S90 RAW and PS CS3

[rdfarr]

I've searched the internet for the solution to importing the S90 RAW files into Photoshop CS3. However, I've not found a workaround to the problem where the latest Adobe Camera RAW release 5.6, which addresses the s90, will NOT work with CS3. Adobe will no longer support CS3 so what now? Buy C$4? Far too pricey for me.
One of the specific selling points for me with the S90 was exposure bracketing and RAW captures. I'm a big PS user and wanted to do some HDR photography.
Any solutions or suggestions?

[Jon]

Digital Photo Pro is a perfectly good converter; it's all I use nowadays. You could always use ACR stand-alone to save the files as DNG and then use 'em in CS3 also.

[David_S]

Have you considered converting your raw files to dng (http://www.adobe.com/products/dng/) and then processing them? Or process them in canon's software and save as tiff or jpg and then do your hdr in PS even tho there is other software that seems to work better for hdr. I prefer photomatix (http://www.hdrsoft.com/) for hdr but its not for everyone I suppose.

[rdfarr]

Thanks for the replies.
Jon: The DPP only converts to jpg and tiff. The ACR posted on the Adobe site for DNG conversion is only compatible for CS4.
David_S: Same comment as above regarding DNG. I did use DPP to convert a cr2 file to tiff and run it in Photomatrix, my preferred HDR engine. It worked OK, but shouldn't a RAW file work better?

[Jon]

You can do multiple extractions from a RAW file to either TIFF or JPEG and merge them in HDR same as you would multiple separate shots. Most image editing programs, including CS3, can accept 16-bit TIFF files for editing.

[David_S]

Thanks for the replies.
Jon: The DPP only converts to jpg and tiff. The ACR posted on the Adobe site for DNG conversion is only compatible for CS4.
David_S: Same comment as above regarding DNG. I did use DPP to convert a cr2 file to tiff and run it in Photomatrix, my preferred HDR engine. It worked OK, but shouldn't a RAW file work better?

If you want to use RAW files in Photomatix as long as it supports the S90 which is shows it does you should be able to do so. Unless I'm misunderstanding things there is no need to do anything to a RAW file to process it in Photomatix as any settings applied to a RAW file are only stored in the program that you use to process them so no changes are visible except in that program or when exported as a tiff or jpg. Take your multiple exposures raw files then open them in Photomatix and create your hdr image. I don't really know if it's better to use raw files in Photomatix but is sure is easier because you don't have to process the images twice if an hdr is the only final image you are after for that photo. I think Jon is stating that you can change the exposures of one image to obtain multiple exposures and then combine them in Photomatix in which case you could use DPP or any other program of your choice to perform this. I have done this many times but I've read there is more dynamic range with images combined that were actually exposed differently in the camera but don't really know if it's true or not. Either way you should be able to do what you need with the software you have except you can't process your RAW files with acr which is a bit over rated IMO unless you are dead set on using one program such as lightroom or CS4 to process with. Even people that use lightroom still export to photoshop to finalize so you are at no disadvantage that I can see.