Fooling Adobe Lightroom into thinking that a Canon S95 RAW comes from a S90

[frereroy]

Hi,

There is no support as yet for reading RAW files from the new Canon PowerShot S95 camera. I read in a forum that perhaps Lightroom could be fooled into thinking that the picture was shot with the S90 (which is supported)

I have the latest Exiftool installed on my Mac but am a little confused by what to put in the command line in order to change the camera model in the RAW header.

I see in the Tags Canon CanonModelID Values both cameras are listed:
0x2720000   = PowerShot S90
0x2950000   = PowerShot S95

Any help gratefully received.

Thanks in advance.

[Phil Harvey]

The command line would be:

exiftool -model="Canon PowerShot S90" -canonmodelID="PowerShot S90" FILE

- Phil

[frereroy]

Phil - you are are pure genius!

It works!

I had tried going into the RAW file with a Hex editor and changing S95 to S90 but that didn't work.

Now I even see the thumbnail of the file on my Mac desktop as soon as I execute the exiftool command.

Sorry, one more question: to execute the command in batch mode on a folder?


Many thanks.
Best wishes.

[Phil Harvey]

You can use folder names and/or file names on the command line.  With folder names, exiftool will process all writable files in the folder.  If you have other file types and want to just process CR2 images, add -ext cr2 to the command.  ie)

exiftool -ext cr2 -model="Canon PowerShot S90" -canonmodelID="PowerShot S90" DIR ...

- Phil

[Albo75]

Hi Phil,

Found this today, installed ExifTool, and had great success with running it and making new copies of S95 RAW files for Lightroom.

One issue I'm having however is that some of the new CR2 files have a black line either on top or on the left of the image.
Could this be an image shift, or perhaps some sort of corruption in the new file?

Importing as a CR2 and/or converting to a DNG produces the same problem.

See here: http://skitch.com/albo/d2au2/lightroom



Any thoughts on this?

Thanks,
Albo

[stephsarz]

Phil-

I'm having trouble with the command line you provided
exiftool -model="Canon PowerShot S90" -canonmodelID="PowerShot S90" FILE

I have a Canon S95 raw file and would like to change the canon model ID data to PowerShot S90 so I can open in Photoshop. My filename is IMG_0013.CR2 and it is located on my desktop.

What is the correct command line to change the canon model for this file?

Cheers!

[Phil Harvey]

Hi Albo,

One issue I'm having however is that some of the new CR2 files have a black line either on top or on the left of the image.

The black line moves around?  I could see the black mask may be different on an S95 sensor, but that could only explain a black line that was the same in all pictures.

- Phil

[Phil Harvey]

I'm having trouble with the command line you provided
exiftool -model="Canon PowerShot S90" -canonmodelID="PowerShot S90" FILE

Did you replace FILE in the command with the actual name of the image file?

Also, more details would be useful.  What messages did you get?

- Phil

[Albo75]

The black line moves around?  I could see the black mask may be different on an S95 sensor, but that could only explain a black line that was the same in all pictures.

Portrait images have the line at the top, landscape at the left. It seems completely random though.

24 of 122 images I shot yesterday have the black line.

[stephsarz]

Phil,

Thanks for the quick response.

Here is what I enter into the command line:

exiftool -model="Canon PowerShot S90" -canonmodelID="PowerShot S90" IMG_0013.CR2

This is the message:
Error: File not found - IMG_0013.CR2
    0 image files updated
    1 files weren't updated due to errors

The image is a raw file from the Canon S95, it is located on my desktop and I am running OS 10.6.4.

Thanks!

[Phil Harvey]

Portrait images have the line at the top, landscape at the left.

So the black bar at least doesn't move relative to the sensor.

24 of 122 images I shot yesterday have the black line.

This is the curious part.  What happens if you convert the original images using Canon's DPP software?

- Phil

[Phil Harvey]

This is the message:
Error: File not found - IMG_0013.CR2
    0 image files updated
    1 files weren't updated due to errors

Ah, OK.  Type ~/Desktop/IMG_0013.CR2 so ExifTool can find the image on the desktop.  The tilde (~) is a convenient shortcut which represents your home directory in case you are wondering.

Also, in OS X you can drag and drop the file into the terminal window instead of typing the filename.  This is a neat trick that you may find useful.

- Phil

[stephsarz]

Brilliant!

[Albo75]

This is the curious part.  What happens if you convert the original images using Canon's DPP software?

Took three shots just now and converted with Canon software to jpg. All three came out fine.
Ran ExifTool and then imported to LR and converted to DNG. The second image has the black on the left.

Matching the Canon jpg to the DNG I get this*

*Top image is the DNG with 1 pixel black edge to show shift. It doesn't even line up vertically, I had to nudge it down a couple pixels.

[Phil Harvey]

Took three shots just now and converted with Canon software to jpg. All three came out fine.

Great.  Now we have a good starting point.

Ran ExifTool and then imported to LR and converted to DNG. The second image has the black on the left.

Do you get the same thing when importing this image into DPP?  If so, does the black go away if you use exiftool again to change the model values back to S90 and import this double-edited image into DPP?  There are a few possible outcomes:

1) black bars show up on the edited image in DPP but go away when the model is changed back to S90
    --> indicates that there is some real difference between the S90 and S95 images causing the black bar

2) black bars don't show up in either image
    --> indicates that the Lightroom CR2 reader isn't very robust

3) black bars show up on both images
    --> indicates that ExifTool is causing the problem.  If this is the case, I want to know.

I tried some tests here, but I only have one S95 CR2 and it didn't give a black bar when I changed the model to S90 and imported into LR2.

- Phil