60D and raw

[Shawn O]

hello again out there in photo land LOL happy late 4th to all in America and to those not in America I send hello's

Anyway, I have a question about Raw and my instruction manual said something about sRaw and mRaw what is it and how is the quality

Thanks all
Shawn O

[Geoff F]

S Raw is a reduced size file but it works in the same way as normal Raw. It is somewhere around a quarter of the size of normal.

But it is a smaller size image, not compressed in any way.

So if you want to cram a lot more images onto your card but never intend to print bigger than, say for instance, postcard size you may find it worthwhile. Presumably it will also upload faster.

As for me, I stick with the normal size Raw and use a bigger card, or change cards when full.

Will your editing software work with 60D Raw? I have a friend who couldn't get his programme (not Photoshop) to accept Raw from his 60D.

[Colin Southern]

But it is a smaller size image, not compressed in any way.

Just a small point ... all RAW captures are actually compressed, but it's a lossless compression.

[Geoff F]

OK, I meant extra compressed, like a Jpeg.

[inkista]

Just a small point ... all RAW captures are actually compressed, but it's a lossless compression.

Err... on Canons (iirc, and I probably don't, Canon uses LZW compression, like zip). I believe that Nikon actually allows lossy compression on their RAWs. I know. Surprised the heck out of me.

[Val Mansfield]

I have a 60D and my Photoshop will not recognize the RAW files. I think it is just a question of downloading camera information but I haven't had a chance to do that yet.

The alternative is to use the RAW processor that comes with the camera, it is said to be very good, and then export as a JPEG for Photoshop to do the final bits.

[inkista]

I have a 60D and my Photoshop will not recognize the RAW files.

Are you using CS5? Earlier versions of Photoshop are unable to use the latest version of ACR, and when you buy the latest camera model, it's typically only the version of ACR that comes out after the camera did that can understand that RAW format. (For the 60D, you need ACR 6.2 or later).

Remember, RAW is not a standard or single file format. It changes with every camera model that's released. There's a reason why Adobe came up with the DNG format.

If you're using an earlier version of Photoshop, you have one other alternative, which is to use the free Adobe DNG converter 6.2 (or later), to convert all your RAW files to DNG for use in Photoshop.

The alternative is to use the RAW processor that comes with the camera, it is said to be very good, and then export as a JPEG for Photoshop to do the final bits.

Might be better to convert to TIFF (or DNG) to avoid JPEG compression issues.

[Colin Southern]

If you're using an earlier version of Photoshop, you have one other alternative, which is to use the free Adobe DNG converter 6.2 (or later), to convert all your RAW files to DNG for use in Photoshop.

It's also probably worth mentioning that DNG is still actually a RAW format - it's just a standardised one, so no loss of quality occurs when converting to DNG.

For what it's worth, I always convert my CR2 RAW files to DNG RAW - makes them smaller - and there are no pesky sidecar files to worry about. Oh how I wish manucaturers would include DNG as a standard output format option!

[inkista]

It's also probably worth mentioning that DNG is still actually a RAW format - it's just a standardised one, so no loss of quality occurs when converting to DNG.

The only possible loss is proprietary non-standard metadata. But yeah. DNG is an open standard that supports non-destructive editing. This is a good good thing. Particularly when we're talking about possible archival file formats. And if you're worried about the loss of the proprietary metadata, you can always embed the original RAW file in the DNG, but the file size will (roughly) double.

...Oh how I wish manucaturers would include DNG as a standard output format option!

Pentax and Leica do!

[Colin Southern]

The only possible loss is proprietary non-standard metadata.

No - there's provisions in the structure for "secret sauce" fields.