RAW

Hi David,

You might wish to take a look at a free download of a Raw Converter. I've found four sites that might be of help. I've not tried any of them but they should be worth a try. Good luck!

http://www.stepok.net/eng/raw_importer.htm

http://www.graphicregion.com/ablerawer.htm

http://www.download3000.com/raw-converter-downloads.html

http://download.cnet.com/RawShooter-Essentials-2006/3000-12511_4-10374172.html

I would also give RawTherapee a look http://www.rawtherapee.com/?mitem=2 

It's free and does support the 300D

Hi David, you asked if anyone could explain Raw files, well I’m no expert but I will give it a go. First of all many professional photographers only shoot in Raw, and many only shoot in Jpeg both with good results.In theory all cameras shoot in Raw but most then convert the file to Jpeg . Jpeg is a lossy file, this means that a lot of the original information has been ‘thrown' away, so if for instance the highlights in a Jpeg were burned out then no editing program would be able to recover them.

The Raw file is similar to an undeveloped piece of film and contains all information recorded from the sensor, a Raw file has a 16 bit image so you have 65,536 levels to work with compared to a Jpeg 8 bit space with just 256 levels of  brightness available. If you have under or over exposed your shots then it is easier to recover it from the Raw file. You also have more control over things like white balance and sharpening.

Raw files are much bigger than Jpeg mine are about 16mgb compared to 3or 4 for a Jpeg, having said that memory cards and external hard drives are getting cheaper. You will need to be able to work on and convert the file, each manufacturer use their own system because these are not standardized even different cameras from the same manufacturer have different files, so you need to convert to Jpeg if you want to send shots to a friend or if you want to post it on a site like POE. What many people do is take Raw + Jpeg at the same time (if your camera will let you do it) they then use the Jpegs to asses the shots but do any editing on the Raw files.

If you only shoot Raw then be prepared to spend a lot of time post processing the files.

Good job you lot know what you are talking about!! Lol

But hey, that's the power of POE!!

I use a Nikon D300 and I shoot using Raw and jpeg, as Mick said earlier this way I have total control on the images, jpeg for a quick reference to the shot and Raw to manipulate to my hearts content. I find that Raw has so much detail that I can bring out parts of a shot that would be missed in jpeg format. The only drawback is that processing Raw takes time but the results are worth it. I use CS5 and a plug in called Viveza that is astonishing for bringing out details.

 Iain

Like Iain, I too download Raw files from my Nikon D300 & D70. Also, I share his joy of the manipulation options. The control offered by Photoshop is impressive and sometimes I convert the same Raw file twice and combine the results via levels & layer masks to bring out shadow detail and darken weak skies etc. Can't praise the combination enough and saving PSD files means that one can return to a work in progress as many times as you like without spoiling any Raw files. For a while used to save my files as TIFFs, but in reality the quality is fine as Jpegs. 

My advice to all, would be to give RAW a trial.

Now thanks to Iain I must take a squint at Viveza.

Cheers!

Rod.

As mentioned before, I always shoot in RAW. Then I use the Olympus Master 2 s/w which came with my Olympus E620 to make certain adjustments which can only properly be carried out in RAW format e.g shadow compensation and colour-temperature adjustment. Then I save the result as a .BMP file i.e. lossless / uncompressed. I then use Paint.NET which is a totally FREE download to do the following as required; sharpen | noise-reduction | re-calibrate dynamic range | resize | save as JPG (with selectable quality/compression level).

It's a bit of a palaver, but it produces the best results, for me anyway.