Workaround for importing Canon G15 CR2?

[FEBoston]

Hello, have PSP X4. RAW files from my new G15 have colors totally scrambled so I suspect yet another rev of Canon's CR2 format. See CR2 & JPG thumbnails, attached.

Satisfied with X4 and rather not upgrade now. Have installed Canon's "Digital Photo Professional" which correctly reads the CR2s. Rather work in PSP; Canon's app can save RAW as

Exif-TIFF 8bit
TIFF 16bit
and both in combo with Exif-JPEG

Would you please tell me, will TIFF 16 bit preserve the RAW data and then I could edit in PSP? Other alternatives?
Thanks for your help.

opened in PSP

G15 raw.JPG (29.14 KiB) Viewed 4030 times

opened in PSP

G15 jpeg.JPG (22.72 KiB) Viewed 4030 times

[photodrawken]

You can use Adobe's free DNG converter:
http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/ ... moid=DTEHR
to first convert your Canon RAW images to the DNG format, which should work OK in PSP. I do this with the images from my Panasonic LF1 which has only been on the market for a couple of months.

Any format other than the RAW formats of DNG or your camera's RAW format do not preserve the image data as RAW data.

[df]

Would you please tell me, will TIFF 16 bit preserve the RAW data and then I could edit in PSP? Other alternatives?

For the most part yes so long as you use a better color space than sRGB.
In PSP click File> Color Management> Color Working Space. In that dialog click the dropdown for Color Working Space and see what color spaces are listed. These are the ones that are installed on your computer.
Now in DPP click Tools> Preferences. Color Management tab. Under Default Settings of Work Color Space see if any of the other options match what you already have.
Setting both programs to the same color space is best.

Remember to convert any images you post to the web to sRGB. It's the one color space that just about any computer on the planet will display properly. Most printing services also print from the sRGB color space, although many will happily take other color spaces, convert them to their printer's color space, and make the prints look good.

[FEBoston]

Thanks to both members who responded. If I may followup...I installed the Adobe DNG converter and used it on 2 CR2 files, with the default options including Camera RAW 7.1 compatibility. I found that the DNG version, compared to the G15-created JPG, is somewhat brighter, which at the moment doesn't concern me. What does make me scratch my head is, the DNG is considerably less sharp than the JPG. I considered updating PSP to SP2 or SP3 but although the downloads are at Corel, the install fails maybe because Corel has abandoned version 4. I have attached magnified shots of the JPG and the DNG as rendered in PSP and would much appreciate just one more round of comments. Disclaimer: this is my 1st-ever attempt at working with RAW so the real problem might be my lack of knowledge. Thanks again for your help.

[photodrawken]

FEBoston,

OK, first things first. Adobe has a very understandable introduction to what "camera RAW" is all about. This PDF file explains (with illustrations) how your digital camera works:
http://wwwimages.adobe.com/www.adobe.co ... apture.pdf

Now, to explaining what you've noticed in your photographs:
When you set your camera to save the image as a JPG, your camera first captures the image as RAW data, then the computer in your camera applies "corrections" to the RAW data and converts the RAW data into a JPG image. One of the "corrections" is to apply sharpening. When the image is converted to JPG, some colour data is discarded because the JPG format not only is an 8-bit image, but also the JPG format uses "lossy" compression which means some more data is discarded to compress the image.

When you set your camera to save the image as RAW, the data is kept as close as possible to the original data captured by the camera's sensor. (That sensor data has 14-bit values, but they're multiplied up to 16-bit values for the sake of increased precision.) So, yes, I was somewhat disappointed, too, when I first started shooting in RAW a couple of months ago. However, the advantage is that one can achieve spectacular results by adjusting RAW images (which are 16-bit and allow much more leeway for adjusting than do 8-bit images).

It all comes down to how much work you want to do on your computer after the fact, and how spectacular you want your images to look. For a whole lot of purposes (like posting on the Web, or displaying in a photo frame, or having a simple snapshot without any fuss), using JPG is fine. If you're looking at a scene you think is spectacular and think you'll want the best possible image of it, shoot it in RAW.

[FEBoston]

FEBoston,

OK, first things first. Adobe has a very understandable introduction to what "camera RAW" is all about. This PDF file explains (with illustrations) how your digital camera works:
http://wwwimages.adobe.com/www.adobe.co ... apture.pdf

< ... >

Many thanks again, photodrawken - you have eloquently confirmed my suspicion that a little knowledge (here on my part) is a dangerous thing! While I was aware that JPEG is a lossy compression format, I had not known that the internal processing also applied sharpening. Also didn't consider the color depth loss from RAW to JPG.

You've provided an excellent example that this is one of those times where RTFM applies. I'll study the Adobe doc you referenced. And yes, I doubt I'll work with RAW very often, but as the G15 is the first camera I've owned that can save RAW images, thought I'd be prepared to shoot some in RAW+JPG and then hope to be able to improve a "special" shot over the stock JPG output.

Much appreciation for your explanation, and your patience.

[photodrawken]

...thought I'd be prepared to shoot some in RAW+JPG and then hope to be able to improve a "special" shot over the stock JPG output.

Sounds like a plan. Good luck!