Color temperature vs. white balance - are they the same?

[loren]

you are a big help Colin. ty for all the advice and input!!loren

[Colin Southern]

you are a big help Colin. ty for all the advice and input!!loren

No worries - I'll look forward to seeing some of your shots!

[loren]

hi colin, i have a dilemma. since this is my first time shooting raw and jpeg format,i uploaded the pix onto my pc and now i cannot open the raw files. the jpegs will open though. they are both there physically i just cant open them! when uploaded they are saved as jpeg and cr2,1 image of each. am i doing something wrong or did i not format them correctly?

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Loren,

Colin is catching his zzzz's at the moment (it's about 5am there).

Fear not, it is unlikely to be anything you have done wrong, just that as you've never done it before, so your computer (PC or Mac?) doesn't know which application to open them with.

If you haven't used it before, now is the time to find the CD that came with the camera and load up the Canon software, or download from Canon website.

I can't give anymore specific advice than that as I'm not a Canon man, someone else may, or Colin will in the morning (my GMT evening).

You could, as a temporary alternative, download and install the free Picasa 3 from Google, it can at least display and edit even my Fuji RAWs (surely less common than Canon cr2). I still find it useful as it lets you flick through RAWs and zoom in to check sharpness, etc. from the Windows file manager.

What PP software do you have currently?

[loren]

hi dave, i have adobe ps 5.0. i just discovered i do have the canon disc that came with the camera but cant find it. so when i do i should be able to get some results! also i heard about the download from the internet but all i could find was upgrades to the original so i kinda gave up on it at this time. ty loren

[d3debian]

Hi Loren,

Go to http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/view...nalId=kb407111 for a plugin wich you might need.
As far as i know Canon provides new versions complete on their website and are not updates.
But with the link i give you you should have a startpoint to work out without Canon software.

Here you get complete programs and no updates DPP.

http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/co...nloadDetailAct

[Jim B.]

Hi Loren,

PS5 doesn't support Adobe Camera Raw.You need to find your cd with DPP on it.If you can't ,for now you might take a look at this, it's free.
http://www.dphotojournal.com/downloa...-raw-therapee/

Regards,
Jim

[loren]

hi folks, while i was away i found my original box and all the contents!! i am in the process of downloading the software and it appears to have everything i am going to need,just like you folks stated. i am going to try this software first b4 downloading anything more from the internet. hopefully it will be a pleasant and enjoyable experience,beings this is my first time doing any pp with raw images!

thanks to you all,
loren

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Loren,

Just to clarify; is it really Photoshop 5, not Photoshop Elements 5?

Only this would make a big difference to Jim's point, I believe he's right if you have PS5, but PS Elements 5 is something else.

[Colin Southern]

Hi folks,

@ Dave; 3am (ish) actually) ... we're 12 hours ahead of GMT/UTC right now (just come off daylight savings).

@ Loren; if it is indeed Photoshop 5 then I don't think that there is any way you'll be able to open *.CR2 or even *.DNG files, although as Dave said, if it's Photoshop Elements ("PSE") then that's a different story.

Canon will have shipped a copy of DPP (Digital Photo Professional) on the camera's CD - and you'll be able to download a later version from Canon if you wish. Personally, I'm not a big fan of it, but many do use it - and of course the price is just right!

Another alternative is to simply buy a copy of PSE - it's pretty cheap.

[loren]

It is PS5.0 and thanx for the tips.


Loren

[d3debian]

Personally, I'm not a big fan of it (DPP)

Why not?
I am very happy with it.
It provides basic functions wich do their job good in my opinion.
I can imagine when somebody needs really editingsoftware DPP isn't good enough.
But for minor optimisingpurposes DPP is fine i think.

What reason is it that you don't like DPP?
Do you recommend something else for me as i aim to produce pictures with the camera wich need only small adjustments?

[Dave Humphries]

Go to http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/view...nalId=kb407111 for a plugin wich you might need.

Hi d3debian,

Just wanted to say thanks for posting this link, clicking it revealed to me that adobe now allow Elements 6 users to upgrade to ACR5.3, whereas previously only Elements 7 users could get it.

Anyway, I now have ACR5.3 and am ready to accept RAW from any new DSLR I might buy.

Thanks,

[d3debian]

Glad to hear i was helpfull, even due serendipity and provide Loren with a wrong answer (sorry for it)

[_GUI_]

if you shoot RAW only you are forcing yourself to Post Process every single shot in order to be able to use it anywhere - and I'm guessing you may be doing, or sharing these shots with others.

Not really Dave. Few people know (and this is somewhat amazing to me BTW) that most RAW files have an embedded JPEG file. In fact that is the JPEG file from which histograms and clipping warnings are calculated in the camera.

The only difference between this JPEG and the 'official' JPEG you obtain when shooting JPEG or RAW+JPEG, is that the embedded version is usually smaller in size (on some cameras is the same size as the RAW) and has a higher compression rate. It is however very usable for most purposes in terms of showing it to others, sending to friends, Web or just quickly reviewing the contents of the RAW files.

Moreover this JPEG can be extracted very easily, for example with DCRAW performing: dcraw -e *.cr2 or simply using a script to extract embedded JPEGs from a list of selected RAW files via right-mouse clicking. It will extract JPEGs at a rate of about 30-100 files per second, which is super fast.

On my Canon 350D (RAW size is 3200 px), these embedded JPEG files are 1500 px wide, more than enough for most purposes but printing.

BR

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Guillermo,

Thanks for your reply, I did already know the content of the first two paragraphs.

In the third paragraph; I learnt something.
However, I'd still argue that using a script to run command line executables is beyond the average photographer or windows/mac computer user these days. We've all gone 'soft' on GUIs! (That's Graphical User Interfaces for those that wonder what it means, typically say, "drag and drop", e.g. when copying or moving files.

Typing words with syntactically correct switches (suffixes in english) to run programs is now completey alien to 98% of people. There's a big learning curve there for the un-initiated; and I include myself here, even though I write plenty of asp scripts in webpages most days of the working week.

If you had to explain to Loren and/or myself; where to find DCRAW, how to download (and unzip?) it, where to put it in Windows, where to put the image files, how to write the looping code, where to save and run that (batch file?) from, how will we know when it's finished; it's all a bit beyond the average 'softy' these days I would contend.

For those that know and have done it before; sure, it's dead easy.
If you were to visit us, do all that stuff and leave us with a desktop shortcut we could click after putting the files in a given folder, then take all the jpgs out when they've been generated, everything would be fine, but that's unlikely to happen. I contend the simple expedient of shooting RAW+JPG is far easier for most people.
Maybe it's simpler than I think, but the answers to date haven't resolved the issue in my mind - there's no "eureka" moment happening here.

I sound like a right Technophobic don't I?

I never used to be this bad
(I wrote for a Z80 once and used DOS3.3 quite a bit - the latter was 15 years ago)

Cheers, Dave

[_GUI_]

hehe Dave, in Spain we have a motto that would translate as something like: 'you are making a castle where there is only a grain of sand'. We have another good one: 'you are drowning in a glass of water'.

DCRAW is not even zipped, it's this dcraw.exe file that does not need installation, just copying it to C:\Windows for example.

The script can be found in the end of the DCRAW tutorial, and it's a simple .bat text file that only needs to be saved to the 'SendTo' folder of the OS (the tutorial explains how).

And to run it no typing needed, just select the RAW files in Windows explorer with your mouse, do right-click and choose 'Send To'->'extract JPEG'. The JPEG thumb will appear in a second.

Not so complicated, is it?

Anyway I just wanted to point that shooting only RAW does not necessarily mean postprocessing all files.

BR

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Guillermo,

I know the one you mean; I'm "making a mountain out of a molehill"

Thanks for the additional info., I almost feel that moment arriving.
Of course I am going to have to give it try now, I'll let you know how I get on.

Thanks for the extra help there,

[_GUI_]

I know the one you mean; I'm "making a mountain out of a molehill"

Funny! This reminds me of another comparision between Spanish and English versions of the same motto. Like in this case, the Spanish version has a trend to exagerate a lot, maybe that's because of the latin spirit:

English:
You are making a mountain out of a molehill

Spanish:
You are making a castle out of a grain of sand

-------

English:
It's better to have one bird in your hand, than two in the bush

Spanish:
It's better to have one bird in your hand, than one hundred flying