RAW support: major changes in Leopard?
by moose
So the 10.5.2 Leopard update is out and… it brings a number of changes, including
RAW Image
Adds RAW image support for several cameras, as detailed in this article.
Said article states that the Nikon D3 and D300, amongst others, are now supported. Now that is good news for people who bought the latest Nikon or Canon pro and prosumer cameras, and are using Aperture. Yes, these high-end DSLR cameras have been out for a few month, and if you are using Aperture or iPhoto, you were left out there in the cold. [insert ramble about Lightroom kicking Aperture's digital ass here].
Now, a while ago I posted this news on Hardmac.com, stating that RAW support for these cameras was coming to 10.5.2, and come it did. The strange thing is that it came first in the iPhoto 7.1.2 update - or not depending on which website you read.
Now, for quite a long time, RAW support has been a system-wide thing in OSX, meaning that if Apple updated the RAW support, then it became available to all applications that were relying on said system-wide support, including the Finder, Preview, iPhoto and Aperture (Lightroom and manufacturer softwares use their own RAW decoders). Usually Apple would roll out a “Digital Camera Raw Update” and bingo! it would work.
So, the 10.5.2 update came, and now you can view your D300 RAW files in the Finder, in Preview, in iPhoto… but NOT in Aperture. But wait a second! What about 10.4 users? I still can’t view D300 RAW files on my Tiger laptop. And this RAW support update came with a SYSTEM update, not standalone. This seems to point to major changes to RAW support in Aperture, hinting to a system that would make Aperture’s RAW decoding independent from OSX’s support. That seems weird, unless you consider a system that would work as “plugins” for RAW files, allowing to easily add/update support for RAW formats, maybe even choose which RAW decoder you want to use in Aperture.
Time will tell.
February 12th, 2008 at 11:06 CET
indeed, it is really weird, as it would mean that photo amateurs or Pro will have to move to Leopard to get RAW support, but at the same time theyr will not be able to use Aperture anymore…
February 12th, 2008 at 11:39 CET
Hmm the way I see it is that Apple will release an Aperture update (soon?) that will work on both Tiger and Leopard. But I sort of liked the idea of having a system-wide unified support for RAW formats.
Mind you, there STILL is a system-wide support, it is just that Aperture seems to not rely on it anymore.
And people complaining how including the RAW support in system-wide updates makes it slow and clumsy for Apple to add new camera formats should be satisfied if Aperture moves to a “plugin” system that would allow to simply add RAW descriptors on a camera-by-cmera basis.
Wait and see…
February 13th, 2008 at 09:23 CET
[...] couple days ago I posted about major changes to RAW support and concluded by this: That seems weird, unless you consider a system that would work as [...]