software and MAC compatibility

Hi Pentaxians,

 

Greetings. One of my good friends is facing a problem. He bought a K100D. He can not download the software to his

MAC notebook. So, he is fustrated because he could not work on the files. He wants to do batch conversion of PEF

files to TIFF. I use a PC. I showed him how to do that in Pentax browser and Pentax laboratory. He was able to

download the Pentax program in his office PC desktop. However, its an office computer and obviously it is not

advisable to use it for that. I also use Adobe bridge. I do not know how to do a batch conversion to TIFF using Bridge.

Usually I work on single files. I open it with Bridge, do initial corrections in Bridge, then go to CS3, do more

corrections in CS3 and finally save as TIFF or DNG in CS3. My questions are - 1) Does Pentax has a MAC specific

version of its software? How can my friend get it? 2) Is there a way to batch convert pentax files to TIFF in Adobe

Bridge?

 

Thanks and best.

 

Subho

Does your friend have iphoto on his mac? I know it handles RAW files and I think it does batch conversions.... I think...

Bridge is only a browser it cannot do the conversions you want. For that you need (in the photoshop world) either a current version of Adobe Camera Raw (part of Photo Photoshop CS3 along with Bridge 2.0) or Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2

If his Mac is fairly recent (OSX Leopard) then iPhoto should be able to import K100D PEF files though he may need to run the Apple Software Update to get updates to support that camera. There is some form of Mac software from Pentax but I can't find the CD packaged with my K10D so never tried it. I think the version of their software bundled with my older *ist DS2 body might have been incompatible with my Mac. I've been using Adobe Lightroom instead of iPhoto, so I'm not sure whether iPhoto can do TIFF. Many Apple users also like Apple Aperture as well which is comparable to Lightroom.

 

My exposure to Bridge is that it's a digital asset manger/organizer that comes with and works with other Adobe products--in this case, you'd want Photoshop that would come with Adobe Camera Raw. Latest is CS3, it can certainly handle K100D. I'm fairly certain that you can do batch conversions but again, I've been using Lightroom for this purpose so haven't explored this. I expect that from Bridge you can apply a Camera RAW preset on multiple selected images, probably run some sort of action script, etc. but without the software in front of me I can't suggest more details other than to say 'yes, it's possible'.

 

What is your friend doing with these TIFF files? It's usually preferable to do as much of your post-processing as possible (exposure/color correction, etc.) during the RAW conversion, so a straight robotic conversion batch is not going to take full advantage of RAW.

The Pentax software, Photo Browser and Photo Labratory, runs fine on a Mac. The ones you can download from the Pentax

web site are only updaters. You have to install the originals from the CD that came with your camera. Then you can apply the

online updaters to have the latest version. If he can't find the CD you can order it from Pentax, but I don't know how much they

would charge you. I don't know why they don't just let you download the full version from the web site since I wouldn't think it

would work with anything but a Pentax camera.

 

As far as what the Pentax software can do, I can't help with that as I use Aperture. If your friend is running OS 10.5 (Leopard)

then he can use either Aperture of iPhoto to work with PEF files. In fact he will even get Quick Look previews in the finder from

his PEF files.

 

Here is a full list of Pentax models supported by Aperture 2: K200D, K20D, K110D, K100D Super*, K100D, K10D, *ist DL2*,

*ist DS2*, *ist DS, *ist DL, and *ist D under Tiger or Leopard.

 

Never tried using either iPhoto or Aperture for TIFFS so can't comment on that.

 

 

 

Hope this helps

 

Bill