Just got new T4i and it's my first SLR. Looking for some advice on a few things.

Just go out there, take photos, then look at how you want to improve. Asking questions when you have a photo on hand will allow people to give you the best advice. The worst advice? listening to people telling you what to buy.

Everyone on the forum is helpful in lending a hand to show you the way.

pointless right now of people saying "buy this and buy that". They just pooled their monies to get a camera as a gift to each other. It is a continual learning curve, etc. Books can only help you to a point, but you have to learn, get familiar with your camera and lenses that you have. You'll get the hang of it in no time.

Thanks for all the helpful information guys. Plan on using my camera this weekend to try and get some practice in.

One last question regarding RAW. I want to shoot my pictures in RAW since it will give me the most information and allow me to print my images at a larger size (am I wrong on this). I own an IMac computer and Adobe Design Suite Premium CS4 and I want to be able to download the RAW images to my computer. I have Snow Leopard on my Imac and looked up downloading RAW to my Imac and I see that I must own either Iphoto 11 or Aperture I believe. Does anyone on here use a Mac for downloading RAW images to their computer. Can I just download them to my computer and open them in Photoshop if I don't have Iphoto 11 or Aperture? I just don't know if I actually need a program that recognizes my camera and allows it to grab the pictures from the camera. I figured you guys probably have experience with this stuff that might be helpful.

Thanks.

cc1995 wrote in post #15338674
Thanks for all the helpful information guys. Plan on using my camera this weekend to try and get some practice in.

One last question regarding RAW. I want to shoot my pictures in RAW since it will give me the most information and allow me to print my images at a larger size (am I wrong on this). I own an IMac computer and Adobe Design Suite Premium CS4 and I want to be able to download the RAW images to my computer. I have Snow Leopard on my Imac and looked up downloading RAW to my Imac and I see that I must own either Iphoto 11 or Aperture I believe. Does anyone on here use a Mac for downloading RAW images to their computer. Can I just download them to my computer and open them in Photoshop if I don't have Iphoto 11 or Aperture? I just don't know if I actually need a program that recognizes my camera and allows it to grab the pictures from the camera. I figured you guys probably have experience with this stuff that might be helpful.

Thanks.

Using raw does not make it possible to print images at a larger size. Raw just gives you the uprocessed data from the sensor to be processed in the computer. .JPG files will print just as large, the difference is things like contrast, white balance, saturation, and sharpening are applied in camera and the rest of the data is discarded. You can still edit .jpgs to have some effect on those things, but you are working with less data. But the image size is not decreased. Think of it as having raw dough, you can decide whether to make a pizza crust or biscuits with when its raw. After its cooked a bit (JPG) your options are decreased.

If you have photoshop you should have the ACR raw converter that is bundled with it so you dont need any additional software to open raw files. If you are only talking about importing files, just buy a card reader and skip the whole part of connecting the camera to the Mac. The card reader becomes an external hard drive of sorts and you can manage files from it however you like.

gonzogolf wrote in post #15338709
Using raw does not make it possible to print images at a larger size. Raw just gives you the uprocessed data from the sensor to be processed in the computer. .JPG files will print just as large, the difference is things like contrast, white balance, saturation, and sharpening are applied in camera and the rest of the data is discarded. You can still edit .jpgs to have some effect on those things, but you are working with less data. But the image size is not decreased. Think of it as having raw dough, you can decide whether to make a pizza crust or biscuits with when its raw. After its cooked a bit (JPG) your options are decreased.

If you have photoshop you should have the ACR raw converter that is bundled with it so you dont need any additional software to open raw files. If you are only talking about importing files, just buy a card reader and skip the whole part of connecting the camera to the Mac. The card reader becomes an external hard drive of sorts and you can manage files from it however you like.

Thanks for that great explanation on RAW vs JPEG. I always thought that since the MB size of a RAW file was so much bigger than the JPEG version of the same image that it meant it could be printed at a larger size. I didn't realize that the reason the Jpeg was smaller was do to the camera processing it and tossing information.

Also, thanks for the information on getting the files and opening them on my mac. Never worked with Raw files before only JPEG and TIFF.

Start a 365 project.

cc1995 wrote in post #15338674
Thanks for all the helpful information guys. Plan on using my camera this weekend to try and get some practice in.

One last question regarding RAW. I want to shoot my pictures in RAW since it will give me the most information and allow me to print my images at a larger size (am I wrong on this). I own an IMac computer and Adobe Design Suite Premium CS4 and I want to be able to download the RAW images to my computer. I have Snow Leopard on my Imac and looked up downloading RAW to my Imac and I see that I must own either Iphoto 11 or Aperture I believe. Does anyone on here use a Mac for downloading RAW images to their computer. Can I just download them to my computer and open them in Photoshop if I don't have Iphoto 11 or Aperture? I just don't know if I actually need a program that recognizes my camera and allows it to grab the pictures from the camera. I figured you guys probably have experience with this stuff that might be helpful.

Thanks.

Let's back up here!

Your Photoshop CS4 will not be able to directly handle the CR2 Raw files from the T4i -- Adobe Camera Raw support for the T4i was released earlier this year with Camera Raw 7.x, and for that you would need CS6.

So, you have a few options:

1) An up-to-date version of Aperture either should process T4i or at least one should be forthcoming. I'm not an Apple/Aperture user so you'd have to find out specifics about that

2) One handy tool for older versions of Adobe Camera Raw is the Adobe DNG converter. It converts your Raw data to a "universal" format. They have provided the code to other Raw developers although right now it is pretty much only being used by Adobe products. However, it's quite common for folks with an older version of Camera Raw and a newer camera.

3) An often overlooked option but one that has been getting more attention over recent years is the Canon Raw processing software that was provided on disk with your camera, Digital Photo Professional (DPP). It's actually very nice software, especially for someone getting started in shooting/processing Raw photos. Plus, there is other software on the Canon disk, including EOS Utility, which both enables you to directly connect your camera to your computer and download a new shoot and also enables you to shoot "tethered" where you can view and control your shooting via your computer, it's quite a good tool, especially because it works with your camera Live View to preview your shots.

One other note: in Live View, I believe you can turn on Exposure Simulation which allows you to show the Histogram, I believe pressing the Info button lets you toggle to different Live views, althoiugh first you need to turn on Exposure Simulation (check your camera manual for that).

I agree that the bundled Canon software is fine for starting out, adn getting comfortable with using raw files.