Working with RAW files

[MJCarnegie]

Hello Gang,

I just finished shooting 45 RAW images with my new G-5 at the Torrey Pines Buick Invitational Golf Tournament. Thus far, I have only the Canon supplied software to manipulate these images and it is quite spartan at best. The first thing I noticed is that my computer has come to a crawl. These files are a real load. My thought was to transfer them to CD's, but I'm unsure of which format I should be saving them in. Do I leave them in CRW, or should I convert them into 16-bit Tiff before storing on the CD? My thought is that once I've decided on which imaging software I like best (currently testing a trial version of PhotoImpact XL) I can then import the files I want to edit as I need them. Your thoughts?

Thank You!
Mike

[Jack W.]

I save my RAW files to cd, that way I always have the unprocessed "digital negative". The Canon software is excruciatingly slow. You might try BreezeBrowser, which a lot of people like, although I don't know if it's faster.
http://www.breezesys.com/BreezeBrowser/index.htm
You can download a trial version.
Of course, if you want to spring for the big bucks, Photoshop CS has a RAW converter built in which is considerably faster than Canon's software, and works as you use it, rather than waiting for each step to process. If you should happen to have Photoshop Elements, you can buy Photoshop for $299.
http://www.adobe.com/store/products/special.jhtml?id=catMicrotek&sourcecode=112300

[4walls]

If you are running WinXP, check out this thread for viewing the CRW files as thumbnails in Windows Explorer windows.

This will not help you convert the files any faster, but it is nice to preview the CRW files.

http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=21858