Best Canon Camera Raw Software For Mac
You should read up on JPEGs vs RAW (CR2) files. With JPEGs you save space and have more convenience, instant access to the image. but less adjustability later, if needed. RAW allow the most adjustability and can be converted into JPEG, TIFF, PNG, or may other types of files.
Basically, your camera setup needs to be reasonably correct, shooting JPEGs. There's more room for error in camera setup when shooting RAW. It is also possible to set up your camera to shoot both RAW and JPEG, as long as you have enough memory cards and hard drive storage space for the additional files.
So you don't really have to choose between them. There are many ways to convert RAW to JPEG. Yes, Canon DPP as provided with your camera is one. Personally I use Adobe Lightroom 4 and Photoshop CS6. These have advantages for me. Lightroom is a powerful cataloging and light image editing tool, as well as capable of high volume, batch processing of RAW files, making slide shows, proof books, and more.
Photoshop is literally the 'big Daddy' of image editing software, I use it for final finishing of my images. I've been using Photoshop since ver. 4 (almost 20 years now) and still probably only scratch the surface for all the different things it is capable of doing. There is also Adobe Elements, which I often recommend as a less expensive, easier to use 'lite' option. Elements combines some of the best and most used functionalities from both Lightroom and Photoshop, and gives a good intro to Adobe products (making it easier to later expand and upgrade.
There are many, many others: Aperture, GIMP, and many more. I haven't used the Irfanview that Mike recommends. Alan Myers San Jose, Calif., USA 'Walk softly and carry a big lens.' : 5DII, 7D(x2), 50D(x3), some other cameras, various lenses & accessories &.
Part of the point of shooting RAW is twofold: (1) Canon CR2 RAW images are 14-bit per channel and JPEG is only 8. This means JPEG lacks the tonality that RAW can provide and (2) JPEG uses a 'lossy' compression which means that as you adjust them, you may find many instances where it is not possible to recover detail. If you shoot RAW, but then convert to JPEG, you lose the advantages of shooting RAW - at which point you may as well just tell the camera to shoot in JPEG format at the time of image capture. You can use Canon DPP (Digital Photo Professional) which knows how to detail with the RAW images and it comes with your camera (no cost to you). This still leaves you with the conundrum that only someone with appropriate drivers to to view a.CR2 RAW image can look at the images. DPP does have the ability to conver images to TIFF and JPEG (presumably you'd only convert to JPEG when you are finished adjusting the image - JPEG is a great 'final presentation format' when your image will not require any further adjustment.
There are numerous non-Canon applications that know how to open Canon RAW files - but the catch is that RAW isn't a single format. Each camera has a slight variation.
This means the program you use has to know how to open a RAW for your specific camera model. If you are on Windows, the 'usual suspects' are the Adobe photography appliations (Lightroom, Photoshop Elements or the full Photoshop Creative Cloud software.) If you are on a Mac you can also use the Adobe software, but Apple provides RAW support at the OS level - so all Apple programs know how to open Canon RAW files (Aperture, iPhoto, Preview, etc.). I'm thinking we have a similar issue.
Best Canon Camera Raw Software For Mac
We've had our Canon for a while, and I don't know where our paperwork and any related disks for the camera are, but we use it for work every day, taking hundreds of pics each week. And yesterday we had our images save on the camera card as 'SCxxx' rather than 'IMGxxx' pictures. Now, we can't view the pictures. Are these what you're referring to as 'raw' images, and if so, how do I convert those back into IMG pics? Also, why would this happen now after we've taken so many without an issue? Thanks for any help. Which model camera do you have?
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JPEG files typically have a.JPG extension while RAW files have a.CR2 extension. The filename (before the extension) isn't important (and that part of the name is actually customizable) The camera can shoot JPEG, RAW, or video. But complicating things slightly with RAW is that many models allow you to shoot reduced RAW files (MRAW or SRAW, etc.) and many programs that know how to deal with 'RAW' only know how to deal with the full-size RAW (not the reduced size RAW files). Actual Canon software would be able to deal with anything the camera can make - so it's mostly 3rd party software that might not be able to handle all the formats. If you could please mention specifically which camera model you own as well as what software you are using to attempt to open the images then we can probably help you get your data back as well as get your camera back to saving images in the format you'd prefer. I switch between shooting raw-jpeg and just jpeg depending of what I'm shooting.
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If I'm doing portraits of people or closeups of insects and stuff like that I'll shoot raw-jpeg so I can post process the shots. I think of raw files as an old film negitive that hasn't been develpoed yet.
I use DPP that came with the camera for the first pass and Photoshop CS6 to as a final touchup as Alan does. Then after all that if I'm planning on sending the pictures out I save them as jpegs. You can download EPP and the user manual for your camera on the Canon website.