iPhoto 5, Canon 350D, and RAW

kwsanders · September 16, 2005 11:38PM

I ordered a new Canon 350D this week and received it today. I was playing with it tonight and took a few pictures. I plugged the CF card into my reader tonight and imported the pictures. At the end of the import, I got a message saying that iPhoto could not handle several files. The files ended in .CR2, so I knew these were the RAW format files.

This threw me for a loop, because I had read that iPhoto supports the Canon Digital Rebel. After doing some searching, I found out that the 350D, which is the Digital Rebel XT, produces a new RAW format which is not currently compatible with iPhoto 5.

Has anyone heard any rumblings as to whether or not iPhoto will be updated to handle the RAW format from the 350D?

reg · September 17, 2005 1:21AM

I have not heard if it will be supported. When working with RAW I like using Canon's software. Wait till you start using PhotoStitch, it is fast a very good.

reg

adamr · September 18, 2005 11:34PM

I expect it will be updated at some point. However, I wouldn't recommend iPhoto for managing RAW files. The processing options are just too limited, even compared to the Canon software (which is slow, but otherwise not bad).

Much better idea is to use Photoshop or Elements with Camera Raw. That is a fantastic tool. I now feel ridiculously limited when processing JPEGs in iPhoto or any other software.

My practice is to convert RAW to JPEG in photoshop and import into iPhoto just a convenient browser to show people.

Cheers

Adam

the cool gut · September 18, 2005 11:56PM

Yes - you are not missing anything in iPhoto 5 for Raw conversion - do you have a copy of Photoshop? You might want to look into iView, but I would only use that as a stop gap until you could get Photoshop.

kwsanders · September 19, 2005 2:07PM

Thanks for the feedback. I have realized that over the weekend. I downloaded the trial versions of both Photoshop CS2 and Elements 3.0. CS2 is too much of a program for what I need. I installed Elements and I really like it. I believe I am going to go ahead and order it now so it will be here before my 30 day trial ends.

I went to the local Best Buy today, but they do not carry the Mac version in the store. That really irks me. More people need to move to the Mac so local retail chains will start carrying Mac software.

oldcodger73 · September 19, 2005 3:11PM

One thing about PhotoShop and Canon Rebel (350) XT RAW files. Only CS2 supports them. Adobe has not and apparently will not supply a plug in for the XT for earlier versions of PS/CS.

kwsanders · September 19, 2005 10:41PM

PS Elements 3.0 will also support RAW files from the XT via the exact same plugin that PS CS2 uses. I installed it last night and it works great.

adamrao · September 23, 2005 4:43PM

Glad to hear that as I am getting ready to buy the exact same camera! Did you get the kit lens 18-55 with it? I'm planning on getting the 17-85 EF-S lens. Looks very nice.

gsxrboy · September 23, 2005 6:27PM

The 50mm f1.8 is an awesome little lens, well worth a spend on it, and its cheap too !

kwsanders · September 24, 2005 12:23AM

Quote:

Originally posted by adamrao

Glad to hear that as I am getting ready to buy the exact same camera! Did you get the kit lens 18-55 with it? I'm planning on getting the 17-85 EF-S lens. Looks very nice.

Unfortunately, I did get the kit lens. I wish I had opted for the 17-85 EF-S. It is a much better lens.

kwsanders · September 24, 2005 12:24AM

Quote:

Originally posted by gsxrboy

The 50mm f1.8 is an awesome little lens, well worth a spend on it, and its cheap too !

The "Nifty Fifty". I am thinking about getting one pretty soon to play around as well. From things I have seen in some of the photography forums, the pictures are very sharp.

kwsanders · November 7, 2005 8:26PM

Sorry to revive this old thread, but it is totally appropriate in this case. I found out today that with the installation of Tiger 10.4.3, iPhoto now has support for the Camera RAW format from the Canon Digital Rebel XT (350D).

I found out that it is still pretty much useless, however, because even though I can setup PhotoShtop Elements as my external editor, iPhoto automatically converts the RAW file to a JPG before sending it over to Photoshop Elements.

Does anyone know if there is a way to prevent this conversion in iPhoto before going to the external editor?

reg · November 8, 2005 6:35AM

You can export the photo out of iPhoto to the desktop or a "Raw Folder" and it will still be in the cr2 format. If you try to open it with elements and it is in the iPhoto library. It would come over as a jpg, even though when you look at it in iPhoto and the info says "Canon Raw" as the format. Very strange indeed.

reg

digitaldave · November 8, 2005 7:44AM

Also, you can drag the AW image from iPhoto on to the PS/PSE icon, and that will open the RAW file in the Adobe RAW Converter. Unfortunately, once you have worked on the image, you will need to save it somewhere and then re-import back in to iPhoto, as the changes made in PS/PSE don't affect the original RAW image in iPhoto

. Clearly, iPhoto isn't great for RAW work. Hopefully Apple will take some of what they have learnt from Aperture and implement it in a future version of iPhoto.

kwsanders · November 8, 2005 9:35AM

Thanks for the replies on this. I started looking at some other software products last night for management of my photo library. I came across two that are not too expensive and look promising.

One is QPict Standard and the other one is iView MediaPro.

playmaker · November 9, 2005 1:01PM

Quote:

Originally posted by kwsanders

Unfortunately, I did get the kit lens. I wish I had opted for the 17-85 EF-S. It is a much better lens.

I just purchased the 17-85 i.s. for my 20D and it's fantastic.

iPhoto 5, Canon 350D, and RAW

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