Incompatible "DNG" files

On the home page for Scott Kelby's book Lightroom 2 Book for Digital Photographers, one can download several hundred megabytes of sample files. Strangely enough, many of the sample "DNG" images cannot be opened in Adobe CS4 Bridge or Photoshop - at least not unless you have Lightroom installed. It turns out that many of them, like SaveYourPresets1.dng or SaveYourPresets2.dng are not dng files at all, but psd files with the wrong extension. Funnily enough, many of the correct dng files contain features that make them incompatible with Mac OS X 10.5.6, which in theory opens dng files.

I take this as yet another proof that dng is not a more compatible or safer format than many other raw formats, even though it probably is due to some bug in Lightroom.

It may seem strange that Scott managed to miss this, but Lightroom reads the files without problems, and if you double click on them within Lightroom a copy of them opens in Photoshop, so it looks like they are dng files, even though they are not.

How to fix it? Simply change the extension from dng to psd, and you will be able to open the files in programs that support the extension.

How I figured out that they were PhotoShop files? I opened the files in the Terminal text editor less, and noticed that they contain the code 8BIM, which is a Macintosh Photoshop extension.

Counting Shutter Clicks on a Nikon DSLR

If you are interested in how many times your shutter has gone off in your Nikon DSLR, you can look at the EXIF data of your most recent picture. The information is embedded there, but it may not be very obvious how to find it. The following has been checked on a D40X, D50 and D300.

If your latest photo is a NEF, open it with Adobe Photoshop. Then go to File > File Info... > Advanced. Expand the schema http://ns.adobe.com/exif/1.0/aux/ . The field aux:ImageNumber contains the shutter count. (If you try opening a JPEG from the camera, that field is not available in Photoshop.)

If your latest photo is a jpeg, and you have a Mac, open the photo with the free EXIF Viewer. The shutter count is in a field called "Camera Actuations".

If your latest photo is a NEF, but you do not have Adobe Photoshop or money to buy Photoshop or any additional software at all, you can convert the NEF to JPEG using ViewNX (which is free) and then open it with EXIF Viewer, and the information will be there, still called "Camera Actuations".

People with Windows seem to often use Opanda for the same purpose.

I have not been able to localise this kind of information in Nikon's own software.

If you have a Mac, the shutter count can be found in Preview: Tools > Show Inspector > I > Nikon.

Crashing Adobe Bridge CS4

If Adobe Bridge is crashing, it is likely that it tries to handle files it considers corrupt. For example this file has crashed Bridge on both Windows Vista and Mac OS X 10.5.

The "solution" is to identify the corrupt file and remove it, or open it in Photoshop and save it under another name. This is of course not a long term solution, as you never know when you will stumble over another jpeg, that Bridge considers corrupt.

I also had problems accessing any folders that contained PDF files for some time. The solution here was more subtle. I had just installed some new free fronts (CODE2001.TTF,
KurKlim.0804207-6.ttf, jiret.ttf, Kedage.dfont, MalOtf.ttf, malayalam.ttf, Rupali_0.72.ttf, SolaimanLipi_0.52.ttf, Malithi Web.ttf and Pothana.ttf, in case you wonder). Removing those fonts from the Font folder fixed the problem for Bridge and pdf files. The annoying thing is that putting them back, did not cause the problem again, so it may have been something with a corrupt font cache or so, and it is possible that we will never know exactly what caused the problem.

Step back one Camera Raw version

If there is a problem with Apple's Camera Raw version (like there was with 2.2), you can revert to the previous version:

1. Delete the file "System/Library/CoreServices/RawCamera.bundle".
2. Reinstall the previous version from Apple's site. You should be able to find them here.

Things you did not know about Bridge

To open a new window with another folder, command-doubleclick the folder.

You can get a flat view of all images in all subfolders of a folder with the menu View > Show Items in Subfolders.

To skip Camera Raw, shift double-click in Bridge. This will open the file directly in Photoshop.

Photoshop Navigation - things you did not know

A quick way to zoom in to many points in different parts of a picture is command-0 (fit on screen), and then drag with the zoom tool around the part you want to check. Then command-0 again and drag with the zoom tool against another part, and so on.

To cycle through open documents: ctrl-Tab (yes, dear Mac users, not "command"!).

Photoshop: Masks - things you did not know

To toggle between a view of the mask and the image it covers: alt-click the layer mask.

To create a black new mask: alt-click on the "add layer mask" icon.

To delete a mask: drag it to the trash icon.

Photoshop: Warp - things you did not know

If you know what Warp is, you probably know how to access it. In case you don't it is in the menu Edit > Transform > Warp.

Using Warp, you can drag about any point of the warped object. You do not have to click-drag on the corner points or lines. You can click-drag on the vast empty spaces between the lines as well.

If you end up with a Warp grid that goes outside the current window, press command-0 (View > Fit on Screen) to see the entire grid.

Photoshop: Layers - things you did not know

To duplicate a layer press command-J. Another quick way to do it is to press V (activate move tool), and then alt-drag the layer.

To copy part of a picture onto a new layer: select that part and press command-J.

To find out which layer contains a visible part of an image: command click on the image. The layer will be highlighted in the layer palette.

To display one layer at the time: alt-click on the eye-icon.

To fill the current layer with the foreground colour: press alt-delete. To fill the current layer with the background colour: press command-delete.

To load layer transparency as a selection: command-click the thumbnail.

To quickly change Blending modes: press V (activate move tool) and then press shift+(plus) or shift+(minus). For the each of the blending modes, there are shortcuts beginning with shift-option, like shift-option-F for Soft Light or shift-option-M for Multiply. They can all be found in the manual under the title "Keys for working with blending modes".

To change opacity: press V (activate move tool) and then type a number. 1=10%, 2=20% and so on. You can also change some of these methods.

To merge all visible layers to a new layer above the currently selected layer: Shift-option-command-E (or alt+ Layer > Merge Visible). This can be useful if you have smart objects, whose pixels you cannot edit directly.

To create a new layer from another image: drag the other image to the current one. To make sure it is centred hold down the shift-key as you drag.

Photoshop: Channels - things you did not know

To display only one channel at a time, type command-3, command-4, command 5. You can also drag the eye from one channel to another. You can also alt-click on the thumbnail - not the actual eye, to deselect all other channels.

To make a selection from a channel: command-click the thumbnail.