processing raw in PS6

gus · March 17, 2005

Ok..so now ive got to learn this. God knows ive been avoiding it.

Ive seached in here & things seem a little dis-jointed & the net is driving me crazy looking. If its in the Hall of Fame then i cant see it from looking.

Ive got PS 6 & as of monday am now shooting raw. Where can i get the raw plug in for PS 6 ?

& please feel free to direct to some place that explains how im going to go about this whole process.

Ta
Gus

rainforest1155 · March 17, 2005

Humungus wrote:

Ive got PS 6 & as of monday am now shooting raw. Where can i get the raw plug in for PS 6 ?

& please feel free to direct to some place that explains how im going to go about this whole process.

First of all it's going to be tough to get direct RAW-support for PS6, if it's possible at all. From what I've read the plugins require at least PS7 or PS CS and often are not free.

A good starting point would be to know which camera brand you have.

- In general you could have a look at Corel RAW, which is free and could develop your pictures for further processing in PS
- BreezeBrowser is also capable to process RAW-files from different brands.
- For Minolta cameras is a RAW-plugin for PS6 (another one) availiable.
- Olympus should offer a RAW-plugin, but I don't know if it's for PS6 and there is also a 3rd party plugin for Olympus cameras.
- From Canon is also a free converter availiable, but again I don't know if it's suitable for PS6.

That's all I could find. Hope it helps.
Sebastian

gus · March 17, 2005

Ta RF...i am picking up a 20D next week. I am surprised that PS may not handle raw

I seriously thought it could.

Good info to check out...thanks for your effort here.

pathfinder · March 17, 2005

Humungus wrote:

Ta RF...i am picking up a 20D next week. I am surprised that PS may not handle raw I seriously thought it could.

Good info to check out...thanks for your effort here.

'gus - Photoshop 7 did have a RAW converoer for a while, but I think it is now longer available from Adobe as I coud no longer find it for a poster recently.

PS 6 never supported RAW, and there is probably a reason. One of the real advantages of RAW is the ability to do most of your image editing on a 16 bit image and PS 6 and 7 wern't terribly good at this. Photoshop CS finally brought the tools needed for editing 16 bit images to the marketplace and then using RAW really became much easier.
With Photoshop 6 you're going to have to use a third party RAW converter to convert your RAW files to 16 bit tiffs or 8 bit jpgs, whatever, save them, and then open them into PS and do your editing. BreezeBrowser, Bibble, Phase 1, etc. The 20D comes with a RAW converter from Canon called Digital Professional Photo or something like that. It works fairly well. But for ease of workflow it really is hard to beat Adobe's Photoshop with its ARC, That's my opinion and I'm sticking to it

:

DJ-S1 · March 17, 2005

There is a plug in for a RAW converter for PS7, I saw it for $99 somewhere buried on their website. But you can get PS Elements 3 for $99 (or less) and it comes with the converter. Go to the website and get a 30 day free trial of Elements 3 and you can see it for yourself and see if it does what you want.

Personally, I think the converter that Canon gives you is next to unusable. Using Elements 3 is 1000x better. YMMV

patch29 · March 17, 2005

Adobe released the first raw converter several months after PS7 came out. It was about $100. When they came out with PS CS (8) they stopped may have stopped offering it. I assume since the full upgrade was $170 and they would not want to support the old ARC anymore.

Mainstream Pro DSLR cameras were just coming out at the middle/end of 99 with the D1. I don't think the call for Raw in PS was there yet, which PS 6 was released in 2000, since most of the technology was new the camera manufacturers produced the software. I don't remember the exact dates, but they are close.

I wonder when PS 9 will be released? I thought it was due the beginning of this year? I wonder if they are waiting to release with with Apples new 10.4 OS, which may be released as early as April 15th (although those are rumors), but should be here no later than Macworld in June. Anyone heard any release date rumors for PS 9 lately?

If I were you I would hand onto PS 6, use the free DPP converter until PS 9 comes out and make a big leap in PS upgrades.

patch29 · March 17, 2005

DJ-S1 wrote:

Personally, I think the converter that Canon gives you is next to unusable. Using Elements 3 is 1000x better. YMMV

Which raw converter from Canon? The EOS Viewer Utility is a pain, but DPP is pretty good.

wxwax · March 17, 2005

Humungus, you should get Digital Photo Professional (DPP) for free with your 20D.

It's the same as Photoshop or any other image program. Once installed, just click on the DPP logo on your desktop. It will open with a blank central screen. And it should have a typical Windows menu down the left side. (It can be configured to look different, I've never figured out the other views.)

On the menu to the left, click on the drive where your RAW photos are hiding. I typically have the Compact Flash card stuck in a card reader. That shows up as a separate drive, just like your own C drive does. On my machine, it comes up as F, and it also has the name Canon beside it, for easy identification.

Double click on the drive that has your photos, then wait. DPP will open a thumbnail of each photo. It may take quite a few minutes to open them all. When it's done, you have a central screen with a thumbnail of each RAW photo.

There are two ways to get the larger image. Either double click on it, which will make it bigger, but you'll still have to click on the top right corner of the new screen to make it full screen (close the screen by clicking on the X in the top right corner.) The other way is to Alt-Right Arrow. That makes your selected image full screen immediately. If you Alt-Right Arrow, then the only way to close the screen is Alt-Left Arrow. If you simply click the X at the top right, it will shut down all of DPP (DAMHIK) and then you'll have to reopen it and wait all over again.

Once you have an image open, play with the sliders. They're self explanatory. Make sure you note the two tabs across the top tight menu. The most commonly used controls are Brightness and White Balance. White Balance has a drop down menu with automatic settings, and two manual settings. If you click on Temp in the drop down menu, you get a handy slider you can adjust. if you click on Tune, to the right of the drop down menu, you get a circle with all the colors in it, and you move the center dot to where you like.

The second tab has the standard controls - Contrast and Brightness, Saturation and Hue.

Note that each set of controls has a Reset button, if you want to set the image back to the way it was before you fugged it up.

When you're happy with your meddling, click on File in the top right corner. And select Convert and Save. Pick a folder to save it in etc. What you'll get is a 16-bit TIFF file.

Not sure how well PS6 handles 16-bit files. You'll probably find lots of filters etc, greyed out. If so, in PS6 go to Image>Mode>8 bits and click on it. That will save the file as an 8-bit, then you can work on it in PS6.

Lemme know if you have any Q's I can help with.

DJ-S1 · March 17, 2005

patch29 wrote:

Which raw converter from Canon? The EOS Viewer Utility is a pain, but DPP is pretty good.

I think it's the EOS Viewer. I don't really remember, it was so bad I only tried it a few times.

Is the DPP a free download on the Canon website or a separate purchase?

patch29 · March 17, 2005

DJ-S1 wrote:

Is the DPP a free download on the Canon website or a separate purchase?

If it was EVU than it is not the best program for working with a lot of images.

DPP is much better and is only available for the DSLRs at the moment and maybe only the newer ones at that, 20D, EOS1D+ and 350XT, but I think you can download it if you have one of those cameras.

wxwax · March 17, 2005

DJ-S1 wrote:

I think it's the EOS Viewer. I don't really remember, it was so bad I only tried it a few times.

Is the DPP a free download on the Canon website or a separate purchase?

Free with camera purchase, depending upon the camera.

DJ-S1 · March 17, 2005

wxwax wrote:

Free with camera purchase, depending upon the camera.

I guess purchasing a 300D from DoctorIt wouldn't count, huh?

I'm pretty happy with the converter in Elements.

patch29 · March 17, 2005

DJ-S1 wrote:

I guess purchasing a 300D from DoctorIt wouldn't count, huh?

I'm pretty happy with the converter in Elements.

I don't know if they support that camera with DPP, if they do you could download it.

gus · March 17, 2005

Wow thats a lot of good info...ta waxedfigure for the big one (i will print it out when the time comes).

I did see a disc in the box when i looked & it was elements 2 from memory....but i could well be wrong there. Is this usable?

patch29 · March 17, 2005

Humungus wrote:

Wow thats a lot of good info...ta waxedfigure for the big one (i will print it out when the time comes).

I did see a disc in the box when i looked & it was elements 2 from memory....but i could well be wrong there. Is this usable?

Why read all that, Canon has some online training, here.

Look under Tips and Techniques.

gus · March 17, 2005

patch29 wrote:

Why read all that, Canon has some online training, here.

Look under Tips and Techniques.

Yerbut i need to buy a prog of sorts 1st dont i ? I have no possible idea what i should do....what do i throw money at as i have to do buy something this week-end that handles & lets me edit in RAW.

Is the PS Elements 2 supplied going to do the job ?

I told you i didnt want to do this andy....

jpeg is just so user friendly

Michiel de Brieder · March 17, 2005

You might consider this one gus it's a very nice and free RAW converter, aside from cropping or B/W conversion, I did a batch of 400 RAW's in just an hour. I think the tool's very good, considering the price

gus · March 17, 2005

Michiel de Brieder wrote:

You might consider this one gus it's a very nice and free RAW converter, aside from cropping or B/W conversion, I did a batch of 400 RAW's in just an hour. I think the tool's very good, considering the price

Ta Mick...i'll have a look.

I dont mind buying something but i want 'ease of use' most of all.

Michiel de Brieder · March 17, 2005

Humungus wrote:

Ta Mick...i'll have a look.

I dont mind buying something but i want 'ease of use' most of all.

The cool thing about this converter that, as soon as you get the hang of it, you can go really fast, and as soon as you've tweaked an image you put it in the queue for converting to TIFF/JPEG or whatever! It took me about 30 minutes to figure the program out

gus · March 17, 2005

Michiel de Brieder wrote:

The cool thing about this converter that, as soon as you get the hang of it, you can go really fast, and as soon as you've tweaked an image you put it in the queue for converting to TIFF/JPEG of whatever! It took me about 30 minutes to figure the program out

Well if its what you use then it will do me. I will give 'er a whirl mate

patch29 · March 17, 2005

Humungus wrote:

Yerbut i need to buy a prog of sorts 1st dont i ? I have no possible idea what i should do....what do i throw money at as i have to do buy something this week-end that handles & lets me edit in RAW.

Is the PS Elements 2 supplied going to do the job ?

I told you i didnt want to do this andy.... jpeg is just so user friendly

Do you have PS 6? You could just get the upgrade to CS or just use DPP and your copy of PS until you want to upgrade. DPP will give you jpgs to work with in PS or you can resize it in DPP and upload it to smugmug.

gus · March 18, 2005

Yep...ive got PS 6. Might start off trying Micks freebie this week. I really dont mind paying for something but i just know nothing about the lingo let alone the process.

Mick...i cant see a white balance in Raw Shooter...have you seen it in there ?

pathfinder · March 18, 2005

Humungus wrote:

Yep...ive got PS 6. Might start off trying Micks freebie this week. I really dont mind paying for something but i just know nothing about the lingo let alone the process.

Mick...i cant see a white balance in Raw Shooter...have you seen it in there ?

'gus - You should look at Photshop Elements 3 very carefully. I have it for the MAC and its RAW converter looks just like the converter I use in PS CS. My wife use PE3 and gets very good results, and the price just can't be beat. Even if you still plan on using PS6, using PE3 as your RAW converter wuld be inexpensive.

Michiel de Brieder · March 18, 2005

Humungus wrote:

Yep...ive got PS 6. Might start off trying Micks freebie this week. I really dont mind paying for something but i just know nothing about the lingo let alone the process.

Mick...i cant see a white balance in Raw Shooter...have you seen it in there ?

'Gus, top right has a temperature scale to change WB and also a dropper tool to choose a grey/white spot as WB reference point. When you have selected the dropper you get a preview on the lower right with an estimated WB if you should click the place where your dropper is.
Makes sense?

wxwax · March 18, 2005

Humungus wrote:

Yep...ive got PS 6. Might start off trying Micks freebie this week. I really dont mind paying for something but i just know nothing about the lingo let alone the process.

Mick...i cant see a white balance in Raw Shooter...have you seen it in there ?

Gus, you get DPP free with your camera. It's a CD ROM in the box. Since it's made by Canon, and you get it free, it's well worth a try.

DJ-S1 · March 18, 2005

I checked the disks that came with the 300D and DPP is not included, even though it works only with EOS cameras and the 300D is supported. Perhaps it wasn't out at the time the camera was originally purchased last year?

The only link to DPP I can find is to an upgrade version 1.5, which requires version 1.2 to already be installed. So I guess I'm out of luck for DPP.

Good thing I'm happy with E3, but I may try the free one mentioned above as well. I haven't actually bought E3 yet, I'm still in the 30 day trial.

wxwax · March 18, 2005

DJ-S1 wrote:

I checked the disks that came with the 300D and DPP is not included, even though it works only with EOS cameras and the 300D is supported. Perhaps it wasn't out at the time the camera was originally purchased last year?

The only link to DPP I can find is to an upgrade version 1.5, which requires version 1.2 to already be installed. So I guess I'm out of luck for DPP. Good thing I'm happy with E3, but I may try the free one mentioned above as well. I haven't actually bought E3 yet, I'm still in the 30 day trial.

Yeah, it wasn't supplied with the 300D. Bummer.

gus · March 18, 2005

wxwax wrote:

Gus, you get DPP free with your camera. It's a CD ROM in the box. Since it's made by Canon, and you get it free, it's well worth a try.

I saw the box & gear ...it comes with PS elements 2. You recon its up to the job ?

gus · March 18, 2005

Michiel de Brieder wrote:

'Gus, top right has a temperature scale to change WB and also a dropper tool to choose a grey/white spot as WB reference point. When you have selected the dropper you get a preview on the lower right with an estimated WB if you should click the place where your dropper is.
Makes sense?

Ok...got it...man im killin' some old jpegs with it right now

Few things seem to be disabled on the bottom like sharpness/noise. Prob cause its a trial version.

gus · March 18, 2005

pathfinder wrote:

'gus - You should look at Photshop Elements 3 very carefully. I have it for the MAC and its RAW converter looks just like the converter I use in PS CS. My wife use PE3 and gets very good results, and the price just can't be beat. Even if you still plan on using PS6, using PE3 as your RAW converter wuld be inexpensive.

Off to the shops in a bit to sus out the PS 3 box....ta mate.

gus · March 18, 2005

Wheres andy when all the stupid questions are flying around 'eh ???

He started all this. Half a mind to move to NY & follow the mongrel around till i get it right.

processing raw in PS6

Comments