Help with RAW

[newcanon]

Hello,
I have been using my 300D for a couple of months now.I was having major lighting issues but I was told to shoot in RAW with a tungsten white balance. The tungsten white balance helped greatly over the "uto white balance" but when I load my images onto my program, I cannot get the raw images to do what I want them to do. I am using the File Viewer Utility program and I am thinking about investing in a new raw format editing program. I have read that raw blows jpeg out of the water but I cannot get the images to edit the way I want so I am back to shooting in jpeg and editing in PhotoImpresssion 4. Can someone please give me any advice as to how I can fix my images so I can shoot in raw. Thank you for your time.

[Guillermo Freige]

Actually they are 2 good alternatives to FVU in the PC world: BreezeBrowser (BB) and Capture One Rebel (C1R), both in the sub-50 range.

I've used (and still use) BB instead of FVU for all my S50 RAW shots, and some 300D shots, but C1R (it only supports the 300D/Rebel) is much more advanced.

BB has the "advantage" to use the same Canon libraries than FVU, so the image quality is exactly the same than the FVU-generated pictures, but it's much more realtime.

C1R uses it's own libraries, so the image quality differs from Canon-libraries programs. There is some differences in color rendition, but the C1R workflow and capabilities are much better. Also the image generated is more "film-like" in the highlights, and you can recover more highlight information than with Canon-based software.
Regarding the color rendition issues, there is a couple of ICC profiles generated by third parties, than seems to solve the problem. They aren't expensive ($20) and I'll buy them and try what happens. They can be downloaded from:
http://etcetera.cc/

BB can be donloaded as a trial from:
http://www.breezesys.com/

and C1R from:
http://www.pictureflow.com/