Opening RAW files in PhotoShop CS2

Question: Can you open a RAW Canon file in PS CS2 directly, or do you have to

convert it first to a DNG universal file before opening it ?

 

Currently I'm converting all my RAW file using the pluggin from ADOBE, but

somebody told me that at their school they dont convert anything. Photoshop

CS2 lets them open any type of RAW file directly.

You go through Adobe Camera RAW. Typically you'll inspect your RAW files using Adobe's

Bridge program (you have it with your install of Photoshop) and then double-click or

otherwise open the files from Bridge. They open into ACR (Adobe Camera RAW) where you

make conversion adjustments. When you finish they open in Photoshop and away you go...

If you open a raw file you can set it to open in Bridge first and then just open in PS. There is no conversion required but some recommend to save as a DNG to preserve an unaltered copy.

Which Camera and when was the last time you updated ACR?

ACR 3.7 in Bridge 1.1 will open all but the very most recent camera raw files. It takes mere seconds (less than 1 second on my computer to convert a D200 raw file to a TIFF in PS CS2 - ready to work on).

 

Ellis asked a valid question. What camera?

"Which Camera and when was the last time you updated ACR?"

 

I'm talking about the Canon 30D which came with an old version of Photshop Elements 3. Please dont laugh. After I learned how do download some pluggins I was able to edit Raw files in PE but first I had to convert them to DNG. A little inconvenient, but what the heck. The only thing is that in RAW/PE you couldn't do any of the fancy edits such as Layers etc, you could just do some basic editing which I call enhancements.

 

I finally got me a version of photoshop CS2 but very reluctantly about 2 months ago. Because of school I haven't been able to do much with it . The first thing I did check was if I could read a RAW file. Low and behold I got that nasty error message I used to get in PE. I was able to read the DNG files that were taking room on my hard drive.

 

A few weeks later a friend of mine told me that the schools cmputers do not convert anything, you just Click and Open RAW files instantly.

 

I'll follow some of your suggestions and see what happens.

 

One suggestions would be for these Post to move up to the top of the list so you could follow up on them, instead the get pushed down to the bottomless pit.

Harry, Adobe updates the RAW converter as new cameras are released so it will open RAW files from the new cameras. The latest release of Adobe Camera RAW (ACR) for CS2 is 3.7, and you can download it from the Adobe site - just follow the instructions on where to put the file so CS2 will use it. Since CS3 has been released, this is the last update of ACR for CS2. If the version of ACR that you are using does not open RAW files from your camera, you have to convert to DNG files using the latest DNG converter from Adobe so you can open it with earlier versions of ACR, even CS RAW converter (last version for CS was ACR 2.4).

 

I convert my NEF files to DNG because Photoshop saves the RAW converter slider settings in the DNG file rather than an additional (XMP) file, which means I only have one file per image. I also keep the NEF file.