Camera Question: I have a Canon Rebel XSI and when i take pictures off of it they are in a weird format.

Have you tried just changing the file format to a RAW file? If that doesn’t work, it’s definitely in the camera settings. Rebels have so many features, you just need to dig and find it. Look in your manual and it should tell you exactly how to change it.

You should be able to do what allie said. There should also be a hi-res jpg option as well that I know Photoshop reads.

This may be the easy answer. If you have questions, call Adobe at 1–800-833–6687 to speak to a csr. Hope it works…
A way to back-door your image into Photoshop is to open the raw file with the proprietary Canon software, convert it to a TIFF, and open the TIFF with Photoshop.
Let us know if you get stuck again.

thanks for the suggestions. I’ll give them a try.

RAW alone is NOT a format file type, RAW is the name of multiple file types that have the raw information directly from the camera’s processor, no other compressions or changes have occured to the file as say a jpeg would inhibit.

Canon’s RAW format is CR2, while Nikon’s is NEF, both are easliy opened by any Adobe product, and can easily be opened by whatever software came with your camera (not sure if Canons come with software or not to tell the truth though), it is an XSi, an amateur camera so it should have some software of some type.

Otherwise look for a file converter or some other software that can work with CR2.

They aren’t a weird format, it is your computer i am assuming you just don’t have software that supports the raw format, all you have to do is either make your camera save in jpeg, or do otherwise.

Just know this: RAW is the best stage any photo comes in, anything besides that isn’t original and only loses information throughout its lifetime in any other form.

Adobe has a .DNG converter. It changes your cannon raw to an Adobe standard digital negative format. The converter is free.