Align? Saving metadata within the raw file itself, (when using DNG)? Tuned Bayer demosaicing?

Where do you suggest the line should be drawn, between what you get for free, and what you have to pay for?

Adobe is trying to ensure that people stop having to buy upgrades to any software just because of new camera models. Isn’t that useful?

—
Barry Pearson
http://www.barry.pearson.name/photography/
http://www.birdsandanimals.info/

Barry Pearson wrote:

If you were happy with ACR 1.x when you bought it, why not continue with it? If you have extra requirements since you bought it, why expect free upgrades to it to satisfy your requirements?

Who’s talking about FREE upgrades? Adobe could offer a paid ACR 2.4 upgrade that only includes newer cameras, but not new functionality. That can’t be so hard. However, they don’t. I wonder why…

—
Johan W. Elzenga johan<<at>>johanfoto.nl Editor / Photographer http://www.johanfoto.nl/

Johan W. Elzenga wrote:

Barry Pearson wrote:

If you were happy with ACR 1.x when you bought it, why not continue with it? If you have extra requirements since you bought it, why expect free upgrades to it to satisfy your requirements?

Who’s talking about FREE upgrades? Adobe could offer a paid ACR 2.4 upgrade that only includes newer cameras, but not new functionality. That can’t be so hard. However, they don’t. I wonder why…

Because it would be a waste of resources, and risk destabilising mature products. They have provided a FREE route instead!

Let’s remember which company caused this problem. Canon!

They released a new camera that they knew would be incompatible with the workflow and tools of many of their customers. Perhaps they didn’t really care about those customers, as long as they could get money off them. Perhaps they cynically knew that 3rd party software companies would upgrade 50 or 100 products to support that new camera. And that it would be the software companies that would get any blame for it!

Canon have known the solution to this problem for about 2 years. It would be easy for them to have an option to output DNG. Some cameras output DNG, and their raws are immediately supported by ACR 2.4. The major camera manufacturers are part of this problem. Adobe is part of the solution.

This problem, of new cameras being launched that need software upgrades, resulting in delays and disruptions, will continue until the companies REALLY at fault change their ways. That may need users to recognise who is REALLY at fault, so that pressure can be brought to bear. But blaming the 3rd party software companies won’t solve this problem.

I guess that Nikon will do the same with the D200. And people will blame Adobe and the others, instead of Nikon!

—
Barry Pearson
http://www.barry.pearson.name/photography/
http://www.birdsandanimals.info/

Barry Pearson wrote:

This problem, of new cameras being launched that need software upgrades, resulting in delays and disruptions, will continue until the companies REALLY at fault change their ways. That may need users to recognise who is REALLY at fault, so that pressure can be brought to bear. But blaming the 3rd party software companies won’t solve this problem.

I guess that Nikon will do the same with the D200. And people will blame Adobe and the others, instead of Nikon!

—
Barry Pearson
http://www.barry.pearson.name/photography/
http://www.birdsandanimals.info/

Quite a bit off the mark here Barry.
Canon did release a new camera for sure but they kept the file type a CRW. Adobe are the culprit, the file type is essentially the same, just larger and it is the extra size ACR barks at, not a different file type.

—
Douglas…
Specifications are good to read but
When it comes to judging Digital Cameras…
I’m in the "how do the pictures look" category.

From Douglas wrote:
Barry Pearson wrote:

This problem, of new cameras being launched that need software upgrades, resulting in delays and disruptions, will continue until the companies REALLY at fault change their ways. That may need users to recognise who is REALLY at fault, so that pressure can be brought to bear. But blaming the 3rd party software companies won’t solve this problem.

I guess that Nikon will do the same with the D200. And people will blame Adobe and the others, instead of Nikon!

[snip]

Quite a bit off the mark here Barry.
Canon did release a new camera for sure but they kept the file type a CRW. Adobe are the culprit, the file type is essentially the same, just larger and it is the extra size ACR barks at, not a different file type.

Not true. There are various problems with a new camera, and the format of the file is just one of them. (Having a common extension such as "CR2" doesn’t guarantee that the file format is the same, of course. Think about "NEF"! And I believe that "CRW" and "CR2" are considerably
different. One is CIFF-based, the other is TIFF-based).

In fact, the main problem tends to be the need for camera calibration data. If you check the Adobe forums, you will see that one of the problems that Thomas Knoll faces is trying to get hold of new cameras so that the calibration tables needed to make sense of the sensor data can be built into the next version of ACR and the DNG Converter. Even if cameras appear to have similar raw formats, there is no guarantee that they have the same CFA responses.

Indeed, sometimes the specific camera used by Adobe to build the calibration data turns out not to be representative of the model. So later testing with different cameras of the same model sometimes causes Adobe to change the calibration for that model, in which case both versions will be available in future versions of ACR.

This problem with camera calibration data is similar for all the raw converters, (except perhaps those provided by the canera manufacturer). It is responsible for much of the delay of each of them when a new camera model comes out.

This is stupid on the part of the camera manufacturer. If they output DNG, either as their native raw format or as an option, they would have control of their own camera calibration, because the data is built into each DNG file. Indeed, they could provide both calibration data for the model, plus fine-tuning for any individual camera of that model, if they wanted to.

What do you mean by "the file type is essentially the same, just larger and it is the extra size ACR barks at"? ACR 2.4 can handle the sensor data from the 5D, of course. ACR 2.4 didn’t have to be changed, and can support raws from cameras and digital backs with far more pixels. What happened is that the latest DNG Converter left the sensor data the same as in the CR2, but added the calibration data. It was the latter that was the main problem.

It is a sign of the immaturity of the digital imaging industry that shoddy engineering techniques like routine reverse-engineering and calibration based on random instances is accepted without much outrage! It is silly that 3rd party product developers have to waste resources on such low-value activities, and that photographers have to upgrade software that they have been using successfully up to then.

The only contender for a solution to these problems is DNG. Fortunately, it is gaining increasing acceptance.
http://www.barry.pearson.name/articles/dng/products_y1.htm

—
Barry Pearson
http://www.barry.pearson.name/photography/
http://www.birdsandanimals.info/

Barry Pearson wrote:

[snip]

Quite a bit off the mark here Barry.
Canon did release a new camera for sure but they kept the file type a CRW. Adobe are the culprit, the file type is essentially the same, just larger and it is the extra size ACR barks at, not a different file type.

Not true. There are various problems with a new camera, and the format of the file is just one of them. (Having a common extension such as "CR2" doesn’t guarantee that the file format is the same, of course. Think about "NEF"! And I believe that "CRW" and "CR2" are considerably
different. One is CIFF-based, the other is TIFF-based).

In fact, the main problem tends to be the need for camera calibration data. If you check the Adobe forums, you will see that one of the problems that Thomas Knoll faces is trying to get hold of new cameras so that the calibration tables needed to make sense of the sensor data can be built into the next version of ACR and the DNG Converter. Even if cameras appear to have similar raw formats, there is no guarantee that they have the same CFA responses.

SNipped…

Your arguments all *seem* to make sense Barry. Were it not for other, less established developers of RAW data converters already being able to read 5D files withing days of the camera’s release, I might go along with your line of thought. I never had a problem with buying the Camera RAW plugin from Adobe to make my version 7 read camera files. I think their price was outrageous but none the less, was willing to pay for the convenience.

My solution now is to abandon Adobe altogether for RAW data development and use a specialty program called "RawShooter Premium" which runs in harmony with Photoshop, if not integrated into it. I get greater potential for error correction and it doesn’t lock up my PC for minutes at a time as it searched for TIFF files to display thumbs for. It doesn’t slow down my PC either, while it’s open. Quite a bonus, really because many of the functions I use Photoshop for are part of RawShooter.

Altogether this $100 program is half the price of the original ACR Adobe withdrew from sale the day they released an upgraded version of Photoshop and surprise, surprise… Supports just about every current camera standard with a promise of updates within days of new cameras being released.

Now if a single disgruntled developer, starting up on his own can get it right so fast and so completely, wouldn’t you have thought Adobe could? After all, the "file types" ability is a plugin, not rocket science. Having or removing it does not materially effect the functionality of Photoshop, as you earlier suggested.

—
Douglas…
Specifications are good to read but
When it comes to judging Digital Cameras…
I’m in the "how do the pictures look" category.

From Douglas wrote:
Barry Pearson wrote:

[snip]

Not true. There are various problems with a new camera, and the format of the file is just one of them. (Having a common extension such as "CR2" doesn’t guarantee that the file format is the same, of course. Think about "NEF"! And I believe that "CRW" and "CR2" are considerably
different. One is CIFF-based, the other is TIFF-based).

In fact, the main problem tends to be the need for camera calibration data. If you check the Adobe forums, you will see that one of the problems that Thomas Knoll faces is trying to get hold of new cameras so that the calibration tables needed to make sense of the sensor data can be built into the next version of ACR and the DNG Converter. Even if cameras appear to have similar raw formats, there is no guarantee that they have the same CFA responses.

SNipped…

Your arguments all *seem* to make sense Barry. Were it not for other, less established developers of RAW data converters already being able to read 5D files withing days of the camera’s release, I might go along with your line of thought.

[snip]

What I said is correct. Nothing you said contradicts it.

(I don’t know how long ACR took to support the 5D from when the camera was shipped. It was unofficially supported by ACR 3.2, released late September, which I believe was before Rawshooter Premium itself was released. So ACR 2.4 supported the 5D via the DNG route late September).

You might ponder the fact that Rawshooter (either version) supports DNG only for cameras it also supports via their native raw formats. Why? If the file format was all that mattered, it could support any camera via its DNG. But it uses the same camera calibration in both cases, and that has to be developed. ALL raw converters either build their own camera calibration data from a trial (or manufacturer’s knowledge) of the camera concerned, or read it from the DNG. Rawshooter can’t read it from the DNG. ACR does.

That is why ACR 2.4 can now support over 40 cameras and digital backs that were launched after ACR 2.4 was shipped, via the DNG route. (Well over 100 cameras in total). But Rawshooter can’t do the same, and needs an upgrade for new cameras. That is an indication of the power of DNG, when fully supported, to get off this treadmill of new cameras followed by new code and data in lots of software products.

I hope that eventually Rawshooter supports DNG fully, so that it will support a larger range of cameras. Perhaps you remember the delay of Rawshooter Essentials’ support for the Leica DMR digital back, even though its native raw format was DNG? Although RSE supported the DNG file format, RSE didn’t have calibration tables for the DMR back for a considerable time. (Does RSE support it yet? I know RSP does).

As I said, it is a sign of the immaturity of the digital imaging industry that shoddy engineering techniques like routine reverse-engineering and calibration based on random instances is accepted without much outrage! It is silly that 3rd party product developers have to waste resources on such low-value activities, and that photographers have to upgrade software that they have been using successfully up to then.

The only contender for a solution to these problems is DNG.

—
Barry Pearson
http://www.barry.pearson.name/photography/
http://www.birdsandanimals.info/