Raw Processing Tutorial

[Bill44]

When I got serious about photography again after a break of many years one of my old pro mates turned up on my doorstep with a copy of Lightroom. His words were "If I catch you shooting JPEG I'll break your fingers". Best favour he ever did me.

[nouveau1]

Marvelous!

Thankyou VERY much.

[graffitisurf]

Thanks for this tutorial.It convinced me to give it a go and so far I am happy with the results,although I am now concerned about storage and organisational issues.

[makro]

thanks for that tutorial Rick, PP is one of my weakness which I need to address and this is tutorial shows me what is possible

[rob149bm]

great tutorial rick i wish i had seen it before entering into the world of raw Photography some 6 years ago and once you go raw you will nether go back as it give you total control your digital file anyone thinking of going to raw should invest in a great book by Bruce Fraser called
Camera Raw its the bible on refining your workflow
rob149bm

D300/D2x/f601x 70-200vr 18-200vr 35-70 50mm 500mm 12-24 Nikon lens 70-200 sigma 90mm Tamron sb800

[kingfisher29]

Very nice write up. I just started using Lightroom and boy that programme is good. I may try out a few others out there to see if they are any good as well

[Saleems]

Excellent tutorial Rick! I was wondering whether people recommend shooting in RAW and JPEG mode at first and then moving onto RAW only? Also, if you have a lot of images, can you batch process images? And would it produce the same quality as if you processed each image individually.

[ricktas]

Very nice write up. I just started using Lightroom and boy that programme is good. I may try out a few others out there to see if they are any good as well

Lightroom is so much more than a raw converter. There are lots of alternatives and it is really a personal preference to which one you settle on. But when you do, learn as much as you can about how it works

Excellent tutorial Rick! I was wondering whether people recommend shooting in RAW and JPEG mode at first and then moving onto RAW only? Also, if you have a lot of images, can you batch process images? And would it produce the same quality as if you processed each image individually.

Hmmm. up to you. My suggestion would be swap to RAW and take a heap of test shots one day, in the house, backyard, neighbourhood. Use those to learn with. Then you should not go wrong just shooting in RAW. Yes you can batch process, but remember you are applying the same adjustments to every photo. Often if you are changing settings as you go, on your shoot, using a batch method may not be the best option, as it will work on some photos but may overprocess, over-expose, under-expose others, depending on the original file settings.

[savme]

great Tut Rick.. I shoot in raw but hubby gets my camera and always changes my settings ..OMG Leave alone please :P

[ameerat42]

My 2c worth. I'm a recent convert to raw, only because I only recently got a camera that can do raw. Somewhere in a recent thread I said I have ditched jpeg. Well, it's not quite true. When I only need "a quick shot" of something I might just use jpeg, and for posting here. But now, for anything else, it's raw to 16-bit tiff for keeping, and then a really better quality than straight-out-of-the-camera jpeg.

And that's on of the main things I learned from this forum: what raw files are and how to appreciate the information they contain. Am.

[Jorge Arguello]

G;day all,
I've just downloaded a gimp2.6, from the development team as specified on their web site, but find the thing a bit difficult...for example, it doesn't seem to recognise raw format, and the on-line tutorials seem . . . .

Hello:

I will take this tutorial, thanks a lot!
I am also using GIPM. I need to convert my RAW picture to TTIF and then GIMP can open the file. I will try Photoshop Elements.

[Chilli]

Thanks for this tutorial Rick, it has opened up an entire new world for me.
Can anyone help me regarding camera raw preferences.
I have PS elements 8 , under preferences 5.5.0.97 it asks for
a choice between saving file as Camera Raw Database OR Sidecar ".xmp" files.

which box should I tick ?

it also asks should camera raw automatically sharpen images. should I untick this and sharpen myself at the end of my editing ? Or leave as is..

Many Thanks...

[ricktas]

Lightroom uses XMP sidecar files and I have found that works well for me, so go that way if you like. Really it is probably just down to personal choice. I do not let my images be sharpened at that stage of my processing. Sharpening is done as the final step, so say NO to that one.

[Chilli]

okay, thankyou.

[ctorry]

Thanks for the tutorial Rick.

I am now going to give Raw a go.

[darkmerlin]

thanks Rick, Great overview of the difference between raw and jpg - just what I was looking for.
What's sold me is when you consider how much info/data you loose when shooting in jpg compared to having it all available in raw it's a bit of a no brainer - raw from now on

[David]

Have to say Im sold on shooting only in RAW now and having ACR helps to smplify the basic editing process before switching over to Photoshop for more processing.

The only thing is you need more memory cards of become more confident/exclusive in what you shoot and shoot less images on the day. That is a good thing.

I don't suppose it matters if you convert to JPEG or TIFF to do further work in Photoshop but I have a feeling someone is going to say no convert in TIFF because it does not compress the pixels whereas JPEG will .. Right ?

[ricktas]

Have to say Im sold on shooting only in RAW now and having ACR helps to smplify the basic editing process before switching over to Photoshop for more processing.

The only thing is you need more memory cards of become more confident/exclusive in what you shoot and shoot less images on the day. That is a good thing.

I don't suppose it matters if you convert to JPEG or TIFF to do further work in Photoshop but I have a feeling someone is going to say no convert in TIFF because it does not compress the pixels whereas JPEG will .. Right ?

TIFF or PSD David. Once you move to JPG you introduce a 'lossy' file format that strips part of the information in the image file. My photos are important to me, so working in the highest quality is the way to go. I only use JPG for conversion at a final stage for uploading to AP etc. All work is done using a image file of the highest quality.

[exwintech]

Rick - Thanks for that so-clear explanation in "real words".... As an over-60 just learning into photography, I do find those on-line "techy detail" Guides rather hard to follow, without knowing the 'advanced terms'. They might indeed be very good, but they assume that the reader is already a photographer.

As part of my learning-towards-a-DSLR plan, I bought a Bridge Zoom - Fuji HS10 - which does the RAW files my Canon SX10 doesn't.

I'm using Digikam in Linux as my RAF RAW processing application. (With the latest version of DCRAW it now handles the HS10's RAFs, which very few other tools yet do.)

While experimenting with the RAFs, I'm getting the idea of doing the WB, Saturation, Gamma, Levels, so on, then "Sharpen last" with USM, and Save to TIFF. However - while I'm sometimes getting clearer and more detailed images than the "very camera processed" same-scene JPEGs (it does do RAW + JPEG) - other results are little different, if any, from the JPEGs.

So I'm a bit (?) confused - certainly it could be that I'm not "getting the lighting and detail out" as well as could be done.

But also, those RAFs are coming from a very small - compared with any DSLR - sensor, the HS10's 10Mpix BSI 1/2.3 CMOS. Is there any 'special processing mode' that's better for RAWs coming from such a sensor - or, due to the size, is it just not capable of recording the amount of data the larger DSLR sensors do?

The HS10 RAF RAW files average 15.2MB, which suggests that they do contain more "quality detail" than the JPEGs.

As more P&S and Bridge Zoom cameras with small sensors are now doing RAW, I'm possibly not the only one wondering about this.

Any ideas or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Regards, Dave.

[ricktas]

I think you have answered your own question here. if you compare a DSLR sensor of say 10MP to a P&S or bridge camera sensor of 10MP. The smaller sensor on these smaller camera's means that each one of those 10million pixels has to be a lot smaller. Science shows that the smaller each pixel, the less light hits it. We are getting down to photons of light here. One side effect of these very small pixel sites is they do not tend to capture shadow detail so well, and can also introduce noise into the result. You will find that a RAW file from a small sensor, compared to a RAW file from a DSLR of the same MP, will not be as 'flexible' when editing in RAW, and things like shadows adjustments may not result in the quality in the shadow area you were expecting. Having said this, DSLR also experience this, which is why medium format sensors and camera's are available too. In the end every system is a compromise in some way, we just have to get to know the limitations of our gear and work with it.