RAW Import into iPhoto 4 - are pixelated results permanent?

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Level 1

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RAW Import into iPhoto 4 - are pixelated results permanent?

OK, I made a mistake. Imported photos from Nikon D100 into iPhoto 4 but didn't "recall" I had RAW quality set (usually JPEG-normal). When I did get to viewing the Import in detail, I saw to my chagrin that the images are pixelated.

Can anyone advise if the images are recoverable? (I couldn't get Nikon 5 to perform magic or Photoshop CS. I have ordered iLife 6 to upgrade iPhoto...).

Thank you in advance.

G4 Desk, G3 Pismo Mac OS X (10.4.6)

G4 Desk, G3 Pismo Mac OS X (10.4.6)

Posted on May 25, 2006 10:30 AM

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Answer 1

Dave E

Level 4

1,250 points

May 28, 2006 6:26 AM in response to subqualified

I did a search for "embedded thumbnails in Nikon RAW format" and found discussions that indicated .NEF files contain a low-resolution thumbnail. Since RAW support was probably introduced in iPhoto 5 or 6, I'm betting that iPhoto 4 is "seeing" the embedded thumbnail.

I can't confirm this since I have iPhoto 6 only but maybe you could go to the file in your iPhoto library folder and double-click it (open in Preview). If the image is of high quality, then the file was imported but iPhoto can't read the RAW part.

Also look at the size. It should be huge - maybe over 5 or 6 MB depending on the camera's megapixel rating. 3x-5x the jpeg size. If that's the case and the file extension is .nef and not .jpg, you probably have the whole file and updating to iPhoto 6 will display RAW in all its glory. If the file size is tiny (make sure you're not looking at the thumbnail file that iPhoto creates independently) then it's possible iPhoto never imported the full image.

Do you still have the photos on your card?

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Answer 2

subqualified Author

Level 1

0 points

May 29, 2006 6:08 PM in response to Dave E

Hi Dave. Thanks for the reply. I got iLife 6 on Friday last and loaded iPhoto 6 and voila, the raw imports opened as you suggested they would. I had some sort of trouble on the photos that I had rotated so they would be in portrait or landscape mode in that they did not convert at all (stayed pixelated) and are lost.

I don't have the photos on the card - I had to format the card. The card indicated it only had capacity for 4 shots. These 4 were were what was available after I changed the settings to jpeg from raw. I tried to see if the raw photos were still on the card before formating - they just wouldn't register. Since I got most of what I wanted by just updating iPhoto I was OK. So I formated it.

Thanks again for the reply. I consider this problem solved.
Dan

G4 Desk, G3 Pismo Mac OS X (10.4.6)

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