Tiger & Camera RAW for Canon Rebel XT (350D)

This is a bummer. I was able to borrow a Digital Rebel from work for a few weeks and my wife was more-than-impressed. She was so impressed that she agreed that we could purchase a Digital Rebel XT (it should be here Monday!).

The Digital Rebel worked with RAW files, I made the [foolish] assumption that it would work with the DRXT too. I wish I had more to contribute to this topic, but I just wanted to register a "me too" voice for the DRXT iPhoto RAW support wish list.

I am currently using the trial version of Photoshop Elements 3.0. I do not need the full power of CS2. However, like you, I would like to be able to import photos with iPhoto and use it to manage my images and create projects without having to convert to JPEG first.

By the way, sort of understands the CR2 files from the DReb XT, because it can pull the small JPEG out of the RAW file for display in Finder. I am not sure if you have noticed that or not.

Well, I can't make iPhoto support XT RAW, nor can I tell you when it will. I do, however, have a workaround - if you have PhotoShop (may also work in Elements).

Get Dr Brown's Image Processor (free photoshop script) here:

http://www.russellbrown.com/tips_tech.html

This works with CS1 and is apparently built into the latest version of PS.

It gives you complete control over your RAW processing and then batch processes the files to JPEG (and/or TIFF and/or PSD). THe processed jpegs can then be imported into iPhoto. I have been doing it this way since long before iPhoto supported any type of RAW format.

iPhoto is great, and it is nice that they added RAW support. However, if you really want to shoot RAW on a regular basis, iPhoto is not the best choice to process your files. It does a good job, but a tool like PhotoShop (or the program that comes with your camera) provides a much higher level of control - which is supposed to be the point of shooting RAW. If you just want most of the settings to be "automatic" then you may as well shoot jpeg (which is actually a RAW file that the camera processes for you).

After doing that, you can save the RAW "originals" to CD/DVD/etc. to save space. If you really want to protect yourself, convert a set to DNG (Adobe's new digital negative format) and archive those as well. With all the different RAW formats floating around now, you never know what will be supported in the future. (Imagine trying to run iPhoto in "ClassicX mode" on your OS XXX system machine because none of the tools 25 years from now support the "ancient" Rebel XT RAW format!)

--Joe

My intent was not to use iPhoto as the image processor as much as it was to use iPhoto as the image manager. I can setup iPhoto to use Photoshop Elements as the image processor when I double-click on an image for editing.

The problem with this, obviously, is that iPhoto 5 does not understand the XT camera raw format, so you cannot use it to import the photos from the camera.

Yea, there is a way but it is very tedious, I have been using it for about a month. Let Canon's software download your images to a file on your desktop, (that you create) go to Automator and process to cr2, then do graphic conversion of batch files to tiff. Once that's completed you can than import those tiff files to iphoto, be aware that it takes about a minute per image to convert, so if you have 60 images you're looking at about a hour, as I've said it can be tedious.

I bought a EOS 350D back in August and noticed that iPhoto5 did not import my RAW images.
I think that its madness that the most highly rated budget SLR is STILL not included.
To make matters worse not all of the CANON software will work on 10.4.2.
APPLE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE sort this out for the legion of Apple / Canon photographers.
WE ARE TIRED OF WAITING!!!!!!

Darn it! I just got my DRXT and was looking forward to shooting in RAW and using iPhoto. I seen "Digital Rebel" in the compatability list of iPhoto and also assumed the XT would be a part of it.

Pleaes post here if and when it is resolved so we can all enjoy RAW when it is fixed.

The best thing all of you on this topic can do, is call Apple support if you are still in the 90 day warranty period for iLife. Go through the process..it may take a while..then ask to speak to someone (a supervisor) who can provide more info as to when Apple intends to fix this ommission. You will have to be firm about speaking to the next level. Good luck.
p.s. Has anybody noticed that Aperture, the $500, "the first all-in-one post-production tool for photographers.", "And with the most powerful image processing in the world", blah, blah...DOESN'T SUPPORT THE REBEL XT EITHER? I'm thinking either something is really difficult with the XT raw interface, or the XT must have peed-off somebody at Apple.

Terry

Terry,

Aperture does support the Rebel XT. Check out this page at the lower right in the section that tells which RAW formats it supports.

http://www.apple.com/aperture/raw/

Thanks Kerry,
I flew right by that and didn't even see it. I must have gone straight to the fine print having been burned on the purchase of iLife (iPhoto 5). What I went to was this: http://www.apple.com/macosx/upgrade/cameras.html. Now which is telling the truth? I'm pretty sure I'm not going to bet $500 to find out. Besides, if Apple had RAW for the XT, why wouldn't they offer it in an upgrade to iphoto 5? It's probably a typo 😉 yeah sure, that's it.
BTW, I would almost swear that 3 or 4 days ago when I first saw Aperture on the apple site, the price was $299. Can anyone confirm this? It was late at night, I was half drunk and using a win2000 laptop.
Terry

They're both telling the truth.

One page is talking about importing directly from the camera. The other page is talking about Raw support. It's subtle, but those are two different things.

That's actually not quite correct. My computer (10.4.2) will import jpeg images from my Rebel XT, just not the RAW format. I'm not sure I would call " Aperture supports digital cameras..." exactly subtle. I read that as Aperture supports the cameras that the link takes you to. I understand your point that they are two different things; however, I would assume Apple has some pretty good ad people to review their ads before they're released. If this is an error, it's a fairly big one. I got burned with iPhoto 5. After installing iLife, iPhoto still wouldn't process my RAWs. I called support and they, of course, refered me to the "supported digital camera page". So when I called support today about this discrepancy in the Aperture ad, they said Aperture does process the XT RAW, but I would have to discuss with Canon about the drivers necessary for OS X. At that point, I had an uncontollable laughing fit and hung up. I'm still not 100% sure if I should hook my XT to my computer;) Just to be safe, I download the pictures with a card reader and it works out ok.
Terry

Just read this thread with great interest as I have bought what in the UK is called an EOS 350D to find I am having the same problem as others here! I do feel cross as the list of supported cameras for iPhoto RAW lists the Digital Rebel which I had (mistakenly?) thought was the US name for my camera. I now see that the Digital Rebel XT must be something different...I bought Apple care so I will ring them when I have a spare hour(!) and moan about this.

Anyway, this is stretching the elasticity of this thread a little, but Apple owners in the same boat are often the best and friendliest help! My question was - I can't get the 'Canon Camera Window' software to see my 350D when directly connected to my Mac mini. Is this a 10.4.2 issue? Until I crack this I seem to have no way of dumping the raw files onto my Mac for working with them either using the Canon 'Digital Photo Professional' software or Photoshop CS. Any suggestions gratefully received. Is it just a matter of buying a cardread and copying the files from that? It still irks me that the software doesn't work, mind you...

Hello Matt,
The Canon to Mac software, in a word, s*cks. But it does process RAW, which is more than Apple can say.
Here's what I do: connect your 350d> open image browser> on the bottom menu bar click Canon camera and 'camera window' opens. It's not instant, so give it a sec. The two options are: start download (immediately) or review and select for download. Only the second options works with my set-up. Don't know why. Good luck. Post if this works or not.
Terry

Time to check Software Update - 10.4.3 is out and claims to include fixes for "Core Graphics, Core Audio, Core Image, and RAW camera support". No mention of the 350D, but it would fit with support being added for the Aperture release next month.