Tag Archives: Photoshop

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.

Photoshop CS3 and Mac OS 10.6.3 Potential Problems

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Having a problem? This might help.

After updating my Mac to Mac OS 10.6.3, I found that I could not successfully open Photoshop CS3. Although the program would go through what seemed like the entire startup process, it would unexpectedly quit right before it opened a document. There was nothing I could do to prevent this.

Needless to say, I was not a happy camper.

I started troubleshooting with a Google Search. Two pages were particularly helpful:

  • http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2382232&tstart=0 This thread on the Apple discussions forum contains 167 answers (so far) to the problem experienced by a user. As with most forums, the posts go off-topic to suggest Photoshop alternatives and attempt to place blame on either Apple or Adobe. If you have the time and patience to wade through the posts, however, you’ll discover several potential fixes.
  • http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/834/cpsid_83499.html This TechNote on Adobe.com gets to the meat of the matter without having to wade through a bunch of off-topic nonsense.

Apparently, the problem concerns all Adobe CS3 products and possibly some other software. It did not affect my copy of InDesign CS4.

Adobe provides three possible solutions. I’ll present them here in the order I think you should tackle them.

Disable Opening with Rosetta

Adobe suggests that you turn off the “Open Using Rosetta” check box in the Info window for Photoshop CS3 (or any other program that might be experiencing the problem. In the Finder, select the application’s icon. Then choose File > Get Info or press Command-I. In the General area of the Info window, turn off the check box labeled Open using Rosetta. Close the Info window. This was not the source of my problem, so I can’t verify whether this will help.

Obtain a New Serial Number

Adobe claims that the problem might have something to do with an invalid serial number registered for the computer. This is most likely to happen if your computer was serviced by Apple, perhaps to replace the logic board or some other major component. Per Adobe:

When launching Adobe CS3 applications on Apple’s Mac OS 10.6.3, the applications crash, or quit unexpectedly. This only occurs on systems where the system serial number is a value with more than 12 characters. This appears to only be the case when the system serial number doesn’t have a valid number, but instead has a value such as “System Serial#”, or “SystemSerialNumb”.

About this MacHow do you find the serial number registered by your computer? The easiest way is to choose Apple > About This Mac to display the About this Mac window for your computer. Click the Version number info right under where it says Mac OS X twice. The Version number will change to the Build number and then to your serial number as it is registered inside the computer.

When I originally read this and checked it against my serial number, I did not think this was my problem. After all, Adobe says it happens with serial numbers “more than 12 characters” in length. Mine was 11 10. And that was my problem. When I had my logic board replaced about a year and a half ago, the Apple genius entered an invalid serial number for the new logic board. He basically left out one character. Something in the Mac OS X 10.6.3 update triggered a serial number validation routine in CS3 products. When it came up with an invalid serial number, it refused to run Photoshop CS3.

The solution is not one you’ll like if you don’t have an Apple store nearby. This morning, I’ll be driving 50 miles to get the correct serial number entered into my Mac by a “genius.”

Revert to Mac OS X 10.6.2 or Earlier

Adobe suggests this as the first alternative. Downgrading operating system software is never something I recommend as a first option. After all, eventually you’ll have to upgrade again. Why not try to fix the problem if you can?

But if you can’t fix the problem any other way, downgrading to Mac OS X 10.6.2 might be the way to go. You can find instructions for downgrading at http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2597.

Are You Having This Problem?

If you’re having this problem, I’d like to hear from you. What software was affected? How did you resolve the problem? Add your comment to this post.

Please limit your comments to this topic. Rants against Apple or Adobe or suggestions on what software is better than Photoshop will not be approved.

Canon LiDE 30 Scanner with Photoshop CS3 on Intel Mac

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Not a good combination.

I finally got around to installing my Canon LiDE 30 scanner — I know it’s cheap junk, but that’s all I need — on my iMac. Much to my surprise the driver installer didn’t see Photoshop as a place to install a plugin. So I manually installed it And then it wouldn’t work.

So there goes another hour of my time to troubleshooting the problem.

It appears that Canon doesn’t have an Intel-native plugin for the scanner. The plugin was written for Power PC Macs. And Photoshop CS3 won’t run Power PC plugins on an Intel Mac.

This explains why the setup worked perfectly well on my Dual G5 (did I mention it’s for sale on eBay?) but won’t work on my new iMac.

I found information for a workaround on the Adobe forum. (Can you believe actually found helpful troubleshooting information on Adobe’s site?) The topic title is Scanner not recognised in Photoshop CS3. Someone named Buko suggests running Photoshop in Rosetta and explains how to do it:

do a get info on the CS3 application and check the start in Rosetta button

Photoshop InfoI followed these brief instructions (see screenshot) and restarted Photoshop. And guess what? It worked.

Rosetta is an Apple technology that makes it possible to run non-Intel native or non-Universal Mac OS applications on an Intel Mac. As this Info window illustrations, Photoshop gives you the option of running Photoshop in Rosetta when necessary to ensure support for older plugins. You can turn this option on before you start Photoshop to access otherwise incompatible software-driven features. You can turn the option off and restart Photoshop when you don’t need those features.

I’m no under-the-hood programming expert, so I was wondering what the pitfalls of running Photoshop in Rosetta were. I Googled and found an article on tuaw.com titled, “Photoshop seems to run fine in Rosetta.” Although the article is nearly 2 years old, I agree that Photoshop seems to work okay.

The suggestion on the Adobe support forum was to run Photoshop in Rosetta only when you expect to scan something. This is probably a good idea, especially if you do a lot of intensive graphics processing. But there are other ways to scan that don’t require Photoshop at all. The CanoScan Toolbox software, which comes with the scanner, works fine and can send the image to Photoshop to be opened. That seems to be a good workaround, especially if, like me, you don’t scan often.