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Camera raw updates for Leopard?

F

fluidhd

macrumors member
Original poster
May 29, 2022
37
1
Hi,

This might have been asked before, but I can't figure out a way to filter the search results to the PowerPC section

Are there any hacky ways to get a more recent camera raw update support in Leopard?

I have .cr2 images from a Canon camera that I couldn't open in Photoshop cs3

I tried installing a trial of cs4 with the latest update available and I have the same issue,
I suppose I could batch convert all my images on a windows machine, but it would probably take a long time to do it, not withstanding potential format change quality issues

I was hoping there might be a way to open these.cr2/raw images nativley in Leopard?

Thanks
 
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Yeah I think I have that update installed,

Trouble is my camera was introduced in 2015 :/
 
you can try e.g. RAWTherapee, Darktable, Photivo. Which camera model do you use? No option in the settings to save to DNG?

EDIT: you can try to run Adobes DNG converter version 6.4 or lower (don’t know and couldn’t determine quickly the OS requirements; after version 6.4 PPC support ended officially).

EDIT: Have you tried the Canon Digital Photo Professional program which probably came with your camera? Version 3.11 seems to support Leopard - you might find the latest suitable version for your system via Canon’s website.
 
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Thanks for the suggestions guys, I will give them a try next time the g5 is plugged in, not sure if the camera can save out dng, right now it saves .cr2 and .jpg at the same time

I still don't quite understand why even the latest versions of Photoshop on x86 can't nativley open camera raw, it always seems to be the case that it has to go through a 3rd party app, which will then downgrade the image to 8bit/16bit, I was hoping Photoshop would be able to open and save the images like .exr regardless of the image being 8bit/16bit/32bit

I have an x86 MacBook, which osx seemed to be able to open the .cr2 images in iPhoto with apple camera raw, yet Photoshop cs5 couldn't open the .cr2 with the latest adobe camera raw available for it, cs6 could, but only because a newer version of camera raw was available
 
As said before: what camera model? We might offer further help. 😁

In regard to RAW import in general: Camera companies tweak their formats and as a result, there is often some new version which supports features of e.g. new hardware which then requires an update to the RAW importer. And keeping the RAW importer external allows - at least in theory - to quickly address changes.

That Adobe offers a dedicated converter program is actually quite nice - you can use a newer version of e.g. Adobe‘s Bridge (which is actually still free; of course only a version supported by your system) to import and convert your RAWs while do all further image processing in the program of your choice.

Regarding support for your G5 it might be actually time to consider jumping to Linux, which carries with it its own set of tradeoffs and challenges - but it will give access to newer technologies on which something Photopea runs.

And while I own a G3 iBook as well as a G4 powerbook which are used sometimes in emergencies, and while these are upgraded to SSDs and maxed out RAM, there isn’t really any processing power to gain out of our aging and venerable Macs, at least when running software which supports newer technologies as aforesaid. YMMV. 🤓

Having written all that: I know quite a few people who run and use some software on a PowerPC-Mac. Drawing in Illustrator using a tablet isn’t necessarily slower, typing, etc., not to mention specific software solution, which continue to work as intended.
A long established workflow on a PPC of course continues to serve its purpose - but whenever there is the need to use and integrate newer tech… and then again you and your machine “know” each other for so long, and it might feel like your heart's been aching but you're too shy to say it… inside you and your G5 both know what's been going on… but it’ll…
 
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Slartibart said:
Regarding support for your G5 it might be actually time to consider jumping to Linux, which carries with it its own set of tradeoffs and challenges - but it will give access to newer technologies on which something Photopea runs.

And while I own a G3 iBook as well as a G4 powerbook which are used sometimes in emergencies, and while these are upgraded to SSDs and maxed out RAM, there isn’t really any processing power to gain out of our aging and venerable Macs, at least when running software which supports newer technologies as aforesaid. YMMV. 🤓
Click to expand...

1. Or rather FreeBSD, but neither for anything graphics-related anyway. MacOS X PPC got CS4, Linux/BSD got none at all.

2. Dual and quad G5 are adequately capable even now in terms of CPU power. (Of course, for something we just don’t have supported software.)
 
I have backported camera RAW support from Yosemite to Mavericks. Backporting a 2015 camera to Leopard is a much taller order, but may be worth a try if you’re dedicated. As a first step, is there a model of camera that’s extremely similar to yours, which is supported in Leopard?
 
@f54da No, copying bundles wholesale doesn't work.

The camera files (at least in Mavericks and Yosemite) are stored inside of /System/Library/CoreServices/RawCameraSupport.bundle/Contents/Resources/Plugins.zip. Each .cam file is a binary plist, which you can convert to xml via plutil -convert xml1 [file].

I wanted to backport support for my Nikon D750 from Yosemite to Mavericks. So I:
  1. Found a very similar model Nikon camera which was supported in Mavericks (I don't remember which one now).
  2. Opened the Yosemite .cam files of my camera and the similar camera in a diff viewer (Kaleidoscope).
  3. Duplicated the Mavericks version of the similar camera, renamed it, and applied the changes I'd found in step two.
  4. Zipped it all back up via zip -0 test.zip *.cam and replaced the original Plugins.zip.
Note that each .cam plist has a minRawCameraVersion key, which must be less than or equal to the version number of RawCamera.bundle. The above process sidesteps this, but I ran into it when I initially tried copying the Yosemite .cam file wholesale (which results in obviously broken rendering).

I did this in 2020, so there may be other minor gotchas I'm forgetting, feel free to reach out if you try it and run into any problems. It would be super cool to actually reverse engineer the plist format some day, but unsurprisingly there's a lot of data in there.

I should probably do a writeup on Ask Different at some point. I'd also love to share an updated RawCameraSupport bundle eventually, but I feel like it would need to support more than a single additional camera to be worthwhile.
 
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image.png


It's 2022 and you're trying to open RAW files from a 2015 camera on a system from 2007? There's your first problem.

IDK what it is about people like you.

Anyway, I've just found some software that will convert the RAW's from my 2014 Sony Alpha so they can be imported to my Aperture 3.0 Library on my 2009 Mac Pro running Leopard.

It's called RAW Photo Processor. The developer was kind enough to respond immediately when I had questions regarding a 15-year-old OS and his software, of which he is the sole maintainer.

I said that my camera wasn't supported in his version for Leopard, to which he simply sent a dump of betas hosted on his website. Of those, the oldest one (edited November 2015) successfully loaded into Leopard and converted my RAW's. This makes me wonder if we can backport his... .cam profiles or whatever into older versions of his software. Then, I wonder if that support can be applied within Aperture. I really would like native RAW support for my camera in Aperture. What's strange is that when I try to import from my Sony cam, it actually generates thumbnails in Aperture. Once I import, it just says "Format Not Supported". My camera gained support in an Aperture update, but that requires Yosemite at least.

Unlike Wowfun's Mavericks/Yosemite version, the Leopard version of Aperture doesn't seem to have similar files that he listed. No .zip file exists.


Problem with RAW photo processor is...it's an Intel app. There were older versions that were PPC as well, but I can't find exactly when support ended.

Hang tight and I will probe his server so I can snag every version and archive it for the sake of our insanity. Does anybody know how to, say, list the files on a server like a directory?

With the help of minds like Wowfun, maybe we can actually extract some data about RAW support and make downloadable add-ons for deprecated libraries.
 
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MrCheeto said:
Problem with RAW photo processor is...it's an Intel app. There were older versions that were PPC as well, but I can't find exactly when support ended.
Click to expand...

It is not opensource, right? If we had source code, we could try fixing it for PPC.
 
I'm trying my best to probe his simple Linux server using just my browser. I feel almost certain there would be an antiquated PPC version hidden somewhere in some unlisted location.

So far:

Current Intel version for 10.4-10.11 is called "RPP_Uni.zip"
Current Intel version for 10.10-10.14 is called "RPP_64.zip"

These are all in the same parent URL as the Betas he linked me to with names like "RPP_1739beta.zip". I feel like getting as much of his work as possible and preserving it is key to vintage users.

Let's start with this. Is there a PPC user that can confirm whether this following version supports their architecture? It's working in Leopard on Intel so far.

RPP Beta

Update: As of the official 4.8 release in 2014, PowerPC is no longer supported. That would mean any version before that should support it.

I've incrementally put in file names from version 1490Beta.zip-1752Beta.zip and found nothing.

The "RPP_Uni.zip" is actually a file that gets over-written or redirects to whatever the most current version is. So while it was Universal binary when it was first added to his site to download, the file it directs to is now Intel only despite the name not changing. So even external sites referring to the download link for older versions directs to Intel only. :(
 
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I have fixed Rawstudio in Macports now. It does build for PPC, however I cannot yet confirm if it works correctly, since on Rosetta it fails on start-up with malloc errors (this problem is not related to Rawstudio, but to libstdc symbols and gcc).

Portfile here: https://github.com/macports/macports-ports/pull/15861

You will need a modern gcc, but it is relatively easy now: start with gcc10-bootstrap (gcc7 may work as well, need to try).
 
Thanks for all the replies guys, my quad died a few weeks back, so I haven't been checking in lately
 
barracuda156 said:
I have fixed Rawstudio in Macports now. It does build for PPC, however I cannot yet confirm if it works correctly
Click to expand...

I get confused easily. It is working on Intel, or ?

fluidhd said:
Thanks for all the replies guys, my quad died a few weeks back, so I haven't been checking in lately
Click to expand...

Man, truly a sad ending. These things are like War vets, just dwindling and becoming scarce memories. I hope you can take all of the advice that has been compiled over the decade to revive it, unless it’s easier to say goodbye at this point.
 
MrCheeto said:
I get confused easily. It is working on Intel, or ?
Click to expand...

So, well, for new Intel systems rawstudio does not build at the moment and fixing will take time, possibly with upstream involvement.
However for new Intel systems there are alternative, and arguably better, options.

I suggest trying the port for Leopard, SL PPC and 10.6.8 x86.
Please update me if it fails.
 
MrCheeto said:
I’ll gladly test things for you in 10.5 on Intel.

What are you needing tested? Where do I find a download?
Click to expand...

Thank you!
You can get updated port either from my PR above or directly from the relevant branch: https://github.com/barracuda156/macports-ports/tree/rawstudio/graphics/rawstudio

I dunno how good are you with Macports. Generally speaking, for standard cases like 10.5.8 everything is straightforward, and in principle you just install a port with sudo port -v install. Needed dependencies will be installed automatically.
To build a port version that is not in Macports, you can either use an overlay repo (this is a better way) or just edit an existing port. For the first option instructions can be found here: https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...-6-powerpc-10a190-and-10-6-8-rosetta.2332711/ (most of those unnecessary for your case, just see for # override repo).

Feel free to ask if additional details needed.
 
barracuda156 said:
I dunno how good are you with Macports
Click to expand...
Sorry, I'm not o_O

I have no idea what to do with the Portfile, and to give you a clue, I don't even have X11 installed. Sorry I thought this was some sort of contained and compiled test build. I'll go back to my BASH 101 lessons and watch from here.
 
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