RAW problems!

[kellie_hetler]

<p>This is my first time using RAW + JPEG to capture my photos with my Canon 40d. I cannot quite figure out how to transfer my RAW files to my computer. I currently am using CS2 and Elements 5.0. Any ideas?</p>

[kuryan_thomas]

<p>You should be able to use the same technique you used to transfer your JPEG files. What did you use to transfer JPEGs?</p>

[jephotog]

<p>Use Bridge in Photoshop under File>Browse in Bridge. The raw format can not be seen by most programs as it is not useable for them. Think of Raw as a negative. It is a very powerful tool but it takes quite a bit more work. Bridge is a browser that can open and look at all your Raw files. You can pick and choose them add metadata, rate them and do a bunch of other things in Bridge and a ton of other things. You can also add global changes to the raw file then open it in Photoshop as a Tiff, jpeg, or PSD whatever you want into Photoshop.</p>

<p>I would recommend a book like Real World Raw to learn what to do with all this potential. Also if you plan on taking a lot of images I would really recommend Lightroom, which makes it easy import, catalog rate, manipulate and export all your raw images.</p>

[howard_m]

<p>I dont know anything about the Canon lineup but if the 40D is moderately 'new' in the product lineup, then you may find that CS2 wont support it. Adobe stops adding support for cameras as soon as new versions of PS/CS come out. it's their way of forcing you to upgrade.</p>

<p>that said, 'transferring' the pictures should be simple as drag and drop. if you dont have a card reader, you should get one.</p>

[grant_hagen]

<p>Howard M is right -- CS2 won't open 40D RAWs. I think support for that came out in ACR4.2, or close.</p>

<p>There is a workaround to get ACR 3x (the version of CS2) to work with RAW files from newer cameras. You have to get the Adobe DNG Converter (free, I think...) and convert the 40D RAWs to DNG format, then you can open the DNG files in CS2 with ACR and work with them just as you would with a straight Cannon RAW file.</p>

[cabbiinc]

<p>If the above solutions don't look appealing the disk that came with your camera will process RAW images from your camera. Digital Photo Professional is what I use (I don't own Photoshop). There's a bunch of other programs on the disk too but DPP is really all you'd need. I do use the Zoombrowser Card Utility to get the files off the card and EOS utility to put my name on the camera (and in the exif data at the time of capture).</p>

<p>A good tutorial for DPP can be found <a href="http://www.usa.canon.com/content/dpp2/index.html">here</a> . It can convert RAWs to Jpegs and Tiffs, has decent noise reduction, decent cloning (not great nor fantastic), decent lens distortion adjustments, among other things. It will even automatically send the converted files to the program of your choice for further editting. And it's free with the camera that you already own.</p>

[steve_lantz]

<p>I have the same problem with RAW files from my G10. Depending on the file and what I want to do with it I will either convert to DNG and process in CS2 or start processing in DPP and transfer to CS2 to finish.</p>

<p>I like having choices in software.</p>

[howard_m]

<p>there are plenty of choices; it just depends if you want to spend money to get there. certainly, DPP will work as will the DNG route. There are also a couple of free general raw converters. And then there is the flotilla of $ raw converters.</p>