I would like your opinions, six months on, regarding the MS RAW browser. Is it worth the large MB download? I have yet to try it out as I was using DPMagic but recently found that the images in DPMagic were showing (falsely) that my 24-105 was showing a lot of CA. It was only after I started to convert from RAW and check them in ACR that I found the CA was in fact very minor with this lens (makes mental note not to jump to conclusions)
Your comments regarding pros and cons of this RAW browser would be much appreciated.
i like it for quick viewing, however i've found it displays the photos blurry when they really aren't. i thought my lens were screwed up when i first used it. after messing around a bit i found out it was just the ms viewer program.
Keep in mind RAW pictures aren't sharpened at all, so it's normal they look blurry. All converters apply a certain amount of sharpening to enhance your preview experience.
Keep in mind RAW pictures aren't sharpened at all. . .
This is not correct. Most, if not all the Canon non 1 Series cameras sharpen their Raw files in the camera. Chuck Westfall has commented on this several times at Rob Galbraith's site. Canon 1 Series cameras have no sharpening applied to their Raw files in camera.
ACR can be set to sharpen only the preview or to also sharpen the output, via ACR preferences.
I know, Jeff, I was simplifying. As per Chuck's statements, here is the status on the various RAW file formats for Canon:
.CRW files are "ever-so-slightlysharpened during the analog to digital conversion process before the file is written" to use Chuck's own words.
.TIF and .CR2 files are not sharpened at all.
Nevertheless, RAW files have a marginal amount of sharpening applied, if any, and will noticeably look blurred when viewed through the Microsfot RAW viewer. It will never look as good as when you preview them with a genuine RAW converter. My preference goes to BreezeBrowser with its unique HQ preview function.
Getting back to the original question. The large download is because it also includes the dot net framwork which is a requirement. As long as you have your machine patched and have the framwork installed, you can dowload the smaller version which should be a lot quicker.
I like it a lot for just checking images I want to import in to Photoshop. I know that CS2 has the browser but sometimes I just want to view the images.
