Monthly Archives: January 2011

How to Install Raw Camera Update 3.5 without Buying iPhoto ’11 or Aperture

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And why you might want to do that.

I recently purchased a Nikon D7000 camera as an upgrade from my nearly 4 year old Nikon D80. (What an upgrade!) It was part of my attempt to improve my photography by using better equipment. Another part of that was shooting in raw and using processing tools like those available in Photoshop to fine-tune my images.

NEF in FinderI shot my first bunch of images last week and was very surprised to find that the raw images, which have Nikon’s .NEF file extension, did not appear with preview images in the Finder (shown here). I also could not use Quick Look, or open the raw images in any application on my Mac.

The reason this surprised me is that I could see, preview, Quick Look, and open the .NEF images created by my Nikon D80.

I did some research and discovered that the raw format is camera specific — a fact I’d kind of known all along — and I set out to find the software update that would allow me to see them. I was rather surprised that I’d missed the update, since I use Software Update and generally install all updates, whether I need them or not. I assumed I’d somehow skipped this particular update.

Raw 3.5 UpdaterI found the Digital Camera Raw Compatibility Update 3.5, which included support for the D7000, on Apple’s Web site, downloaded it, opened the disk image (DMG) file, and started the installation. The splash screen clearly stated that the updater added raw camera compatibility for a handful of new cameras to Aperture 3 and iPhoto ’11. I didn’t have either one of these installed. I don’t own Aperture — I’ve been using Photoshop forever — and I hadn’t yet updated to iPhoto ’11 from iPhoto ’09. But I assumed that an Apple update would add support to Mac OS X 10.6.6, which was installed on my Mac, so at least I’d be able to see previews of NEF images in the Finder.

Can't InstallMy third surprise (if you’re keeping count) came when the installer told me it could not install the software. The message made it clear that I needed to have Aperture 3 or iPhoto 9 (confusingly, this is the version number for iPhoto ’11, not iPhoto ’09) installed to install the update.

I was stuck.

I did more research and discovered an alternative method for viewing previews and using those Nikon D7000 raw images. More on that in another post.

But then I discovered a workaround for the installation problem. Apple offered a free Aperture 3.1 trial on its Web site. Several Twitter friends had recommended Aperture and I was interested in giving it a try. So I downloaded the trial version and installed it.

You can probably guess what’s coming. Because I now had Aperture 3.1 installed, I could also install the Digital Camera Raw Compatibility Update 3.5 software. I ran the installer and it successfully installed on my hard disk.

Quick Look NEFAfter running Aperture once — just to make sure my Mac knew I had it installed — I went back to the Finder folder full of NEF images from my D7000. Still no icon previews, but I think that’s because my Mac expected to open them in Photoshop CS3, which did not support the D7000 NEFs either. But when I selected an image and used Mac OS X’s Quick Look feature (Command-Y), the NEF preview appeared in the Quick Look window.

Oddly, a preview icon also appeared for some (but not all?) of the NEF files in the photos folder on the SD card. I’m not sure why only some of them were affected, but they were the later ones. Maybe they’ll all show up as icons the next time I insert this disk? When I copied the folder to my hard disk, all the NEF files appeared with preview icons.

So I guess I can say that I set out to do what I wanted to do. I can only assume that the support for NEF file icon previews will continue even if I decide not to buy Aperture and remove it from my computer.

Did this help you? Can you add anything to help me or others? Use the comments link or form to speak up. Just don’t attempt to start a Nikon vs. Canon debate; I don’t think that would add any useful information to the discussion.

Dragon Dictation Trials and Errors

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I try an iPad-based dictation tool.

Note: This blog post was dictated into my iPad. Although I’d originally hoped to display the text in two columns to show unedited and edited text (as referred to in the post), I later decided to use DEL and INS tags to show actual text edits required — places where Dragon Dictation actually got it wrong. I did not correct my failure to dictate punctuation or my poor use of words, since those are my errors and not the software’s. A few additional comments are included in square brackets in the text.

I am trying something different today. I’m writing a blog post by dictating into my iPad.

I’m using a program called Capps dDragon caps dDictation. I downloaded it for free on my iPad not long after I bought the iPad. I’ve tried it a few times, and was very pleased with the results. Unfortunately, there’s a lot more to using dictation software and simply saying what you want to say.

These first two paragraph are good example. On the left you see my dictated version. On the right you see my edited version. Notice the changes I needed to make. It’s really not bad, but not exactly perfect.

The main problem with using dictation software. See is that you have to dictate everything you want to type. That means you have to dictate your punctuation, capitalization, quotes, and any other information that you want to put in your text other than the exact words.

You also need to speak clearly directly into a microphone. On the iPad that’s not exactly convenient since the microphone is at the top of the iPad. Right now my iPad is standing up on my table with the microphone close to my mouth so that so that Dragon dictation can understand what I’m saying. Of course if you have an external microphone it will work with that as well.

You also need to be careful about what you say. Any mistakes you make will be transcribed. This makes dictation a useful tool for getting out of a first draft, but not for getting final text. You’ll still have to go through the document and make changes to it as necessary to correct errors and rephrase sentences.

As I dictate this today, I see that I’m quickly getting the hang of it. Although it’s not natural for me to do this, I don’t think it will be difficult to learn. What amazes me the most, is the way the software can recognize exactly what I’m saying. I haven’t edited any of this text other than what you sought saw at the top of this post. [Not true; read note at top of post.] Get Yet as you can see dragon dictation has managed to understand almost everything that I’ve said. This absolutely amazes me. What I don’t understand, however, is how many people reported that dragon dictation could not understand them. The overall reviews in the iTunes store for the app are very low. I can only assume that these people are not speaking slowly and clearly so that the software can understand them.

What I do find a little bothersome about this software is that it needs an Internet connection to work. As I speak it evidently records what I say and then when I’m done it sends it to the Dragon dictation website words where it’s translated and returned to me. This isn’tthe best solution if you don’t have an Internet connection all the time. But given the price of the software, which was free, I really can’t complain.

Another thing I find a little bit bothersome is the fact that it evidently has a buffer. I can’t just go on talking for a long period of time and expect the software to be able to translate. Instead it automatically cuts me off gets the translation in and puts it in the software sometimes while I’m still talking. [Boy, that previous sentence could sure benefit from some commas.] This means that I need to stop at the end of every long paragraph let it translate and then start again.

It’s interesting to me also how the software does not recognize upon a pause as a place to put a comma or period it’s also interesting to me that it probably just inserted those two forms of punctuation instead of the words that I just set. Let’s see. That’s funny it’s got the words as I said them and didn’t put in punctuation. I guess it does take a little bit of time to get used to this. [This whole paragraph is a good example of experimenting. Believe it or not, Dragon dictation made only one error; the other errors were mine.]

As a writer, it’s a dream to be able to say what you want to say and have it automatically typed for you. But the reality is and not so sweet. In reality, I can type a lot faster than I can do this dictation. I can also make a lot fewer mistakes. And I can edit as I go along.

Still, I think the thing that bothers me the most, is that I have to stop at the end of every long paragraph to let Dragon dictation catch up. I don’t type like this. I don’t think like this. I tend to type thing [I corrected myself here but DD didn't know that.] right write a lot more a lot more fluidly. I also don’t think about the comments commas that I need to put in my documents.

Overall what do I think of this? I think it has its uses, but I can’t see using it as a normal writing tool. I’ll keep experimenting with it, but I’m not sure whether it will ever be something I use daily.

If you have an iPad or my phone iPhone I recommend giving this a try. You might like it. And if you like it a lot. You might want to buy the regular software that they self sell for your computer. They have a Windows version and a Mac version.