Sony DSC R1

That has not been announced as far as I know. Only info I have heard is the D200 from Nikon.

These two links mention what is supported.

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

http://www.apple.com/macosx/upgrade/cameras.html

I too have the DSC-R1 and have tried the .tiff route, but moved over to Photoshop Bridge for RAW processing and then out to .jpg for Aperture. This works for me, but I'd really prefer remaining in Aperture for the RAW processing. Note that Sony could also be the bottleneck due to not releasing their RAW specs. Is anyone listening? The DSC-R1 is becoming a very popular camera and is in need of RAW support for Aperture.

iMac G5 Mac OS X (10.4.5)

There are a few things you can do

1. Sign the openraw.org petition
2. Ask Apple (and whatever other vendors you use) to fully and correctly support DNG

These two things will benefit not just Sony customers, but everyone who owns an unusual/unsupported/exotic camera. If Aperture supported DNG, you would have a direct route to your R1 raw files even without direct R1 support in Aperture.

support needed for the RAW format here as well

--h

I wanted support for DNG files created by ACR from Sony DSC-R1 RAW (.SR2) files and thanks to the tips from other "researchers" postings, I worked out how to do it!

Notes:
This is not a way to open .SR2 RAW, just DNG from a camera not currently supported by Aperture.
This is a borderline unsupported feature, use caution and backup your files, etc.

OK, find and read the other posts about editing the raw.plist file (search "raw.plist"). Looks complicated?

Try this: find the "Property List Editor.app" file (it's in the XCode/Utilities) or get it from Apple via XCode download or off your System DVD. Next navigate to:
/System/Library/Frameworks/ApplicationServices.framework/Frameworks/ImageIO.fram ework/Versions/Current/Resources/Raw.plist

Copy raw.plist to your desktop, rename it .old and copy it again (you've 2 copies now)
Open the desktop raw.plist using the Property List Editor.app and find Sony in the list, change "DSC-F828" to "DSC-R1" by double-clicking the name, enter and save the file to the desktop replacing raw.plist.
Now drag the modified file to the folder where you found it. You will need admin privileges and must overcome some objections from the OS, but be nice and say "just do it", etc. and you will now be able to open DSC-R1 DNG files in Aperture or iPhoto.


iMac G5 Mac OS X (10.4.6)

Addendum to my prior post: it looks like the DSC-V3 may be a better place to modify the raw.plist as it has more structure in common with the R1.

TIFF vs. DNG?
I tried the TIFF alternative first, using the Sony converter, but found the file sizes too large for the value added by a more raw-like format. TIFF files were roughly 2x the SR2 in size. DNG's are about .5xSR2 in size.

Some logic:
So what happens between the sensor and the storage? Two things: compression and tweaking--a technical term describing the sharpening, etc. that the camera does. JPEG does both using a copression algorithm that can reduce the content of a file. Is this a problem? Imagine that you are the very talented engineer/photo expert at Sony with all the details of the sensor design at your disposal. Could you tweak the sensor data and manage the JPEG compression in such a way as to preserve quality, reduce file size and do it fast? My guess is that you could, particularly with Sony's premier camera! That's why JPEG-fine-10mp out of the DSC-R1 is acceptable for almost any photographic purpose consistent with a 10mp digital camera as a source.

Why mess with RAW? Your photo-eye may have seen things differently than the sensor saw it and the in-camera algorithim didn't help.

Historical side-note: when the first pictures came back from Mars they were developed and printed useing the top technology of the time (FotoMat, I think) and guess what? They came back showing brown rocks and a blue sky! Why? Because that's what the "algorithim" was trained to expect. The scientists went back to "raw" and got what the thought Mars should look like based on the chemical composition of the atmosphere and surface constituents.

As I understand it, TIFF has the tweaks, but without any compression so the file size expands accordingly. I don't think that TIFF preserves the underlying raw data in a form that can allow an "undo", so there is no real advantage other than inter-system portability.

So, for my work, JPEG works about 80% of the time and the rest is SR2 to ACR to DNG. Before the raw.plist discovery, I went through PhotoShop and kept the DNG's in a separate folder. Now, I think they can be managed in Aperture. TIFF files are redundant unless I have to send a full-size finished file to someone.


iMac G5 Mac OS X (10.4.5)

This is a "work-around" until such time as Apple provides DSC-R1 support! This also assumes that the raw.plist trick described in my earlier post is working for you.

Want to manage your SR2 files in Aperture? Here are the steps that work for me:
1) Get Adobe DNG Converter app from the Adobe website (free, but you may need CS2 or at least PSE3 to work with SR2--not tested without)
2) Convert your SR2 to DNG with "embed RAW" ticked (can bulk-convert in same folder)
3) Import the DNG files into Aperture (these are RAW for practical purposes)

You can then do your edits, etc using normal Aperture tools, save JPG and so on. If you want to work with your original SR2 file in ACR, just "output master" in Aperture and run the "Extract" routine in the Adobe DNG Converter. Presto! You get your SR2 back! (actually, a copy of it. . ..)

Good news: the Aperture library and vault take care of storage, etc. and edits work as with any other image.

Bad news: the conversion with embedded RAW adds about 3MB to the SR2 file size. If you want to save on size, don't embed the RAW and you'll have a DNG about half the size of the SR2 with lossless compression.

What you may want to do is edit the SR2 in ACR and save to DNG and then do the import to Aperture, but this won't work as the ACR edits are not usable in Aperture. They are still there though, so if you export the master, you'll see them again. You could in effect have two sets of edits on an image: one from ACR and the other from Aperture.

This is not as seamless as editing the SR2 file in Aperture, but it is a lot better than keeping track of two masters for every SR2 you took.

Enjoy! (but be careful, you are relying on undocumented features for what may be your livelihood or at least your photo library)

iMac G5 Mac OS X (10.4.6)