Those eyeing Canon's newest SLR, the EOS 550D, or Olympus's new high-end compact camera, the E-PL1, now can get support for those cameras' raw images in Adobe Systems' Lightroom and Photoshop — though only as a release candidate for now.

Adobe releases occasional updates so its software can decode the proprietary raw image formats from many higher-end cameras. Raw images offer greater flexibility and quality as compared with JPEG images, but they require manual processing to convert them into a useful form.

And software companies such as Adobe and Apple must stay on top of a constant stream of new cameras that shoot raw. The new release candidates of Lightroom 2.7 and the Camera Raw 5.7 plug-in for Photoshop support the following cameras:

• Canon EOS 550D
• Kodak Z981
• Leaf Aptus-II 8
• Leaf Aptus-II 10R
• Mamiya DM40
• Olympus E-PL1
• Panasonic Lumix DMC-G2
• Panasonic Lumix DMC-G10
• Sony Alpha A450

Adobe also issued a release candidate for DNG Converter 5.7, a utility that converts raw photos into Adobe's Digital Negative format.

Via CNET News.com