Phocus and MAC OS X - fast preview of images including Zoom

[frankus]

Hi, as a Hasselblad H4D50 and Phocus newcomer I shot about 1000 images at the beautiful Brittany in France, and all night at the hotel room I had the same problem with my laptop Mac Book Pro: there is no fast preview of the new files ...

Whether Photo Mechanic nor Adobe Bridge can read the original Hassi RAWs, so I have to use Phocus. But inside Phocus 2.5.3 I have to import first all images, before I can zoom into the image to check proper focussing. This takes time and place on my HD (? or is it virtually?).

My question: is there another way to zoom into the raw files for first checking the quality or is it really necessary to import into Phocus workflow?

Another disadvantage of import mode: when I decide to delete the image within first editing, only the imported file is deleted, not the original. Or is there another chance?

Sorry if these are stupid questions, but I did not find any help for this yet ...

Cheers, Frank

[alexkent]

Which version of Bridge and ACR do you have installed?
I am able to view (and zoom 100%) .3fr files from 39mp Hasselblad's in Bridge CS5. Unfortunately i don't have any .3fr files from a 50mp back here to check.

The Hasselblad suggested workflow is that you use Phocus to Import the images directly from your CF cards. This makes the .3fr -> .fff translation at import time, avoiding the duplication issues. Then once imported you can review images at full res. This leaves you with only .fff files which, sadly, can't be read by Bridge or Adobe Camera Raw.

Alex.

[David Grover]

Frank,

Import into Phocus directly from your CF card.  In the import dialogue you can add adjustment settings, important meta data, renaming and so forth.

It is not necessary to keep the raw files on the CF card.

Do you have the latest versions of Adobe / Bridge?  The H4D50 is supported by adobe (The 3FR files on the CF card) but it may only apply from a certain version number of their releases.

http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/cameraraw.html

D

Hi, as a Hasselblad H4D50 and Phocus newcomer I shot about 1000 images at the beautiful Brittany in France, and all night at the hotel room I had the same problem with my laptop Mac Book Pro: there is no fast preview of the new files ...

Whether Photo Mechanic nor Adobe Bridge can read the original Hassi RAWs, so I have to use Phocus. But inside Phocus 2.5.3 I have to import first all images, before I can zoom into the image to check proper focussing. This takes time and place on my HD (? or is it virtually?).

My question: is there another way to zoom into the raw files for first checking the quality or is it really necessary to import into Phocus workflow?

Another disadvantage of import mode: when I decide to delete the image within first editing, only the imported file is deleted, not the original. Or is there another chance?

Sorry if these are stupid questions, but I did not find any help for this yet ...

Cheers, Frank

[frankus]

Thanks a lot to Alex and David for fast replys, which make it clearer to me.

I am working with CS4, so it should be a good idea to update now and spend more money on Adobe again ...

If I understood correctly:
when changing to the fff-format during import I can delete the CF-card 3FR-files at all and I only store the fff?

Latest version of Bridge and ACR can read 3FR files (so you told me) - but are extremely slow IMO (the older versions are very slow even with smaller Canon RAW files and using the actual fastest iMac).
For fastest Preview of new images i generally preferred Camerabit Photo Mechanic, but my (not really actual) version reads whether fff, 3fr nor the ready TIFs/JPGs, which are too big. I will check the latest version here, maybe thats the way to speed up the preview process??? Phocus for Preview costs a lot of tea or coffee  :-)

If you like, I will tell about experiences with my favourite workflow, based on my earlier pre-Hasselblad workflow, after updating, ... which may be like this:
fast preview maybe Photo Mechanic, import of chosen files with Phocus, generating DNG for Lightroom (which has more opportunities than Phocus IMO), Lightroom, Photoshop.

Wow, that's work ...

Frank.

[David Grover]

Yes, CS4 certainly won't support a lot of the RAW formats out there.

Yes again, once imported from the CF card there is no need to keep the 3FR files UNLESS you have decided on an Adobe only workflow which is using the 3FR format.

When you import the 3FR into Phocus (and it becomes a 3F) we perform quite a few corrections on the file which are too complex for the camera.  These give us a bump in quality, especially when it comes to noise reduction and colour rendition.

Taking the 3FR straight into Adobe or Apple products means they do not benefit from this step.

So, right now we are waiting for Adobe to add support for 3F files as well.

David