.CR2 files?!?!

i took 35 pics in raw on my rebel xt. iphoto does recognize them so it wont import them. i found out that they are canon raw files but how the **** do i import these things? i want to use raw so the quality wont drop after editing. do .tiff lose quality? help please.

iPhoto5 can handle RAW photos. Digital photos don't "lose quality" with editing. The only real reason to use RAW photos is if you do a lot of post processing work with White Balancing, brightness, sharpness etc. If you are just getting rid of red eye, cropping, rotating there is no reason for you to not shoot in jpeg

You may be using an old version of iPhoto, make sure you have version 5. iPhoto imports RAW files just like any other image. I'd recommend using RAW as much as you can but not if all you are using it for is to save image quality.

A RAW file is an unprocessed image, it is 100% of the information that came from your CMOS. As soon as that information is processed (IE converted to a .jpg or .tiff etc) certain attributes are applied to the image (as trpnmonkey said, White Balancing, brightness, sharpness etc.) once they have been applied you can never get them back except from the original RAW file (to put it in prospective, a JPEG contains 8 bits per channel of information, while a RAW image contains 12 bits per channel). Shooting in jpeg will set all of these parameters in camera, meaning if the camera gets it wrong, tuff.
Shooting in RAW lets you make all of the decisions about these parameters in-front of a computer later on.

If you don't need to do this, shoot jpeg.

i want to shoot in RAW. but iPhoto does not recognize .CR2 files. i was able to get the pics onto my comp now but how do i convert it a .raw file? btw i do have iPhoto 5.0.4 and they do not recognize .CR2 files.

Does iPhoto see your 350XT? I'm not 100% sure the XT has this option but it should do, try going into your menu and find an option called communication and change it to P2P. Let me know if that helps or not.

it communicates just fine with the computer but i was just wondering why i cant view these .CR2 files. i guess i just have to save up for CS2...it seems like my only option now

Why not use the Canon Utility's software that came with your camera then? That way you can just bypass iPhoto all together unless you plan to be editing your photos with iPhoto (which to be honest, isn't a great idea.)

Tel said:

Why not use the Canon Utility's software that came with your camera then? That way you can just bypass iPhoto all together unless you plan to be editing your photos with iPhoto (which to be honest, isn't a great idea.)

Click to expand...

That's exactly what I was thinking. The Canon Utility Software works great if you don't have Photoshop... Especially with RAW images. Have you given that a try?