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.
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.
Last edited by Jorge Arguello; 29-07-2010 at 12:16pm.
Regards.
J. Arguello.
Constructive Criticism (CC) is alsways welcome.
Photography gear: Nikon D7000; Tokina 11-20mm f/2.8; Nikkor 18-105mm f/3.5 - 5.6; Tamron A17 70-300mm f/4 - 5.6; Nikkor 50mm f/1.8; Yongnuo 35mm f/2; Neewer 85mm f/1.8; Nikon AW100 ;Canon EOS 300; Tamron 28-105mm; Canon 75-300mm.
Photo Editing: Nikon Capture NX-D , GIMP ;
Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/arguelloflores/
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
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
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.
"It is one thing to make a picture of what a person looks like, it is another thing to make a portrait of who they are" - Paul Caponigro
Constructive Critique of my photographs is always appreciated
Nikon, etc!
RICK
My Photography
great Tut Rick.. I shoot in raw but hubby gets my camera and always changes my settings ..OMG Leave alone please :P
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.
CC, Image editing OK.
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...
CC is welcomed & appreciated
5d Mark II
Photography by nature is spiritual, considering it comes from the darkness to show the light.
- Kevin Russo
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.
okay, thankyou.
Thanks for the tutorial Rick.
I am now going to give Raw a go.
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 ?
Comments and CC welcome..
Gear: Canon 6D & 1Ds Cameras l Canon EF 17-40mm F 4.0 L USM l Canon EF 24-105mm F4.0 L IS USM l Canon EF 70 - 200 F4.0 L USM Lenses I Manfrotto Tripods I Adobe Photoshop CS6 l Lightroom 3.0 I Lee Filters
"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes." Marcel Proust 1871 - 1922
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.
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.
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.
Rick - Thanks for the prompt reply.
I'm aware of the size problem re P&S / Bridge-Zoom camera sensors, but I'm wondering if there's "anything extra" one can do in processing to at least partly compensate?
There must be differences in data-content and resulting images between FF sensor cameras and the 1.5/1.6-crop cameras. So when PP-ing a say 1.6 crop sensor RAW, what is done to make it look as much like a FF sensor image as possible?
I can't find anything on that by Googling... Maybe nobody but eccentrics like me thinks of such things...
You can see where I'm coming from... If there are things done in PP with crop-frame sensor RAWs to improve them towards the IQ of FF sensor RAWs - couldn't similar be done with RAWs from the smaller 1/2.3 sensor RAWs...?
Obviously that still wouldn't make them even nearly as good as those from the 12+ times larger crop-frame DSLRs, but any improvement would be nice!
While the camera makers are very likely using the "also saves RAWs" as advertising points for their somewhat overpriced higher end P&S / Bridge cameras - having RAW is probably more educational than the "Vanishing People" and "Automatic Scene Recognition" gimmicks that infest the recent versions.
So RAW in small-sensor cameras is unlikely to "go away" any time soon. What seems to be missing is any Guidance or Tutorials from the makers on how to get the best results from small-sensor RAWs.
Perhaps the folk who do the Digital Camera Tutorials you can find by Googling - some of them very good, if rather "technical" for folk newer to Photography - just assume that small-sensor RAWs from the P&S "Toy Cameras" aren't worthy of specific attention.
While Entry Level DSLRs are indeed becomong relatively less costly - not everyone wants to go there, if not because of cost initially, because of the complexities and the need to buy at least several lenses to cover the various things they will want to do.
So I'd guess that the upper-end P&S and Bridge cameras - with RAW - will keep increasing in popularity. Maybe the makers think that having RAW capability just looks good in the advertising - and that few folk will actually use the function anyway...
But some will, particularly those who want the learning experience before making the leap to DSLR. Perhaps somebody will begin a "Club Site" or a Forum Section for "Small-Sensor P&S RAW Users".
Regards, Dave.
There is not a way to process them that is different to processing RAW files from a cropped sensor DSLR, Full frame DSLR or even a medium format digital back. You are stuck with the limitations of the equipment used to capture your RAW file. All you can do is process it and push that processing to the limit of the data available in the RAW file. There is no magic solution that can give you better results. The entire process is limited by one thing, the quality of the original RAW file!
Rick - Well, thanks for clearing that up! So on the rule of "People take pictures, not cameras" - I'll work on getting better data in the first place - then upping the PP-ing abilities...
From what I've seen shown in some places, the HS10 is quite able to get very good P&S-small-sensor level results, so I'll keep working at it!
Do appreciate the prompt and friendly replies, too.
Regards, Dave.
Thanks Ric. Very help full indeed.