I need some help from the experts on this. I have a Nikon D1x and use PS7 and I recently started getting this error when trying to open my RAW files “can not open file because the file-format can not parse the file. I'm working on getting CS3 but in the meantime I'd like to be able to work on my older files without having to go though capture 1st
Thanks

Try going the the Adobe website and getting the latest version of "Camera raw." That's what I use to open file into elements 7.

You need help from a Nikon user, rather then a PS7 user.

Photoshop version 7 didn't come with a Raw converter; it was a $99 add-on, and it's no longer available. Even if you had it, it didn't support recent cameras. (You could use the latest DNG converter from Adobe, then read it with the v7 ACR plugin, but...)

Or did you mean Elements 7? If that's the case, you need to get the latest ACR version and install it; see Adobe's site for info on that.

On yet another hand, from the way you've stated things, it sounds as though it used to work for you, and stopped. If that's the case, you may want to double-check and see if you've recently installed any new Nikon software; it has a tendency to set registry flags to tell Photoshop to use it's converter rather than ACR, and that can mess things up.

There's a ton of differing types of files that all are called "RAW". Nikon has many versions, and the same with Canon, and those from a Fuji or Olympus, are again different. Adobe realized this problem when they needed to make a mess of differing plug-ins to make the necessary conversions. To help reduce this problem, Adobe came up with yet another type of RAW file...but decided to try to make it "universal" by making it available to anyone who wanted it. Rather than being exclusive to Canon, Nikon, Fuji, etc, they make it available to all in the hopes of making at least something standard.  It's called Adobe "DNG" and the DNG stands for digital negative.

If you go to the Adobe website, you can download Adobe DNG converter for free. This will convert your Nikon RAW files to a DNG (RAW) type file. Once you have done that, I believe that PS7 will open those up just fine. I Know CS2 does.

There's not much sense at this point to go to CS3. You might as well go to CS4.

(edit). I just checked. You are screwed. PS7 doesn't open the DNG files.  Time to upgrade.

http://www.adobe.com/products/dng/

You could try this... the price is right.  NEF > JPG

http://www.reasoft.com/rea-nef-convert.shtml

Studio36

I'm pretty sure if you download Irfanview, the driver for NEF will install. You'll get CRW too.