Help!! CRW files and windows 7 x64

[ednorm]

I have an old Canon eos rebel, the same as the 300d, the software that came with it does not load on windows 7 - 64 bit system, I can not even view crw files on the os either. I went to canon and they do not support 64 bit systems at all, what can I use to view these images? I have never dealt with raw before, I found an article here extolling the virtues of raw files and post processing and thought I would give it a try, do you actually edit in raw, or does it have to be converted to jpg. first and if so what is the benefit then. Any help would be appreciated as I am the most inexperienced person possible with this.

ed

[Henry Wilt]

There's lots of possibilities out there for editing RAW files, I use Lightroom 3 which is reasonably easy to learn. You can download a free 30 day trial at the moment so you will be able to judge for yourself.
The idea is to edit in RAW as there is more data to work from then if you need to convert to JPEG i.e. for sharing on the web etc.

Hope this helps.

[crockny]

I have the Canon EOS Rebel Xsi, Windows 7 64 bit, and Photoshop CS4 ... I download into Bridge and can open Raw files by double clicking, the same as jpegs ... then they need tweaking -- I've just started with RAW and don't know what I'm doing yet ... the idea is that you have control over the information captured by your camera instead of the camera doing things to the file automatically ...

[digirebelva]

What version of win 7 are you running, you might be able to run xp in the virtual mode to load the software
Try here for the raw codec, it should load under 64bit as a 32bit driver

EOS 300D DIGITAL

You dont actually edit a raw file, you make adjustments that are saved to whatever file type you saveas..the raw file remains unchanged like the old film negatives.

[kirbinster]

Virtual XP can be a live saver. I too am running Windows 7 x64 Ultimate and have some legacy software I need for another business. There was no way to get it to work under x64 as even the x86 part of the 64bit operating system will only run 32 bit software, not older 16 bit. Using Virtual XP my software runs perfectly.

[ednorm]

digibel, the link you gave me helped me get craw files to be recognized by windows 7, I downloaded Picasa and use it now too.

ed

[digirebelva]

Glad I could help