Wednesday 24 February 2010

Windows 7 and RAW images

Regular blog readers will know that due to unforeseen circumstances I recently found myself without my main PC. If you missed what happened, jump back a few posts. In the end I decided to replace rather then repair and jumped on the Windows 7 band wagon with a shiny new PC.

Like Vista (and XP) Windows 7 comes in both 32bit and 64bit version. But unlike Vista (and XP) the 64bit version of Windows 7 is well supported by software and hardware companies. The upshot was, all my hardware worked without a problem and almost all of my software reinstalled without complaining.

I say almost, because there were one or two problems which needed an extra download from the internet, but nothing to worry about.

However, I hit a major hurdle when it came to RAW files. I like to use Windows to view thumbnails of my images and in Windows 7 I could see JPG’s but not RAW thumbnails. Yes I could’ve use Bridge, but Windows is always there and really easy to use.

Previously I’ve blogged about installing RAW codecs from both Canon and Nikon to view enable RAW thumbnails viewing in Windows, so I downloaded the latest versions and rebooted the PC. Nothing happened. So I tried again, but still I couldn’t see the thumbnails.

It turns out both Canon and Nikons RAW codecs are for 32 bit operation systems only. How frustrating!

A search on Google pointed me to a tiny little program called “Fast Picture Viewer” which claims to provide a free RAW codec for almost all camera models. I have to admit I didn’t believe that it would work, especially as it was a 3mb in size compared to Canons 60mb file. But needs must, so I gave it a try.

Wham! As soon as I installed the software it worked. Amazing!

Now all I need is a PSD file viewer for Windows 7 64 bit and I’ll be a very happy bunny.

11 comments:

Bart said...

I hear good things about http://mysticcoder.net/mysticthumbs/

Gavin Hoey Training said...

Thanks Bart, Mystic thumbs looks like a winner!

Javier Cuellar said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Javier Cuellar said...

Have you tied Picassa Photo Viewer? It allows you to see all raw format and PSD, even under Win7-64. ;)

Mike Scott said...

Thanks. This is good info to know as I prepare to shift to Windows 7.

Ramon said...

When you go abroad, is it always on holidays or is it on business as well? I'm wondering if I would ever get to attend one of your conferences - talks in my city or at least a photo challenge of it, it would be nice. I'm from Spain, Seville, maybe you've been here before.

Anonymous said...

Nice one, I use a Mac and Finder (macs version of explorer) shows the raw files as thumbnails(.CR2) but any that are in portrait mode display the wrong way and you can't rotate them - so I have to use Bridge. Anyone know how to resolve this in finder please ????

Gary

Mick said...

Should have bought a MAC

Gary try thumbsup not used it myself but suppost to be good.
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/19673

Axel said...

Mystic sounds great for PSD thumbnails but as it's not a full-blown codec it won't enable full-size viewing in Photo Viewer, Media Center and other WIC-enabled applications. For a true 64-bit Photoshop PSD codec for Windows you might want to consider Ardfry Imaging.

About the FastPictureViewer RAW codecs download size it just proves once more that size don't matter ;-)

Kitty said...

I don't know if you've ever encountered FastStone Picture Viewer, but I really like it, and it seems to support most of the formats I encounter - including RAW files, .psd files, etc.

I'll be interested to read how you find Windows 7 after a period of time.

Anonymous said...

hi, can you tell me about canon 7d movie, when i play back on p.c. they're stalling and not smooth
i'm shooting in 1920x1080 and 1280x720.it's only have 640x480 is work.is it a time frame problem ?
sum.
admin@yeungsum.com

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