Finally trying out RAW....Not working....

[sarahdavis]

So I've taken forever to try out RAW. I was actually afraid it wouldn't work in my free program Fast Stone Viewer that I love to use to view my pictures, just because they're full screen and I can scroll thru them with the roller on the mouse. Took pictures of the munchkins for a couple days, got 26 keepers, and was so pleasantly surprised when they showed up just fine in FS......

Loaded up the PSE 7, and they're not viewable. They're saved as .CR2, I have looked up using RAW files with my program, and I'm just not getting it I guess.

Still trying to decide if RAW is worth it even though everyone tells me it is....Not really liking that I could only fit 156 pictures on my cards either. Now THAT would be a pain at a wedding.....

Anyway, any help would be appreciated. Thank you!
Sarah ~ sarahkdavisphotography.com

[OsmosisStudios]

You still need to process the images to JPG. Lightroom, Aperture, or something similar works well. For free, you could always try UFRaw.

[dlambert]

I'm surprised that the CR2 files aren't working in PSE. I'm able to load CR2 files from my 40D into PSE-9. Is it possible that there's an update available for Adobe Camera Raw? This is what's going to actually do the RAW conversion on the photos.

Check this out - it looks like you should have ACR version 4.6 or better: Adobe Forums: Photoshop Elements 7 Canon RAW image

[sarahdavis]

Thank you, I'm checking out the Adobe RAW stuff now. I guess I know even less about it than I thought, but you don't convert to jpg until after you edit, right? Isn't that the point of RAW, to edit in it and because they're bigger files?

[dlambert]

Adobe Camera Raw integrates with PSE closely enough that you might never know it's separate. When I open a RAW file with PSE, I see a RAW convesion dialog as the first step - this lets me fiddle with the RAW conversion, then open in PSE for any additional manipulation. If I add any adjustment layers, etc., I'll save the PSD file (which is Photoshop's native format) and output a JPG file (which flattens the layers and does JPG compression).

The nice thing about having RAW files is that you can make adjustments based on the original data that came off your camera's sensor, so you're always starting with the best possible quality. If you have a photo where you want to change the white balance, for instance, you can start with the RAW, or you can start with a JPG, which has already had white balance applied, been sharpened, and compressed in the camera -- you're giving up a little bit of quality this way.

The most important aspect of RAW for me, though, is that if you ever upgrade your processing software (say, Adobe comes out with a new ACR that's really good at noise reduction), you can go back and re-process some of your favorite old photos with this new processor -- you can't do that if you're converting to JPG in the camera.

For some people, this isn't worth the hassle of additional processing and storage, but it's worth it for me.

[SusanH1970]

Originally Posted by sarahdavis

Thank you, I'm checking out the Adobe RAW stuff now. I guess I know even less about it than I thought, but you don't convert to jpg until after you edit, right? Isn't that the point of RAW, to edit in it and because they're bigger files?

What I usually do is tweak in ACR (WB, exposure, etc.), and save as a .dng. Then I finish any work in CS2 and when I'm completely done, save as a .jpg.

[OsmosisStudios]

Originally Posted by sarahdavis

Thank you, I'm checking out the Adobe RAW stuff now. I guess I know even less about it than I thought, but you don't convert to jpg until after you edit, right? Isn't that the point of RAW, to edit in it and because they're bigger files?

In a sense. Doing your edits is necessary before you can get a jpg, though once youve done that, you can do whatever you want with the file.

[sheila3]

Hi Sarah. I had the same problem when I tried to use RAW with photoshop elements 6. You probably need to install an update for Adobe raw converter. Unfortunately I cannot remember the exact steps I took to do this but if you google Adobe raw converter updates you should be good.

As for whether its worth it. Yes it takes up more memory but I love it. I love the ability to tweak the white balance and exposure etc.

Good luck!

[sarahdavis]

Thanks for all the replies ~ After my computer went down on me after I tried downloading some plug-in's, I've decided to just wait a little while longer on the RAW until I can upgrade my Photoshop Elements 7 to one that supports my .CR2 files with my 50D. Totally not brave enough to try the plug-in's when I get my new computer tower Tues!

[OceanHorizons]

I'm brand new to shooting in RAW, so if I'm missing something somebody please correct me!

Sarah - I saw in your signiture you're shooting with a Canon. On your software CD (the one with EOS Utility, etc) is there a program called Digital Photo Professional? It's a RAW editor and it's supposed to be able to send images over to Photoshop - I don't have photoshop on my current computer yet so I don't know how this works, but I've been able to do a lot of adjustments and then convert to .jpeg just using this program.

If you have Digital Photo Professional maybe you could use that until you can upgrade your Photoshop?