Save as RAW problems in Zoombrowser

[huckthe1]

I need some help in using Zoombrowser and converting my camera RAW files (CRW) to RAW to save on my hard drive. I can open them in File Viewer Utility, but I can not save them in RAW or RAW + JPEG. Is there another program to convert to RAW. I want to use RAW if possible but I don't get it with the files CRW. Help will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Peter

[AJSJones]

CRW *IS* the "raw" file format that Canon uses to get image information out of the camera. It is not a file format for anything else! You convert FROM raw to something your computer understands. You don't convert TO raw (that's what you already have - if you want to archive the original complete image information, save the CRW). Once you have an RGB image (by converting a CRW file however you do it) you need to save it in any of the RGB file formats (such as PSD, TIFF etc) because you cannot go back to the Canon CRW format. If you save as TIFF or PSD, you will not lose any information. If you save the RGB as JPG you will lose some information depending on how much you compress it. If you use the highest quality setting in Photoshop, you lose very little actual information, but you don't save much file space either.

(You may have been confused by Photoshop's apparent ability to open a "raw" file format but this has nothing to do with Canon's CRW format!)

Hope this helps
Andy

[huckthe1]

Thank you for the help . I use Photoshop 7 and have been trying to just open them in Photoshop. I found by a posting here on this forum that I had to use the twain driver and import the photos. I attempt this and it looks like it is being moved and then nothing appears. What is the procedure for getting these RAW(CRW) into Photoshop???


Peter

[AJSJones]

Peter, In PS 7 you need Adobe Camera Raw to be able to open CRWs from within PS. It does not support 10D or 300D (you don't say which camera you have). However, ACR2 will be part of the new PS CR (aka PS8) so if you plan to upgrade, your problems will be solved. In the meantime, use FVU to open the CRWs and save them as TIFFs. Then open the TIFFs in PS and you're on your way...

Andy