Today Microsoft delivered software that allows your Windows 7 and Windows Vista Service Pack 2 systems to access, view and edit RAW image files from most popular camera manufacturers.
The software, in the form of a CODEC (Coder-Decoder), is used to interpret these specially formatted files so your system can recognize them in Windows Explorer and create proper thumbnail images for them as you browse your picture collection.
The new CODEC supports the following devices according to the Microsoft Download page for the Microsoft Camera Codec Pack (16.0.0652.0621):
- Canon: EOS 1000D (EOS Kiss F in Japan and the EOS Rebel XS in North America), EOS 10D, EOS 1D Mk2, EOS 1D Mk3, EOS 1D Mk4, EOS 1D Mk2 N, EOS 1Ds Mk2, EOS 1Ds Mk3, EOS 20D, EOS 300D (the Kiss Digital in Japan and the Digital Rebel in North America) , EOS 30D, EOS 350D (the Canon EOS Kiss Digital N in Japan and EOS Digital Rebel XT in North America), EOS 400D (the Kiss Digital X in Japan and the Digital Rebel XTi in North America), EOS 40D, EOS 450D (EOS Kiss X2 in Japan and the EOS Rebel XSi in North America), EOS 500D (EOS Kiss X3 in Japan and the EOS Rebel T1i in North America), EOS 550D (EOS Kiss X4 in Japan, and as the EOS Rebel T2i in North America), EOS 50D, EOS 5D, EOS 5D Mk2, EOS 7D, EOS D30, EOS D60, G2, G3, G5, G6, G9, G10, G11, Pro1, S90
- Nikon: D100, D1H, D200, D2H, D2Hs, D2X, D2Xs, D3, D3s, D300, D3000, D300s, D3X, D40, D40x, D50, D5000, D60, D70, D700, D70s, D80, D90, P6000
- Sony: A100, A200, A230, A300, A330, A350, A380, A700, A850, A900, DSC-R1
- Olympus: C7070, C8080, E1, E10, E20, E3, E30, E300, E330, E400, E410, E420, E450, E500, E510, E520, E620, EP1
- Pentax (PEF formats only): K100D, K100D Super, K10D, K110D, K200D, K20D, K7, K-x, *ist D, *ist DL, *ist DS
- Leica: Digilux 3, D-LUX4, M8, M9
- Minolta: DiMage A1, DiMage A2, Maxxum 7D (Dynax 7D in Europe, α-7 Digital in Japan)
- Epson: RD1
- Panasonic: G1, GH1, GF1, LX3
There are two downloads available – one for X64 systems and one for X86 or 32 bit systems. Once you download and install the software you will be able to view RAW images from the above manufacturers easily in Windows and also edit them using the Windows Live Photo Gallery software which is part of Windows Live Essentials.
Although there are plenty of free and premium image editors out there this certainly brings a very functional level of RAW image editing directly to your Windows 7 and Windows Vista SP2 desktops.
