RAW

[Jenny Taillier]

I have only recently moved over form 35 mm to dslr and am getting to grips with raw and all the image manipulation. Can someone tell me is RAW a “lossy” format like Jpeg or can you keep saving without loss of quality?

Should I be doing all my adjustments as one hit or can it be done in steps over time?

[simpo two]

Jenny Taillier said:

I have only recently moved over form 35 mm to dslr and am getting to grips with raw and all the image manipulation. Can someone tell me is RAW a “lossy” format like Jpeg or can you keep saving without loss of quality? Should I be doing all my adjustments as one hit or can it be done in steps over time?

Heh, I've just crossed this bridge myself!
RAW is in theory the raw data from the CCD, although Nikon RAW (NEF) is slightly compressed. I don't know if this is lossless or not.
However, you don't resave RAW files - you process them into something else, eg TIFF or PSD. Think of the RAW file as a digital negative which you then process into a viewable format. A 6Mb NEF makes a 17Mb TIFF, and you can play with it as much as you like after that. As a newbie to RAW, I found it simplest to leave the processing mostly on default settings and just correct the exposure. Then I can do other changes, eg levels, hue/sat, filters etc to the TIFF file within the normal PS workspace, which I find more versatile.

[ThatPhilBrettGuy]

RAW is lossless in both the Canon and Nikon world. It'd be a bit pointless otherwise really

[Jenny Taillier]

Thanks, I thought it was - steep learning curve and all that!

J

[CVP]

I just got this book from Amazon
"Real World Camera Raw with Adobe Photoshop" by Bruce Fraser.

It is really helping to explain which adjustments to make in PS and which to make when using the RAW converter to open the file. Most illuminating.

I think it is going to be my best upgrade going from Elements to the full version of PS.

Chris

edited to add link;
[url]www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/032127878X/qid%3D1113464947/202-8811877-5903003[/url]

>> Edited by CVP on Thursday 14th April 08:51

[Jenny Taillier]

That sounds interesting but would it be of use to someone who is not using Photoshop? Does it describes the processes in general or is it more a step by step through Photoshop’s menus?

The Minolta freebie that came with the camera is very basic so I have downloaded Rawshooter and have been using that for a week or so. I am still learning the basic manipulation tools available to me in Rawshooter but it appears easier to use than the Minolta viewer.

I also have a ArcSoft Photostudio 5 which came free with a Canon scanner some time ago. I have occasionally used it to resize and crop jpegs but nothing more. Anyone know if it’s any good?

J

[beano500]

Jenny Taillier said:

Should I be doing all my adjustments as one hit or can it be done in steps over time?

If you notice, RSE keeps the original file and also produces a .RWSettings folder too.

My suggestion about this: Archive your RAW files (maybe with the .RWS file) then breathe a sigh of relief.

Once RSE has handled the manipulation, you dictate where it puts your image and in what format.

But you still have the original RAW file and an RWS file with the settings. AFAIK, until you have output to a lossy compression file format, you have a loseless system.

My suggestion about this: Breathe a sigh of relief - you've lost nothing yet. You can easily go back and start again if you don't like what you've done/it all goes horribly wrong or your computer crashes in the middle of it all!

Making significant changes to the RAW file in RSE will not lose pixels in compression. Therefore make colour balance, exposure, fill, highlight and shadow contrast for definite here.

If you like what it does to noise, do this here too, but more for convenience than anything else. If you want some saturation and hue tweaks, there's no harm in doing it here. My personal view is that you don't want to go anywhere near sharpening here.

Batch Output...

...make nicecupofteaorcoffeeanddon'tspillcrumbsifeatingadigestive...

And breathe a sigh of relief.

Now you have a batch of TIFFs or JPEGs where you can do as little or as much as you want to do in PS, or whatever programme you prefer/have.

Crop, tweak levels to a subtle degree, clone, blend, upsize (small steps or maybe use STAIR interpolation), downsize, channel mix to monochrome or whatever takes your fancy. (Sorry for the PS-speak, it's what I'm now familiar with; your software will have equivalants though.)

SAVE

Breathe sigh of relief - finish cold tea/coffee

Now sharpen, either at the time of doing the Save For Web trick, or when you're sizing and getting the resolution right for your print. (Don't sharpen if the image is going off to somebody else - you're selling it on, or whatever.) Best of the sharpening techniques are Unsharp Mask or, my preference, a high pass filter on a seperate PS layer

Look at your gorgeous image - go and put the kettle on again........


>> Edited by beano500 on Thursday 14th April 11:14

[CVP]

Jenny Taillier said:

That sounds interesting but would it be of use to someone who is not using Photoshop? Does it describes the processes in general or is it more a step by step through Photoshop’s menus? The Minolta freebie that came with the camera is very basic so I have downloaded Rawshooter and have been using that for a week or so. I am still learning the basic manipulation tools available to me in Rawshooter but it appears easier to use than the Minolta viewer. I also have a ArcSoft Photostudio 5 which came free with a Canon scanner some time ago. I have occasionally used it to resize and crop jpegs but nothing more. Anyone know if it’s any good? J

It's tailored very heavily to Adobe Camera RAW, the RAW converter that Photoshop uses, but does have the basics of RAW conversion. At the moment I'm wading my way through it but I'd probably say unless you use Photoshop then this may not be the best resource for you.

It may be worth trying to track down a copy at a local library as it does have some basics on what a RAW converter does and how it does it which I found quite useful.

I haven't tried Rawshooter myself as it requires on-line authorisation and my image editing machine is not and never will be connected to the net, b ut that's proably me just being paranoid.

Chris