Adobe Support for Hasselblad X2D and Lenses... and a Failed Upgrade Attempt of 2019 iMac 5K
Related: 2019 iMac 5K, 4K and 5K display, Adobe, Adobe Camera Raw, computer display, Hasselblad, Hasselblad medium format, Hasselblad mirrorless, Hasselblad X2D 100C, iMac, iMac 5K, medium format, Photoshop
Instead of new material on the X2D, you get my story on how Apple wasted half of my day through their abject incompetence in making system upgrades work properly.
Adobe Camera Raw has preliminary support for the Hasselblad X2D, but as yet there is no support for the new lenses.
This “preliminary support” and support for lenses requires ACR 14.x, which requires Photoshop CC v23 or newer, which requires macOS Catalina or later. The older ACR 13.x can read X2D files, but it has no particular support for the X2D. (I refuse to use Hasselblad’s camera-specific import-files-model Phocus, which is a horrible-workflow for me. Nor is i appropriate to use two different raw converters when comparing to cameras like the Fujifilm GFX100s).
Shame on Adobe for no longer supporting macOS Mojave—that is, ACR is stuck on version 13.x if running Photoshop CC 2021. The only way to get support for the Hasselblad X2D is to run the latest ACR, which requires Photoshop v23 or later, which requires macOS Catalina or later (but macOS Monterey is a better choice).
UPDATE: kudos to Adobe for updating Camera Raw for Photoshop on Mojave! Support for the 55/2.5 and 38/2.5 is in.
UPDATE: thanks to readers for suggestions. Sorry, I wasn’t clear: Photoshop 22.5.9 with Camera Raw 13.4.0.872 can open X2D 3FR files just fine—but without whatever camera support and lens support the newer version has. Converting 3FR files to DNG won’t magically add camera and lens support; only the version 14.X of ACR can do that.
Updating the iMac 5K — disaster
I have run macOS Mojave on my 2019 iMac 5K since I got it ~3.5 years ago. Stable and reliable, I am loathe to “upgrade”.
I decided to tackle the Adobe deficiency by “upgrading” to macOS Monterey. This is massively undesirable, as it brings more bugs, inferior usability, and kills my accounting software (a $700 expense). But... I need full support for new cameras like the X2D, and that issue is not going away.
Connecting up my iPad, I downloaded the monster-size 12.4GB download over the cell network, whereupon AT&T disabled the iPad cellular data (I pay for 30GB/month of cellular data)—just wiped out the setup—bye-bye internet. I have paid these assholes for 30GB/month for 3.5 years now. Thanks AT&T. So now I have a useless iPad which needs unfucking. [UPDATE: after a full hour on the phone with AT&T support of first and second levels, my iPad still lacks cellular data access]
Four hours later and after ten or so boot/crash cycles (update, boot-crash/boot-crash/boot/crash/repeat forever), I had give up, wipe out the internal SSD, then clone my backup of the boot volume back onto the internal SSD. Had I not had that clone backup, I would have a “bricked” iMac. Thank Dog for a Mac without the T2 security chip or it would have been game over.
