Shooting to RAW with Canon PowerShot (DIGIC II - based only)

How-To get RAW shots with your camera

References

WARNING! THIS CAN LEAD TO UNEXPECTED RESULTS! USE AT YOUR OWN RISK!
Note, this progs work correctly only with the selected firmware versions. For A620: only 1.00F firmware version is supported.
How to check your firmware version? Rather easy. Put empty "ver.req" file to the root of your SD card. Turn the camera on in VIEW (or PLAYBACK) mode. Press SET+DISPLAY.
If your version is unsupported, blue button will blink several times and camera will turn off. Nothing bad should happen.

To shoot raw photos on your Canon PowerShot you'll need the following software:
     1. Software for your camera. This is just a program runs on PowerShot hardware, NOT the firmware update. It enables RAW shooting. Copy PS_A610.FIR to the root folder of SD card using your card reader.
          HDK: major rewrite of RAW-Enabler by GrAnd (for A610, A620, A630, A640, A710, S3IS)
          HDK: major rewrite of RAW-Enabler by Vitalyb (for A610, A620, A630, A640, A710, S3IS)
          raw-enabler for PowerShot S2 IS [FW: 1.00F] (mirror) Use with caution! This one have no fw version check!
          raw-enabler v3 for PowerShot S2 IS [FW: 1.00E, 1.00F, 1.00G] (mirror)
Old versions:
          raw-enabler for PowerShot A610 [FW: 1.00E, 1.00F] (mirror) (sources) (sources2)
          raw-enabler for PowerShot A620 [FW: 1.00F] (mirror) (sources) (sources2)
          raw-enabler for PowerShot S3 IS [FW: 1.00A] (mirror) (sources) (sources2).

     2. The uploader
Could be used to upload PS_A610.FIR files to the root of SD card (if you don't have a card reader)
     3. Free command-line RAW files decoder dcraw.exe. dcraw homepage
     4. Free, more user-friendly RAW files decoder UFRaw. UFRaw homepage
     5. DNGForPowerShot 1.1.4d dng-converter with metadata support.

To shoot raw photos on Canon PowerShot A610,A620,S3IS,S2IS (using RAW-Enabler) you need to do the following:
     1. Format your SD Card
     2. Copy PS_A610 to SD card using method (1) or (2)
     3. Take your digicam, turn it on in VIEW MODE. Press Menu button. Choose CONFIGURATION. Set FILE No RESET to ON. Choose Play menu. Find the FIRM UPDATE. Press Func. Set. Choose OK (don't worry - it WON'T touch the firmware). After the camera reboot, you should see blue button blink. Make one shot (no raw may be saved). Now you can shoot to raw+jpeg.
     4. POWER OFF the camera. Download all photos to computer. Large files files IMG_1000.JPG, IMG_1001.JPG, IMG_1002.JPG... are RAW CCD files
     5. Convert them to DNG using this converter.
UFRaw supports A610,A620,S3IS,S2IS directly (RAW .JPG) and via .DNG
For educational purposes you can use dcraw converter "dcraw.exe -a IMG_1001.JPG" to convert to .ppm
     6. Enjoy! (color reproduction must be calibrated in case of PowerShot S2 IS. If you have camera/scanner profiling color chart, shoot it in RAW at the daylight and send it to dcoffin please) (to David Coffin, author of dcraw).

If this explanation isn't clear enough, look at this article

How-To convert RAW shots to dng

A610, A620, A630, A640, A710, S2IS, S3IS, - supported. S2IS, A710, A630, A640 - have no color profile for now
Current version of DNG4PS may still have some problems with color reproduction with converters from Adobe. You can use UFRaw v0.11 for now with RAW (.JPG) files you get from your camera if you have such problems with DNG4PS.
The .dng is a standardized RAW format created by Adobe. You can convert your RAW .JPG files to format almost every RAW-converter understands. This is preferred way to use you raw files. But always make a backup of original file you've got from your camera. You may need them later. Here is the raw-to-dng converter: DNGForPowerShot
Also download one or more of the following converters (they all definitely work with A610 dng):
     Adobe Lightroom (feature-rich, my favorite converter)
     UFRaw Free. (Requires GTK+)
     Adobe Camera RAW plug-in for Photoshop CS/CS2/CS3
     dcraw command-line converter. Free.
Also you can try more than 100 other converters. Some of them are excellent, some - not good at all.

Tips and tricks

     Instead of resetting file numbers you can make new "/DCIM/100CANON/" folder on SD card. RAW files are saved only if this folder exists. Once created, you can "protect" one of your photos (MENU->Protect) so directory wont be removed by (MENU->RemoveAll) command.
     You may want to apply sharpening, noise and moire filters, apply Dynamic range processing (Shadows/Highlights in Photoshop) to the output of dcraw.
     DNG files you've got from my DNG4PS piece of software could be compressed more than two times in size losslessly by the free Adobe DNG Converter.exe

HDK (Hack Development Kit)

     HDK scripting usage (in English)
     Features: improved RAW support, bracketing, live RGB (!!!) histogram, scripts and much more. Especially useful for the developers.
     HDK (by GrAnd)
     HDK (by vitalyb)
     for PowerShot A610 [FW: 1.00D, 1.00E, 1.00F], A620 [FW: 1.00F], A630 [FW: 1.00C], A640 [FW: 1.00B], A710 [FW: 1.00A], S3IS [FW: 1.00A]. For A610@1.00D users: [FW: 1.00E] should work

Other

     (old) RAW merger (reduces noise, improves DR): NMerge (Recent version is included with DNG4PS_1.1.4d)
     DNGForPowerShot 1.1.3 (old)
     DNGForPowerShot 1.0 alpha 6 (even older)

References

HDK usage (Enghish)
HDK usage (In russian)
CHDK Wiki (In russian)
forum about HDK usage and further development (In russian)
forum about HDK usage and further development, in english

hacking faq by altsoph (from scratch, without HDK)
vitalyb files
digic1-based PowerShot hacking info
PowerShot_programming_research
canondigicamhacking yahoo group
FirmwareDecrypter
300D hacking

<rev. 027 (2007.05.08)>

 
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