Hello,
Thanks in advance for taking the time to read this post. Any advice will be greatly appreciated.

I was hoping someone could give me a reference on how to set the settings for images taken in the Sony Raw Format (on the F828, for example).

Sorry but I don't understand your question

Do you want to:

- Setup your camera to take images in raw format ?
- Understand what is the RAW format ?
- Setup a software to accept directly photos taken in RAW format ?
- Understand why the RAW file are bigger than the other ?
- Post a 600x600 pixel file in RAW format ?
- ...

Maybe you find something here?
Steves Digicam

I hope you find what you seek....

I'm new. Frequently befuddled. The following web site has been very helpful to me. It's free professional advice. Blue Pixel.net

Good shooting,
Rangy Lil

on newer digital cameras you have the option to take pictures on jpg format, tiff format or RAW.

RAW is used by pro photographers. The files are LARGE becasue they are not compressed. The advantage of this is that you have much more capability to manipulate the photo ie say you have a burnt out sky.

To process RAW on your computer you need software - Adobe Raw - is a plug in for Photoshop. Some camera software wil also do it. Canon will.

Hello there,

There is a lot of misunderstanding here so lets clear it up for you.

Camera raw format means there has been no use of filters
or camera adjustments - so the photographer can make
adjustments in Photoshop as a post production exercise as
opposed to making in-camera adjustments. The camera raw
format offers more info than we can ever use but equally the
format offers great flexibility. Camera raw must be opened by
camera raw dialogue box from Photoshop, and you cannot
re-save the image in camera raw format again!

Adobe recognised that camera raw file formats are popular
because of increased flexibility in post production. Digital
Cameras have many different native file formats however,
and these specifications are not made commercially available
so, for example, a Nikon NEF file cannot be opened by Canon
CRW format software. This presents a long-term archival
issue regarding the opening and saving of images: what if
your manufacturer goes out of business at some stage, how
will your images be opened then?

The solution is DNG file format, a publicly available open
source system so camera manufacturers are encouraged to
employ and interface with. DNG converter is freely available
from Adobe to convert file into .dng file so they can be opened
without reliance on the native camera software. This is also
important in commercial environments where file formats
have to be passed between different organisations, not all
of which can be expected to have every piece of software
for every type of camera.

The .dng format will increase camera raw file archival
confidence as more software solutions will be able to deal
with camera raw files in future. A single raw processing
solution will also improve work flow efficiency as only one
software application will be needed. A free specification
also means that camera manufacturers will be encouraged
to accommodate future technological changes into their
products, which means that their products and file formats
will be more readily usable as they will have a fully open link
to Photoshop. The .dng format also allows greater control
over the quality of camera file conversions by third party
applications and enables private meta data to be included
with files - enabling file differentiation to occur via attached
key words.

The camera raw support update was made publicly available in
late 2004 and the new format will encourage digital camera
adoption as it supports 64 cameras from 14 manufacturers
at the time of launch.

I'll probably get done for copyright but I took this from the Alienideas.com e-book called FocusOn: a guide to digital imaging (with some cropping!)

cheers

Dave

With new CorelDRAW X3 (Corel Graphics Suite X3) software for RAW images is boundled - Pixmantec Rawshooter. And (as usual) you get PhotoPaint for profesional bitmap and photograph editing in the Suite (and CorelDRAW for graphic design). IMO it is very valuable suite for digital photographers.

Britton

I wouldn't take too much notice of that extract from Alienideas. It doesnt really explain RAW and seems to suggest that many RAW formats will become obsolete. The truth is software companies are tripping over themselves to provide support for all RAW formats.
The camera sensor records the light from the image photographed. The information at the sensor is essentially the RAW information. It needs to be manipulated by a process to become a viewable image. Every camera has a processor (computer) and software to provide an image. But there are some limitations to the quality of this because of the size of the camera. To provide the best image possible you need to use very good software, which in turn will probably require a very powerful computer. This is why the more serious cameras provide the option of outputting the RAW format. And there are many software manufacturers who provide software to manipulate the RAW files. Your camera manufacturer should have provided some RAW converter in your software bundle, but it may be very basic. I have Canon which is not very good and I have heard that Panasonic RAW convertor is terrible. My personal preference is Pixmantec Rawshooters Essentials. It is free to download from the Pixmantec site, and has a great tutorial with it.
If you are serious about photography then RAW will produce the best quality images. Give it a try.

Donmac

Donmac,
Thank you for the info. I have downloaded the free Raw Shooter Essentials and at present am looking at the 71 pages of the User Guide as recommended. It looks good except I can't figure out how to select an image from the thumbnails because the thunmbnail is non existant. All I have is a file tree. I have deleted the program and re-downloaded it twice, same thing. Do you have a clue you can give me that will help? I'm no expert and am frequently perplexed anyway so this is nothing I'm not used to. If you have a suggestion I would appreciate it, it might be something simple. I'm using Jasc Paint Shop Pro 8 and also utilizing ACDSee on my Microsoft Home edition XP 2002. Looking around the trouble shooting stuff at Pixmantec"s site I notice that there is an inordinate amount of problems being discussed. Respectfully, Rangy Lil.

Hi Rangy Lil
Rawshooters only recognises Raw files. It wont display Jpegs, Tiffs etc. Is that possibly the problem.
The only problem I have had was a corrupt file which stopped the program opening. It is very heavy on system resources so make sure other hungry programs like PS or PSP are not open at the same time. The Pixmantec forum is not the easiest to use unfortunately.
What camera are you using?
Donmac

Thanks Donmac. That explains the blank thumbnails, I thought it might be something as simple as that but thanks for the heads-up on the PS programs, I'll keep them closed when I'm ready to use the RSE, as yet I havn't shot anything RAW. I'll be using my KM A200. I'm excited about the whole thing and looking forward to the new and more professional experience. The users guide is exstensive but I learn better with a RAW file to work on. Will I still be able to upload with my card reader or should I use the more direct camera link to computer? I understand that when prompted by ACDSee (which is a powerful program and likes to take over everything) I should look for a way to directly load to RSE if I have , as I hope to, RAW files. The RSD by Pixmantec looks like it has all the bells and whisles I'll need to proceed with my digital exploration and the fact that they are offering it free of charge is a big plus for me seeing as how I wouldn't know a good place to start (although it has been normal for me to just jump in and sink or swim). Lil

I think the easiest way to describe RAW is by saying A NEGATIVE. Can be edited and played with without even changing the original RAW

[quote name='Rangy Lil' post='3144' date='Mar 16 2006, 12:59 AM']
Thanks Donmac. That explains the blank thumbnails, I thought it might be something as simple as that but thanks for the heads-up on the PS programs, I'll keep them closed when I'm ready to use the RSE, as yet I havn't shot anything RAW. I'll be using my KM A200. I'm excited about the whole thing and looking forward to the new and more professional experience. The users guide is exstensive but I learn better with a RAW file to work on. Will I still be able to upload with my card reader or should I use the more direct camera link to computer? I understand that when prompted by ACDSee (which is a powerful program and likes to take over everything) I should look for a way to directly load to RSE if I have , as I hope to, RAW files. The RSD by Pixmantec looks like it has all the bells and whisles I'll need to proceed with my digital exploration and the fact that they are offering it free of charge is a big plus for me seeing as how I wouldn't know a good place to start (although it has been normal for me to just jump in and sink or swim). Lil
[/quote]
I have no idea whether I am replying tis in the right place but here goes.I have a canon 350d and have Pixmantex installed. Ishoot Raw and this is what I do. First I open a a new folder on the desktop and call it Raw. Next I insert my memory card into my card reader and plug the reader into the computer usb this brings up a box showing a folder entitled DCIM clicking on this shows two folders called canon 115 and 116 clicking on one of these shows the pics within I then highlight these and drag them to the folder on my desktop called RAW . Opening Raw Shooter shows the folder DCIM with a cross click the cross and in the downdrop menu you are shown canon 115 and 116 ( you may have only one folder) cick on 115 or 116 and your pics open up as thumbnails in Raw Shooter. I have no doubt that probably the folder on the desktop is unecessary. Hope this helps

[quote name='louis' post='4778' date='Nov 30 2006, 03:18 PM']
[quote name='Rangy Lil' post='3144' date='Mar 16 2006, 12:59 AM']
Thanks Donmac. That explains the blank thumbnails, I thought it might be something as simple as that but thanks for the heads-up on the PS programs, I'll keep them closed when I'm ready to use the RSE, as yet I havn't shot anything RAW. I'll be using my KM A200. I'm excited about the whole thing and looking forward to the new and more professional experience. The users guide is exstensive but I learn better with a RAW file to work on. Will I still be able to upload with my card reader or should I use the more direct camera link to computer? I understand that when prompted by ACDSee (which is a powerful program and likes to take over everything) I should look for a way to directly load to RSE if I have , as I hope to, RAW files. The RSD by Pixmantec looks like it has all the bells and whisles I'll need to proceed with my digital exploration and the fact that they are offering it free of charge is a big plus for me seeing as how I wouldn't know a good place to start (although it has been normal for me to just jump in and sink or swim). Lil
[/quote]
I have no idea whether I am replying tis in the right place but here goes.I have a canon 350d and have Pixmantex installed. Ishoot Raw and this is what I do. First I open a a new folder on the desktop and call it Raw. Next I insert my memory card into my card reader and plug the reader into the computer usb this brings up a box showing a folder entitled DCIM clicking on this shows two folders called canon 115 and 116 clicking on one of these shows the pics within I then highlight these and drag them to the folder on my desktop called RAW . Opening Raw Shooter shows the folder DCIM with a cross click the cross and in the downdrop menu you are shown canon 115 and 116 ( you may have only one folder) cick on 115 or 116 and your pics open up as thumbnails in Raw Shooter. I have no doubt that probably the folder on the desktop is unecessary. Hope this helps
[/quote]


[quote name='Rangy Lil' post='3144' date='Mar 16 2006, 12:59 AM']
Thanks Donmac. That explains the blank thumbnails, I thought it might be something as simple as that but thanks for the heads-up on the PS programs, I'll keep them closed when I'm ready to use the RSE, as yet I havn't shot anything RAW. I'll be using my KM A200. I'm excited about the whole thing and looking forward to the new and more professional experience. The users guide is exstensive but I learn better with a RAW file to work on. Will I still be able to upload with my card reader or should I use the more direct camera link to computer? I understand that when prompted by ACDSee (which is a powerful program and likes to take over everything) I should look for a way to directly load to RSE if I have , as I hope to, RAW files. The RSD by Pixmantec looks like it has all the bells and whisles I'll need to proceed with my digital exploration and the fact that they are offering it free of charge is a big plus for me seeing as how I wouldn't know a good place to start (although it has been normal for me to just jump in and sink or swim). Lil
[/quote]


[quote name='louis' post='4778' date='Nov 30 2006, 03:22 PM']
[quote name='Rangy Lil' post='3144' date='Mar 16 2006, 12:59 AM']
Thanks Donmac. That explains the blank thumbnails, I thought it might be something as simple as that but thanks for the heads-up on the PS programs, I'll keep them closed when I'm ready to use the RSE, as yet I havn't shot anything RAW. I'll be using my KM A200. I'm excited about the whole thing and looking forward to the new and more professional experience. The users guide is exstensive but I learn better with a RAW file to work on. Will I still be able to upload with my card reader or should I use the more direct camera link to computer? I understand that when prompted by ACDSee (which is a powerful program and likes to take over everything) I should look for a way to directly load to RSE if I have , as I hope to, RAW files. The RSD by Pixmantec looks like it has all the bells and whisles I'll need to proceed with my digital exploration and the fact that they are offering it free of charge is a big plus for me seeing as how I wouldn't know a good place to start (although it has been normal for me to just jump in and sink or swim). Lil
[/quote]
I have no idea whether I am replying tis in the right place but here goes.I have a canon 350d and have Pixmantex installed. Ishoot Raw and this is what I do. First I open a a new folder on the desktop and call it Raw. Next I insert my memory card into my card reader and plug the reader into the computer usb this brings up a box showing a folder entitled DCIM clicking on this shows two folders called canon 115 and 116 clicking on one of these shows the pics within I then highlight these and drag them to the folder on my desktop called RAW . Opening Raw Shooter shows the folder DCIM with a cross click the cross and in the downdrop menu you are shown canon 115 and 116 ( you may have only one folder) cick on 115 or 116 and your pics open up as thumbnails in Raw Shooter. I have no doubt that probably the folder on the desktop is unecessary. Hope this helps

[quote name='louis' post='4778' date='Nov 30 2006, 03:18 PM']
[quote name='Rangy Lil' post='3144' date='Mar 16 2006, 12:59 AM']
Thanks Donmac. That explains the blank thumbnails, I thought it might be something as simple as that but thanks for the heads-up on the PS programs, I'll keep them closed when I'm ready to use the RSE, as yet I havn't shot anything RAW. I'll be using my KM A200. I'm excited about the whole thing and looking forward to the new and more professional experience. The users guide is exstensive but I learn better with a RAW file to work on. Will I still be able to upload with my card reader or should I use the more direct camera link to computer? I understand that when prompted by ACDSee (which is a powerful program and likes to take over everything) I should look for a way to directly load to RSE if I have , as I hope to, RAW files. The RSD by Pixmantec looks like it has all the bells and whisles I'll need to proceed with my digital exploration and the fact that they are offering it free of charge is a big plus for me seeing as how I wouldn't know a good place to start (although it has been normal for me to just jump in and sink or swim). Lil
[/quote]
I have no idea whether I am replying tis in the right place but here goes.I have a canon 350d and have Pixmantex installed. Ishoot Raw and this is what I do. First I open a a new folder on the desktop and call it Raw. Next I insert my memory card into my card reader and plug the reader into the computer usb this brings up a box showing a folder entitled DCIM clicking on this shows two folders called canon 115 and 116 clicking on one of these shows the pics within I then highlight these and drag them to the folder on my desktop called RAW . Opening Raw Shooter shows the folder DCIM with a cross click the cross and in the downdrop menu you are shown canon 115 and 116 ( you may have only one folder) cick on 115 or 116 and your pics open up as thumbnails in Raw Shooter. I have no doubt that probably the folder on the desktop is unecessary. Hope this helps
[/quote]


[quote name='Rangy Lil' post='3144' date='Mar 16 2006, 12:59 AM']
Thanks Donmac. That explains the blank thumbnails, I thought it might be something as simple as that but thanks for the heads-up on the PS programs, I'll keep them closed when I'm ready to use the RSE, as yet I havn't shot anything RAW. I'll be using my KM A200. I'm excited about the whole thing and looking forward to the new and more professional experience. The users guide is exstensive but I learn better with a RAW file to work on. Will I still be able to upload with my card reader or should I use the more direct camera link to computer? I understand that when prompted by ACDSee (which is a powerful program and likes to take over everything) I should look for a way to directly load to RSE if I have , as I hope to, RAW files. The RSD by Pixmantec looks like it has all the bells and whisles I'll need to proceed with my digital exploration and the fact that they are offering it free of charge is a big plus for me seeing as how I wouldn't know a good place to start (although it has been normal for me to just jump in and sink or swim). Lil
[/quote]
[/quote]


[quote name='bigkarl' post='4118' date='Aug 16 2006, 09:40 AM']
I think the easiest way to describe RAW is by saying A NEGATIVE. Can be edited and played with without even changing the original RAW
[/quote]


[quote name='bigkarl' post='4118' date='Aug 16 2006, 09:40 AM']
I think the easiest way to describe RAW is by saying A NEGATIVE. Can be edited and played with without even changing the original RAW
[/quote]

OK i have read all of the above posts and just neeed one question answered i have a canon 350d and i want to take raw photos can i open them with photoshop and edit them in there ?
If not is there a plugin that will allow me to do this i have photoshop cs2

dont worry just updated my version of PScs2 and i can now open and edit RAW files

Hi,

Just in case anyone else has the same problem as p14wry yes you can open RAW files in photoshop - via the browse function.

I have a Canon 20D and at first couldn't view any RAWs coming from the 20D. To get around it I visited the Photoshop website and downloaded an update that covered 20D RAWs.

All works fine now.

If your camera can shot RAW then I would suggest shooting RAW at all times. Its not just for Pros.

Regards,

KMS Cameras