EOS 70D RAW files in Lightroom 4.4

<p>My girlfriend recently bought a Canon EOS 70D and wants to shoot in RAW. Her laptop is a somewhat aging Windows Vista one. She wants to use Lightroom 4.4 to handle the RAW files. 70D files are however not supported in LR4 and LR5 requires Windows 7 or 8. Laptop is further up to date, with Canon software and Microsoft's RAW Camera Codec Pack. For the moment we don't want to replace the laptop or to install a newer Windows version.<br /><br />Our initial idea was to convert the .CR2 files to .DNG with Adobe DNG converter and process these in LR4. Unfortunately this does not work, DNG converter does not recognize any RAWs, not the 70D ones nor 10D or 5D ones. I'm still looking at possible solutions, but please advise if you have any suggestions.<br /><br /> Further options are: <br />- convert the files to TIFF using Canon's DPP. This process is slow and results in huge files since DPP only supports uncompressed TiFFs. <br />- convert files to Tiff using Irfanview. The speed is acceptable and Irfanview supports LZW compressed files, so the output has a similar size as the original CR2s. <br />- convert the files on my desktop PC with DNG converter, save them to a usb stick, hdd or SD card and import the files in LR on her laptop. This process is rather tedious but DNG converter runs on my W8.1 machine without problems.<br /> <br />Since Irfanview probably uses a 3rd party RAW converter I would expect the DPP route to result in somewhat better picture quality but I'm still evaluating this.<br /> <br />Please let me know your thoughts on the differences between DPP and Irfanview for conversion and if possible about ways to get the DNG converter running. All help is appreciated.</p>

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<p>Unfortunately this does not work, DNG converter does not recognize any RAWs, not the 70D ones nor 10D or 5D ones</p>

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<p>It should! Folks are converting 70D's to DNG from what I'm seeing. Make sure you have the DNG converter 8.2 or newer (8.3 is the latest version I believe). See:<br>

http://blogs.adobe.com/lightroomjournal/2013/09/camera-raw-8-2-and-dng-converter-8-2-now-available.html<br>

<strong>New Camera Support in Camera Raw 8.2</strong></p>

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<li>Canon EOS 70D</li>

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<p>I've been converting Canon 5D files for years and years. Something on your end isn't working correctly, it isn't the converter. </p>

<p>@rodney: I know, DNG converter 8.3 runs fine on my desktop but not on the Vista laptop. I found some references suggesting to tweak the Windows registry but I'm not too fond of that.</p>

<p>Most registry edits aren't all that dangerous, I would try it for sure. And/or try alternatives maybe for IrfanView such as Picasa, FastStone Image viewer to see if maybe they work well for you; though I think most of these just extract the embedded JPEG from the rawfile, rather than carrying their own raw conversion engine.<br>

Another approach would be not choosing for Lightroom; but the most likely alternatives have their problems too: DxO Optics tend to like hardware in my experience (and Vista-era notebooks will not be the fastest in today's landscape), CaptureOne is 64-bits only (and most Vista systems came with 32-bits OS)...</p>

<p>An interesting alternative, though, could be Photoshop Elements (<em>yes, it's nowhere near as nice as LR for large volume work, but if that's no concern it's not a bad option</em>) - latest version is still supported on Vista, so that would mean access to ACR 8.3 as well.</p>

<p>Just an update of my findings untill now, for reference purposes:<br>

Irfanview doesn't recognize the RAWs. It produces 8 bit TIFFS but probably uses the embedded JPGs since further test showed that it can't open the RAW file. Faststone Image Viewer doesn't recognise the RAWs either but it produces TIFFs with a terribel orange color cast.<br>

With regard to DNG converter: The registry edit did not work but after re-installing the program and starting it as administrator it seems to work, at least for the moment.<br>

The Canon DPP converted pictures are more vivid than the DNG ones, probably due to DPP using the camera settings in the conversion process.</p>