I had a request for a photo that someone saw in my web archive. My archives go back a long way--I've had a website since the mid 90's. I was working digitally with my photos before I even owned Photoshop, by getting my film scanned onto Photo CDs and using PaintShop to mess with the files and post them on my website.
Rather than dig through my file cabinets looking for the film and scanning it, I went to my box of Photo CDs and found the image. The date on the disk was March 1998, less than ten years ago. Guess what? Photoshop couldn't read the image files. It appears my entire library of pcd files is unreadable.
A little Googling showed me that there is a plug-in on the installation disk that allegedly makes these files viable. I installed it, tried it, and it didn't work. Then I found the fine print in the Readme that told me the plug-in doesn't work on Intel Macs.
Weirdly, iPhoto automatically loads pcd files and displays them as jpgs. But for the life of me, I can't figure out how you get an image out of iPhoto and into another program. IPhoto is one of those dumbed down Mac programs that lets you only do things the Mac Way. I can order a print. I can make a calendar. I can eliminate the red-eye. But I can't save the image file. I sent it to the Desktop, thinking, oh, that's the exit, but Mac has another logic to it. It's not my logic. I now have the image as my Desktop wallpaper, and I don't know how to reverse my way out of that problem. I finally emailed the photo to myself.
This is what managing a digital library is going to be like from here out. One day you expect to access an image, only to find out the format has been abandoned. Your first signal that there is a problem is going to be when it's too late to fix it.
In iLife 08 (older versions should be similar), use file->export. Choose as the file format original to get that, or export it as a JPEG without compression.
chuq
Posted by: Chuq Von Rospach | October 12, 2007 at 06:01 PM
Doesn't File>Export work? I hate iPhoto because of the way it organizes things, but you should be able to export. I just tried it (not with a pcd, but a jpeg) and it gives you a (limited) choice of format.
By the way, I have some old pcd disks and I was able to open the files with bridge and PS.
Posted by: Jack Nelson | October 12, 2007 at 06:02 PM
Ah, you're right about the Export command. I was looking for a Save As, or something under a right-click.
I never had a problem opening up pcd files in the Windows version of PS. It looks like this is a problem specific to Intel Macs. The upgrade of one system is how these things become a problem, when you least anticipate it.
Posted by: Doug Plummer | October 12, 2007 at 08:48 PM
I try to keep a copy of every file as a tiff and as a jpeg including the psd files I actually edit. Hopefully something in the future will be able to open one of these formats.
Posted by: matt | October 13, 2007 at 09:41 AM
Yeah, you're right. CS3 will not open the pcd files. I had converted them when I had a non Intel Mac I guess, so I still have the images.
I just did some experimentation and you can open them in iPhoto and then export them as tiffs, jpegs or pngs. The problem is they are no longer 16 bit, only 8 bit.
Non Intel Macs are not exactly extinct tho. We have a few in the office and they would still be able to open and save the pcds to a usable 16 bit image. Or you could use Boot Camp and a Windows version of PS. Not exactly elegant solutions I'll admit. The problem seems to be that Kodak doesn't support the universal binary format that the Intel Macs use. I'm surprized that no one has written a converter. Is it because Kodak kept the pcd format proprietary?
This is a good reason to convert all of your camera raw files to Adobe DBG or some other open format. If Nikon and Adobe go out of business, the DNG format is open and someone could write a converter.
Posted by: Jack Nelson | October 15, 2007 at 08:18 PM
You can do it!
Go here: http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=kb400945
Install the Kodak PhotoCD plug-in from the Photoshop installation CD.
On Windows, copy the Photo CD.8bi file from the Goodies\Optional Plug-Ins\Kodak PhotoCD folder on the installation CD to C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CS3\Plug-Ins\File Formats.
On Mac OS, copy the PhotoCD.plugin file from the Goodies\Optional Plug-Ins\Kodak PhotoCD folder on the installation CD to Applications/Adobe Photoshop CS3/Plug-Ins/File Formats.
Important: If you are using an Intel-based Macintosh, in order to use the Photo CD plug-in you must run Photoshop under Rosetta:
Navigate to Applications/Adobe Photoshop CS3.
Select the Adobe Photoshop CS3 icon and choose File > Get Info.
In the General section, enable the Open Using Rosetta option.
Posted by: Mike Peters | November 01, 2007 at 05:36 AM
I tried installing the plugin and it still doesn't work. Instead of an error message I just get a garbled box. I think it's shameful that Adobe no longer supports PCD files, especially since so many professional cd packages still use that format (Corel, for example).
Posted by: JJL | November 11, 2007 at 03:48 PM
JJL,
I think you have to both run the plugin and run Photoshop under Rosetta (however ones does that--I'm a Mac newbie).
Posted by: Doug Plummer | November 11, 2007 at 05:23 PM
Just came across the PCD problem last week when I was trying to convert them for FLICKR as an adjunct for a blog I'm setting up for a friend.
Ifranview, which is free software, can open the pesky PCDs and can Batch process them into jpegs or other formats.
Figured out a simple scheme without having to dig through HELP files. Ran them through a PShop Action afterwards for a bit of clean up.
Don't know if Ifranview is available for MAC use, tho'.
Posted by: Lauren Singer | November 13, 2007 at 11:17 PM
Hi Doug,
I've solved the Photo-CD/PhotoshopCS3 combination mystery for myself. It's not the solution for you, but who knows may be it can do something good for you.
I have a Mac G4 and a PC running PS-CS3. Both were not able to open pcd files. There should be a plugin on the 'goodies' folder on the application DVD, but that plugin didn't work on the Mac.
I've dropped the Mac plugin on the Mac texteditor and noticed that in the code were all kinds of hints to X86 processors. (Which is typically pc stuff) So I put the MAC plugin in PC's Photoshop plugin folder en changed the mac file-extensions into the right windows extensions, also for the colorprofiles and guess what?? That MAC plugin worked on WINDOWS Photoshop!!!
So that mystery was solved, Adobe put the Windows plugin on the MAC DVD.
Now I had to solve the problem on the Mac side. I had on a old backup cd with a 30days trial version of Photoshop CS2, I installed it and copied the Kodak Photo-CD plugin, which was still standard in that CS2 version, and copied it to the CS3 plugin version and guess what? It also worked!
I realize it is for you, with an Intel Mac, not a real solution to run Photoshop under Rosetta, but may be you can do something with my experiences.
Posted by: NickJ | February 08, 2008 at 01:13 AM
I was able to open pcd files on a Power PC with Graphic Converter
Posted by: | March 14, 2008 at 11:36 AM