Not Everyone Knows This: JPEG Embedded in .cr2

[Noel_Carboni]

Not everyone knows this, so I'm posting it in a separate thread...

A Canon body embeds a quite good JPEG "preview" image into every single .cr2 file.

For example, the 40D embeds a 1936 x 1288 JPEG. That's 2.5 megapixels!

All of the settings that would affect JPEG shooting affect this image.

This image is used to display a review image on the back LCD, and is of surprisingly high quality; it is actually quite usable for many purposes (e.g., computer slide show, checking for which exposures to convert, web imagery, even smaller prints).

A program that can quite easily and quickly retrieve this preview image from the raw file is Irfan View. There may be others.

-Noel

[Jerry Skrocki]

How about four jpegs embedded in a CR2 file?

Canon CR2 Specification

Canon Tags

[David Barry]

Aperture will automatically use the preview from the .CR2 file if you check
"Use embedded JPEG from camera when possible" in the Preview Preferences window.

This saves the application from building one, and immediately makes it available for sharing in the Photos pane of the Media browser in the finder and of course in iLife applications.

David.

[Josh_Hawkins]

Photomechanic can also export the embedded jpeg. The embedded jpeg really can be useful on occasion, and how it's set-up is really nice. Personally I like to shoot in B&W, review on the LCD that way, but I've still got all the options of color, of course, because it's a raw file.