Got the camera, took the pics, now can't open them in PS

vangogh

After much helpful advice from everyone I bought an Olympus E500 yesterday. I took it out to play today & got quite a few pics. I've used the Olympus software to download the software to my machine, but I now can't see them when I try to open them in PS. I shot in RAW & they are listed as ORF.

How do I get PS to recognise them as there's one in them which would be good for the Dgrin challenge which ends tomorrow?

Thanks

Richard

vangogh wrote:

After much helpful advice from everyone I bought an Olympus E500 yesterday. I took it out to play today & got quite a few pics. I've used the Olympus software to download the software to my machine, but I now can't see them when I try to open them in PS. I shot in RAW & they are listed as ORF.

How do I get PS to recognise them as there's one in them which would be good for the Dgrin challenge which ends tomorrow?

Thanks

I don't know anything about ORF, but I am assuming that must be the Olympus RAW format. You need to convert the files to TIFF or some other format that PS understands. Does the Olympus software include a RAW conversion utility? Are you running CS2 or an earlier version of PS? If you don't have anything that will do the conversion, you might check to see whether Raw Shooter Essentials can do the job. It's free and works very well on Canon RAW. They claim to support the E500.

Hope this helps.

ziggy53

vangogh wrote:

After much helpful advice from everyone I bought an Olympus E500 yesterday. I took it out to play today & got quite a few pics. I've used the Olympus software to download the software to my machine, but I now can't see them when I try to open them in PS. I shot in RAW & they are listed as ORF.

How do I get PS to recognise them as there's one in them which would be good for the Dgrin challenge which ends tomorrow?

Thanks

If you want a PS plugin for an earlier version of PS, you can find it here:

http://www.olympusamerica.com/e1/sup_softwareupdates.asp

If you have PS CS or PS CS2, the included Camera RAW is supposed to already support the ORF format.

ziggy53

wxwax

You just need the camera raw plug-in from Adobe, that's all.

Your camera is supported.

Go to this page. Under "Supported Cameras" you'll see links to Macintosh and Windows. Click on the right one for your computer. that will take you to the latest camera raw update. Read the instructions for how to install it (very easy.)

vangogh

Thanks
You guys never fail me! I've managed to get the plugin to work & converted a couple of pics from the w/e. I had hoped to up load them this morning but they were taking ages. 3 pics took over 45 mins & I had to give up. Is this a usual time for uploading such a limited no of pics?

The quality of the pics is SO much better than my other camera, just fantastic. I can see I'm going to be really inspired now, especially for the challenges.

Thanks again

marlof

Advise on ORFs:
- You can open ORFs in Adobe Photoshop by using ACR (Adode Camera RAW) (as Sid said make sure you get the latest version, since your camera is relatively new, and support for it might be added in a later version). You have a lot of options, and a very nice process getting from ORF to JPEG, but the general consensus in Olympus land is that it's a bit harder work to get very good results color quality wise. Many use other RAW converters for that reason. Others still prefer ACR, for the amount of control in detail you can get.
- You can open ORFs in Adobe Photoshop using the Olympus plugin Ziggy mentioned. The image quality is excellent, but you don't have as much options as in ACR. Some say this is all they need.
- You can develop ORFs in the Olympus Master application that came with your E-500. The image quality is outstanding, but the application could do with a makeover, since it's not very user friendly.
- You can get Olympus Studio, which is the professional software to do RAW conversions. It also isn't very user friendly, but you get more options than in Master.
- You can get a third party developer. Many use, and are happy with, Silkypix, which does a great job on ORFs, getting really close in results compared to the Olympus applications.

Beware that the Olympus applications tend to strip the EXIF (containing your shooting information) if you develop in a 16-bit file. You can use something like EXIFTool to copy the EXIF from the RAW file to the JPEG if necessary.

A must read: You can find out more on the different RAW converters for Olympus cameras through an excellent page by Guy Parsons. In the end all that matters is that you can get the images you want by using the tool you like. Take your time in comparing several options, decide which one suits you best, and stick with that.

wxwax

vangogh wrote:

You guys never fail me! I've managed to get the plugin to work & converted a couple of pics from the w/e. I had hoped to up load them this morning but they were taking ages. 3 pics took over 45 mins & I had to give up. Is this a usual time for uploading such a limited no of pics?

The quality of the pics is SO much better than my other camera, just fantastic. I can see I'm going to be really inspired now, especially for the challenges.

Thanks again

Save your piccies as JPEGs, and in Photoshop save them as quality 10. Small enough to upload, and big enough for good prints.

Bob&Glennie

You're going to enjoy that E500. Very intuitive to use if you're familiar with any average 35mm film SLR and excellent image quality. Zuiko glass is right up there with the best of them and now with Sigma and Panasonic on board with the 4/3 aspect ratio system you'll be seeing some more choices in pretty good glass for reasonable prices.
Enjoy
Bob