jlw
Rangefinder camera pedant
Fellow RFFer Alan Ampolsk and I burned some midnight oil last night researching this, and I thought we'd better warn y'all right away:
As best I can determine, right now none of the Adobe imaging applications -- Photoshop CS2, Adobe Camera Raw, Adobe Bridge, or Adobe DNG Converter -- are natively able to open the raw file format generated by the R-D 1s! (Photoshop will open them using the latest Epson plug-in, but not using ACR.)
Alan has an R-D 1s and had posted here yesterday, wondering why Bridge and ACR wouldn't recognize his raw files. Alan uses Windows XP and I use MacOS X, so I volunteered to try to open a couple of them in case the problem was just with his Windows software installation. However, I couldn't open them either.
Just to make sure, I put Alan's test files side-by-side in the same folder as some of my original R-D 1 raw files. All the Adobe apps are fine with my files, but can't see Alan's at all. (Incidentally, he did NOT use the new capability of saving raw+JPEG files, so that can't be the culprit.)
Bridge refuses to render preview images of the "s" files; Photoshop won't open them, reporting a parsing error; DNG Converter says they're not eligible files. I also tried Adobe Lightroom Beta 2; it will show the 160x120 JPEG thumbnail image, but won't interpret the raw image and won't let you apply any Develop-module adjustments to it.
What this means is that as of this moment, the only way you can deal with raw files from the R-D 1s is to use Epson's newly-updated (v1.21) PhotoRAW application or Photoshop plug-in. That's okay for working with individual files, but is a real headache from the standpoint of managing large numbers of images. (For example, my standard procedure for handling raw files from either my R-D 1 or Nikon is to convert them to Adobe DNG format, and then use Bridge to view and manage them; that wouldn't work with R-D 1s files.)
What's particularly worrisome here is that I know a lot of us have been looking forward to the promised June 1 release (on Epson UK, at least) of the firmware update to apply some/most/all of the "s" improvements to the original R-D 1. If applying the firmware update also means switching to the new raw-file format, we all might find ourselves with no options other than Epson for managing our files! (And without the ability to back up and restore the old firmware, applying the update would be a one-way trip.)
Meanwhile, if you're really into paranoia, try this on your Pianola: Suppose that Adobe decides that since the R-D 1s is basically a lame-duck model that probably will never top 5,000 units, and isn't even sold officially in the US, there's no point in bothering to update DNG Converter and ACR to handle its raw format?!?!?
I can understand why the improvements Epson added to the "s" might require a change to the raw file format.
But if you're thinking of bagging the firmware update and applying it, you may want to proceed with caution! I know this has certainly made me think twice about what I'm going to do when the update appears on Epson UK on June 1 (assuming that really happens...)
As best I can determine, right now none of the Adobe imaging applications -- Photoshop CS2, Adobe Camera Raw, Adobe Bridge, or Adobe DNG Converter -- are natively able to open the raw file format generated by the R-D 1s! (Photoshop will open them using the latest Epson plug-in, but not using ACR.)
Alan has an R-D 1s and had posted here yesterday, wondering why Bridge and ACR wouldn't recognize his raw files. Alan uses Windows XP and I use MacOS X, so I volunteered to try to open a couple of them in case the problem was just with his Windows software installation. However, I couldn't open them either.
Just to make sure, I put Alan's test files side-by-side in the same folder as some of my original R-D 1 raw files. All the Adobe apps are fine with my files, but can't see Alan's at all. (Incidentally, he did NOT use the new capability of saving raw+JPEG files, so that can't be the culprit.)
Bridge refuses to render preview images of the "s" files; Photoshop won't open them, reporting a parsing error; DNG Converter says they're not eligible files. I also tried Adobe Lightroom Beta 2; it will show the 160x120 JPEG thumbnail image, but won't interpret the raw image and won't let you apply any Develop-module adjustments to it.
What this means is that as of this moment, the only way you can deal with raw files from the R-D 1s is to use Epson's newly-updated (v1.21) PhotoRAW application or Photoshop plug-in. That's okay for working with individual files, but is a real headache from the standpoint of managing large numbers of images. (For example, my standard procedure for handling raw files from either my R-D 1 or Nikon is to convert them to Adobe DNG format, and then use Bridge to view and manage them; that wouldn't work with R-D 1s files.)
What's particularly worrisome here is that I know a lot of us have been looking forward to the promised June 1 release (on Epson UK, at least) of the firmware update to apply some/most/all of the "s" improvements to the original R-D 1. If applying the firmware update also means switching to the new raw-file format, we all might find ourselves with no options other than Epson for managing our files! (And without the ability to back up and restore the old firmware, applying the update would be a one-way trip.)
Meanwhile, if you're really into paranoia, try this on your Pianola: Suppose that Adobe decides that since the R-D 1s is basically a lame-duck model that probably will never top 5,000 units, and isn't even sold officially in the US, there's no point in bothering to update DNG Converter and ACR to handle its raw format?!?!?
I can understand why the improvements Epson added to the "s" might require a change to the raw file format.
But if you're thinking of bagging the firmware update and applying it, you may want to proceed with caution! I know this has certainly made me think twice about what I'm going to do when the update appears on Epson UK on June 1 (assuming that really happens...)
