Can't open an image file on pc

[ianpinion]

Hi,

I've got a bit of a dilemma. Back in November I went on a photography course and I'm now trying to open some of the .dng image files I took on it, but Photoshop Elements 8 won't open them.

I think the problem may stem from them being edited on a Mac system on the course and I have a Windows pc at home. I may have forgotten to tick that little box that puts them into the IBM format when I saved the files. Is there a file converter I can use that will be able to open them and then resave them in a format that photoshop can use?

[Cutter]

I think this may help ! Click the link or copy to your browser.
http://www.reasoft.com/rea-dng-convert.shtml
Regards

[chris-p]

Can you not just re-convert them using the standard Adobe DNG converter?

[ianpinion]

You'd like to think so Chris, but my Adobe software doesn't recognise the format of the file to be able to open it in the first place. It's because the memory card was downloaded to a mac and then saved as a mac based file. Windows uses a different file format and as such is unable to read the file. It just needs to be decoded and resaved as a Windows format file.

[chris-p]

What a pain! Does the software that Cutter linked to work?

[Forseti]

Originally Posted by ianpinion

Hi,

I've got a bit of a dilemma. Back in November I went on a photography course and I'm now trying to open some of the .dng image files I took on it, but Photoshop Elements 8 won't open them.

I think the problem may stem from them being edited on a Mac system on the course and I have a Windows pc at home. I may have forgotten to tick that little box that puts them into the IBM format when I saved the files. Is there a file converter I can use that will be able to open them and then resave them in a format that photoshop can use?

Your post has got me thinking Ian as it's always been my belief that DNG files are portable. In short what I mean is that whilst there are 2 different versions of the DNG converter (one for Windows, the other for Mac) these are necessary for the converter to work on different platforms. However, the resulting DNG file should be cross platform compatible if that makes sense at all. Um!!

I'm also not too sure what you mean by a couple of terms used i.e. "some of the dng image files I took" and "them being edited on a Mac". I think I know what you mean but in the interests of clarity could you please clarify these points? Were your images the usual RAW files (NEF, CR2 etc) or are you using a camera capable of recording in the DNG format? And of course you can't edit DNG files and then save them again as a DNG file anymore than you can a RAW file.

Ok then, assuming what you mean is that you simply converted your RAW files to the DNG format - do you know (or can find out) which compatability mode was used? In the DNG converter (version 5.6 - the latest), 4 compatability modes are available:

• Camera Raw 5.4 and later
• Camera Raw 2.4 and later
• Camera Raw 4.1 and later
• Camera Raw 4.6 and later

If at college the compatability options were not checked and left at say, Camera Raw 5.4 and later (the default for the latest version of the DNG Converter v5.6), whilst the Elements Raw plug-in was say 4.6 then of course it follows that the DNG file will not be readable by Elements.

It might be worth you while experimenting by downloading an older version of the Camera Raw plug-in for Elements (an .8bi file), temporarily remove the existing .8bi file replacing it with this older version and see if your DNG files are now readable.

[ianpinion]

Hi Forseti,

Yes I was shooting in camera RAW with my Olympus E620 and as I downloaded them on to the mac it converted each of them to a dng file. This file was then opened by either CS4's or Lightroom 2's Raw Plug-in called Bridge to adjust the clarity, vibrance, tonal curve, luminance and saturation values of the different colours before opening each image in turn in CS4 to adjust the sharpness, use some layer masks to change it's appearance and apply some dodging and burning. They were then saved as Tiff files.

Some of my shots though were just downloaded from the memory card and converted to dng files and have had no further work done to them at all. It's these images that I cannot open as Elements, or for that matter any of my other editing packages too. It seems to have foxed most people, including the boffins at Adobe!

[basujanha2610]

Originally Posted by Forseti

Your post has got me thinking Ian as it's always been my belief that DNG files are portable. In short what I mean is that whilst there are 2 different versions of the DNG converter (one for Windows, the other for Mac) these are necessary for the converter to work on different platforms. However, the resulting DNG file should be cross platform compatible if that makes sense at all. Um!!

I'm also not too sure what you mean by a couple of terms used i.e. "some of the dng image files I took" and "them being edited on a Mac". I think I know what you mean but in the interests of clarity could you please clarify these points? Were your images the usual RAW files (NEF, CR2 etc) or are you using a camera capable of recording in the DNG format? And of course you can't edit DNG files and then save them again as a DNG file anymore than you can a RAW file.

Ok then, assuming what you mean is that you simply converted your RAW files to the DNG format - do you know (or can find out) which compatability mode was used? In the DNG converter (version 5.6 - the latest), 4 compatability modes are available:

• Camera Raw 5.4 and later
• Camera Raw 2.4 and later
• Camera Raw 4.1 and later
• Camera Raw 4.6 and later

If at college the compatability options were not checked and left at say, Camera Raw 5.4 and later (the default for the latest version of the DNG Converter v5.6), whilst the Elements Raw plug-in was say 4.6 then of course it follows that the DNG file will not be readable by Elements.

It might be worth you while experimenting by downloading an older version of the Camera Raw plug-in for Elements (an .8bi file), temporarily remove the existing .8bi file replacing it with this older version and see if your DNG files are now readable.

hey!

i'm very in photography.....bt i also face the same problem!

hope u gave the best solution!

thank you
_______________
supercharger

[OldBoy]

Try downloading a Mac to PC file converter.

[ianpinion]

Just to let you all know that Adobe Support have sorted out this problem for me and everything is fully resolved. We finished up by downloading and running a DNG converter and that seems to have done the trick.

Thank you to everyone who has contributed.