ABSTRACT
RAW formats vary from camera to camera and every manufacturer uses its own proprietary RAW file format for storing image data. Sometimes a company will terminate support for a discontinued camera's RAW format, leaving photographers high and dry. RAW file processing has entered the same era as traditional film processing at its height, when practitioners jealously guarded formulae for processing film. ACD Systems claims "lightning-fast RAW image previews," and for the first time the claims meet reality. That includes pro support for RAW formats from Nikon, Canon, Konica-Minolta, Olympus, Fuji, and Pentax cameras, and support for Adobe's vformat. RAW file support is directly built into Adobe Photoshop CS2. When a RAW image file is opened with Camera Raw, settings are stored in the Camera Raw database file or a sidecar file. Camera Raw reads the original white balance settings of most digital cameras, and leaving the White Balance menu set to "As Shot" uses the camera's white balance settings.
