RAW frustrations - lesson learned

[angelschick6]

I haven't played a ton with RAW but I got cocky using manual mode only a few days back (I have been switching back and forth the last two weeks, only the automatic mode before that) and over-exposed a bunch of pictures. No biggie - I shot in RAW and JPEG. Somehow the files are bad in RAW :-( The JPEG's are fine but overexposed. Hubby tried like crazy, adobe support tried to help and the RAW files are no good. PSE6, CS4, Lightroom (downloaded the free trial hoping it was photoshop)- nothing would open them. The adobe guy even had me send him a file and he couldn't open it. So I lost like 20 shots that were overexposed :-( My lesson - good technology is a poor substitute for good technique in the first place :-( Not irreplaceable ones but really good no less.

[genevh]

Bravo for trying! And don't give up. Once you get the hang of shooting manual you will start to discover a new world of creativity in your photography.

What version of ACR do you have installed in PSE? It looks like ACR 4.4.1 is the first version that supports Canon XSi. And the latest version of LR would have the latest ACR update in it, so those RAW shots should have been supported. How did you import them from the camera to your computer? It sounds like they may have gotten corrupted if you couldn't open them at all. Faulty card readers have been known to do that on occasion.

And your RAW shots aren't going to look as pretty straight out of the camera as a JPG will since there is no processing done in camera to them. What the camera sees is whats you gets with RAW! And good technique is just as important when shooting RAW as it is with shooting JPG.