What the $#%& is wrong with iPhoto 7 & my D300 Raw files?

I am getting really frustrated with my Mac. Just got a D300 and was trying to

upload my first shots in Tiger. No dice, Tiger doesn't support. OK, so I upgrade

to Leopard. Nope, iPhoto 6 doesn't support the D300 Raw files. I've been using

iPhoto to orgazize and do light edits on my D40 shots, and everything was fine.

So, I upgrade to iLife '08 and iPhoto 7 and now something is really screwed. The

pictures seem to download fine off the camera but when I try to edit them or

view them full screen I get. . .nothing. A blank screen. Anyone have any

suggestions?

You need a RAW converter to JPEG files

 

ACR, Bibble, Lightroom, etc.

 

RAW is a totally different entity.

AFAIK Apple only support the D300 via iPhoto '08 or Aperture 2.0. Anything lower than that

and it won't allow you to import the photos into their programs. YES, you can view them via

the built-in Finder but that's all the support you will get from the camera. If you want to

edit them using an Apple software, then that's a different story.

IPhoto should do JPEGS from the D300.

As much as the D300 is becoming a major player in the DSLR world, I would think that Apple

would have to be coming with an update for iPhoto7 to convert your RAW files, soon. They've

been pretty good about camera updates for RAW in the past.

If you serious enough about our photography to buy a D300, then get rid of iPhoto and

get a proper tool for your workflow. Photoshop Elements is a very good choice.

If I were you and you want to work with RAW files from your D300 you should download the free Aperture 2 trial from Apple which will work just fine and allow you a much greater depth of post processing. If you like it you can buy it on-line from Apple for $200 and when you install the disc, everything that you did in the trial will automatically be imported into the permanent program. You bought a wonderful camera, I think you'll find that Aperture 2 will be a good investment.

Also if you like Apple software you should try Aperture 2. It's really good. You can download the free trial. Rene'

Matt, you are right. The RAW files should work as long as your MAC is running 10.5.2 and

you have iPhoto 2008. The udate to 10.5.2 for Leopard has the RAW file support for both

Aperture and iPhoto. The other possibility, if your machine is several years old, is that the

processor can't keep up with your edits. So check that you have the latest updates to

Leopard and iPhoto using your Apple menu and "software updates" If you aren't yet to

10.5.2 you may have to run the software update again after reboot if you are a few

updates behind. iPhoto does have pretty good RAW files editing too, sure Aperture is

better but iPhoto should do a lot of what you need.

 

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=iPhoto/7.0/en/6411.html

All the RAW formats now supported by 10.5.2

 

D300 & D3

 

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=306835

Apple tends not to update older versions of apps when new ones come out, so it looks like

you need to shell out for iLife 08 (which you'll get if you get a new machine), or Aperture /

Lightroom / OtherFineProducts.

I have a 2.3 GHz Macbook Pro w/ 2GBs RAM so I wouldn't think speed would be too much of an issue yet. I do have over 12,000 pictures on the thing tho.

 

I am running 10.5.2 & have iLife '08 (iPhoto 7) with all the software upgrades.

 

I left the computer this morning re-building EVERYTHING (I don't remember all the options it gave - I just selected everything) in iPhoto. This better solve it or I'm gonna throw the damn thing out the window.

 

I'm sure Aperture is a fine program but I've found iPhoto (at least the previous version) did everything that I needed it to as far as organizing and processing pictures. MAybe that convinience is gone in the latest version. . .I don't know.

I know my previous version of iPhoto (5 or 6)had problems when the databases become too large. Try opening a new library and see if it gives you the same problems.

Yes, your machine should have adequate power. 12,000 images is a lot but not too much for

iPhoto. You should be able to do it without a problem. Try a few test images and import

them and then do minor edits and see if it happens again on new images. Oh, and try setting

your D300 for doing both 14-bit and 12-bit images maybe it doesn't support one or the

other??? I think I'm going to try this on mine...

Never mind. I tried both 12-bit and 14-bit both with loss-less compression and both can be

edited in iPhoto 08.

When opening iPhoto, hold down on the option and command keys. A window should

appear with some options. What you may have to do is rebuild the thumbnail library. This

happens sometimes when upgrading to a newer version of iPhoto. My d300 raw photos

are viewable in iPhoto. Consider Aperture 2 though. It's a much more powerful program.

I did rebuild my iPhoto library and I also re-downloaded all the pictures and everything is working properly now. I think the problem might have been that I downloaded the pictures before I upgraded to iPhoto 7 and installed all the subsequent software upgrades. Now that everything is up to date .NEF and my Mac are friends again. It was a little more painful than it should have been though.

 

I will look into Aperture.

Do yourself a favor and look into Adobe Lightroom as well. Aperture and Lightroom are the two big players in this space, and each has its proponents and detractors. Don't want to start a war here (like a Mac vs. PC war) but I've used both, extensively, and Lightroom tends to run better on lesser equipment than Aperture, at least on the Mac side.