5D Mark II & Lightroom 2.2

Here are some updates for those that are interested. I had heard rumors that the new RAW format of the 5D Mark II is not compatible with CS3 and that you have to upgrade to CS4 in order to edit pictures. WHAT?! Yeah. Not so happy about that. Turns out that it's true. Camera Raw 5.2 is compatible with the 5D Mark II, but not with CS3. The earlier version of Camera Raw (4.5) that I currently have installed will not open my new RAW files.

The good news: I don't use Camera Raw anymore since I started using Lightroom 2.0. I started using LR because it's so much easier to go through a session, throw out the bad ones, flag the good ones, do basic editing and then export to Photoshop. Seriously saves me so much time. A week and a 1/2 ago when I first starting shooting with my new camera I had to install and use a .dng converter in order for LR to be able to read my image files. LONG process. Definitely not something to add to my workflow long term.

Today, Adobe put out an update (version 2.2) to LR that makes it compatible with the 5D Mark II. Hoooray!! So, now I can download to LR, do all my sorting, RAW editing, export as a .psd to CS3 and I'm good to go. No converting, no upgrading to CS4. Seriously going to save me time & $$$. Always a good thing.

I guess the gist of my post is that if you have a 5D Mark II (or will be getting one in the near future) and don't have the $$ to upgrade your Photoshop software (was going to run me about $600 b/c I had to upgrade the whole suite) consider using Lightroom instead. It's cheaper, and does a fantastic job anyway. Professional version is $300 and we got an educational version through BYU for about $100. (And yes. You can make money using the educational versions. It's all on the up-and-up. I promise. You just have to be a student when you purchase it.)