Computer Graphics with Photoshop - Newbie RAW question

Author

Newbie RAW question

Bobby Edwards

2005-06-26, 7:14 pm

I've just got a new camera which captures RAWs. I understand that RAW data
is uncompressed and is therefore purer data than JPEG. I know too that PS 7,
which I use, does not handle RAW and so the files have to be converted to
TIFF, PSD or whatever.

I've got a copy of Raw Shooter Essentials LE from a magazine CD. Looking at
this, it looks like a cut down PS. Why should I edit in Rawshoot rather
than simply convert the RAW to a TIFF and edit (ie sharpen,colour balance
etc) in PS.? What are the advantages and disadvantages of editing in a RAW
editor? Would it be better to simply leave alll the Rawshooter settings at
default, convert to TIFF and go on in PS?

I am a fairly serious amateur photographer, who prints to A3 using an Epson
1290

I ma sure I am missing something here, but I can't see it

Help appreciated. many thanks

Bob Edwards

C Wright

2005-06-26, 7:14 pm

On 6/26/05 4:42 PM, in article
42bf2166$0$13697$cc9e4d1f@news-text.dial.pipex.com, "Bobby Edwards"
<Bobb_Edwards@hotmail.com> wrote:

> I've just got a new camera which captures RAWs. I understand that RAW data
> is uncompressed and is therefore purer data than JPEG. I know too that PS 7,
> which I use, does not handle RAW and so the files have to be converted to
> TIFF, PSD or whatever.
>
> I've got a copy of Raw Shooter Essentials LE from a magazine CD. Looking at
> this, it looks like a cut down PS. Why should I edit in Rawshoot rather
> than simply convert the RAW to a TIFF and edit (ie sharpen,colour balance
> etc) in PS.? What are the advantages and disadvantages of editing in a RAW
> editor? Would it be better to simply leave alll the Rawshooter settings at
> default, convert to TIFF and go on in PS?
>
> I am a fairly serious amateur photographer, who prints to A3 using an Epson
> 1290
>
> I ma sure I am missing something here, but I can't see it
>
> Help appreciated. many thanks
>
> Bob Edwards
>
>
>
I am sure that others will expand on this more than I but there are two
primary things that all raw converters do much better than PS or any other
image editing program. That is change the white balance and change the
exposure. Should your image be too warm or too cool or over or under
exposed fixing this in a raw converter is a snap. Do at least those two
things before converting to a tiff for further editing.
Chuck

Barry Pearson

2005-06-26, 11:14 pm

Bobby Edwards wrote:
[snip]
> I've got a copy of Raw Shooter Essentials LE from a magazine CD.
> Looking at this, it looks like a cut down PS. Why should I edit in
> Rawshoot rather than simply convert the RAW to a TIFF and edit (ie
> sharpen,colour balance etc) in PS.? What are the advantages and
> disadvantages of editing in a RAW editor? Would it be better to
> simply leave alll the Rawshooter settings at default, convert to TIFF
> and go on in PS?
[snip]

I think it might be a mistake to give a detailed answer. This is something
that you have to buy into yourself. Here is a quote from Bruce Fraser's new
book:

"Photoshop is truly one of the deepest applications available on any platform,
and has probably had more words written about it than just about any other
application in existence. It's also seductive. One of my goals in writing this
book is to wean photographers from doing everything in Photoshop - if you
simply treat Camera Raw as a quick way to get raw images into Photoshop for
correction, you're making extra work for yourself, and probably not getting
everything you can from your raw captures.

"For the purposes of this book, Photoshop is simply a tool for making
localized corrections, hosting automated processes, and writing images out to
different file formats. My friend and colleague Jeff Schewe remarked jokingly
during the beta period of Photoshop CS2 that Photoshop had become a plug-in
for Camera Raw rather than vice versa, to which I can only add that rarely was
a truer word spoken in jest."

Substitute "Rawshooter" or any other decent Raw converter for "Camera Raw",
and you have the flavour of this quote. I agree with it. (I use ACR, Camera
Raw, rather than Rawshooter). The more I know about ACR and exploit it, the
less work I have to do in Photoshop, and the better the results are. I'm
trying to use ACR to get the results I really wish I had got when I took the
picture, and then using Photoshop to do any "artistic" changes. Since I'm not
artistic, I end up using a higher proportion of ACR than of Photoshop.

--
Barry Pearson
http://www.barry.pearson.name/photography/
http://www.birdsandanimals.info/

birdman

2005-06-27, 7:14 pm

If you shoot raw, and you should, you need to understand what the raw
coverter does and what PS does.
Blanket pronouncements about PS becoming a plug-in for the raw converter are
non-sensical and reflect the working habits and prejudices of individuals.
It is indeed possible to take a straight shot and do most basic image
corrections in a raw converter before opening the image in PS or some other
imaging program. You still need to sharpen in order to print.
I find there are very few images that are optimized only by the global
manipulations that can be made in a raw coverter.
The ability to make regional adjustments to an image is why one tortures
with PS to begin with.
If you can afford it upgrade to CS or CS2 and use the Adobe raw converter in
conjunction with PS.
There are many video tutorials on the web, many of which are free, that
demonstrate and explain what the raw converter does.
You have to develop your own workflow to be able to decide what is best left
to the raw converter and what is best accomplished in PS.

Barry Pearson

2005-06-27, 7:14 pm

birdman wrote:
> If you shoot raw, and you should, you need to understand what the raw
> coverter does and what PS does.

This differs from one Raw converter to another, and from year to year.
For example, there are about 30 settings that can be made in ACR 3.1.
But there were far fewer in ACR a year ago.

> Blanket pronouncements about PS becoming a plug-in for the raw converter are
> non-sensical and reflect the working habits and prejudices of individuals.

Jeff Schewe and Bruce Fraser, who originated and publicised that
statement, are both widely recognised as experts of both ACR and
Photoshop. But anyone is welcome, of course, to call what they say
"non-sensical".

Their aim was to reset expectations, about what is best in ACR and what
is best in Photoshop, in a humorous way. I quoted their statement as a
counter-balance to the original query "Why should I edit in Rawshoot
rather than simply convert the RAW to a TIFF and edit (ie sharpen,
colour balance etc) in PS?"

It would be possible to re-ask the question as "why should I edit in
Photoshop rather than sharpen, white balance, etc, in ACR?"
Increasingly, there is a lot of overlap.

> It is indeed possible to take a straight shot and do most basic image
> corrections in a raw converter before opening the image in PS or some other
> imaging program. You still need to sharpen in order to print.
> I find there are very few images that are optimized only by the global
> manipulations that can be made in a raw coverter.

And no one is saying otherwise, as far as I know. (Do you know of
someone who has said differently?)

> The ability to make regional adjustments to an image is why one tortures
> with PS to begin with.

"Regional adjustments" is one thing that Photoshop has and ACR doesn't
(yet). You can't select areas in ACR and apply adjustments just to
those selections. But when you use selections in Photoshop, the
different effects achieved inside and outside the selections may have
originated in ACR. It is possible to use Photoshop's regional
adjustments as a substitute for having selections in ACR.

For example, suppose you take a picture inside a tungsten-lit room that
includes a window to a daylight-lit scene outside. It would be useful
to select the window in ACR and so apply a different white balance to
the outside scene from that of the room. But we can't. Should we just
choose one white balance, say tungsten, and pass the problem to
Photoshop, perhaps then trying to compensate, using inadequate tools,
for converting with the wrong white balance for the outside scene?

A better method may be to use 2 conversions in ACR, one with tungsten
white balance, the other with daylight white balance, and make these
separate layers in Photoshop. By deleting the outside scene in the
upper layer, the proper white balance, achieved in both cases by ACR,
may then be obtained. Photoshop has then been used to compensate for
not being able to do selections in ACR. (The same method can be used
for exposure, noise reduction, and lens aberrations, or combinations of
these).

> If you can afford it upgrade to CS or CS2 and use the Adobe raw converter in
> conjunction with PS.
> There are many video tutorials on the web, many of which are free, that
> demonstrate and explain what the raw converter does.
> You have to develop your own workflow to be able to decide what is best left
> to the raw converter and what is best accomplished in PS.

Yes to that last point. But what I advocate is that anyone attempting
this judgement should be aware of the extremes of what can be achieved
by either, or by both in combination. CS2 and ACR 3.1 are pushing at
(and beyond) the boundaries that some people believed applied to Raw
conversion. (A year ago, how many people would have thought about
cropping and alignment as ACR features?)

And, although Raw conversion currently applies globally, it is useful
to think about what could be achieved if it were to apply regionally,
then think about how to achieve that by using a combination of ACR and
Photoshop.

--
Barry Pearson
http://www.barry.pearson.name/photography/
http://www.birdsandanimals.info/

Bobby Edwards

2005-06-28, 7:15 pm

Thank you all for your very helpful replies. There is much to think about
here and learn
Thanks for your help

Bob E

"Barry Pearson" <news@childsupportanalysis.co.uk> wrote in message
news:1119896528.320365.163120@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
> birdman wrote:
>
> This differs from one Raw converter to another, and from year to year.
> For example, there are about 30 settings that can be made in ACR 3.1.
> But there were far fewer in ACR a year ago.
>
>
> Jeff Schewe and Bruce Fraser, who originated and publicised that
> statement, are both widely recognised as experts of both ACR and
> Photoshop. But anyone is welcome, of course, to call what they say
> "non-sensical".
>
> Their aim was to reset expectations, about what is best in ACR and what
> is best in Photoshop, in a humorous way. I quoted their statement as a
> counter-balance to the original query "Why should I edit in Rawshoot
> rather than simply convert the RAW to a TIFF and edit (ie sharpen,
> colour balance etc) in PS?"
>
> It would be possible to re-ask the question as "why should I edit in
> Photoshop rather than sharpen, white balance, etc, in ACR?"
> Increasingly, there is a lot of overlap.
>
>
> And no one is saying otherwise, as far as I know. (Do you know of
> someone who has said differently?)
>
>
> "Regional adjustments" is one thing that Photoshop has and ACR doesn't
> (yet). You can't select areas in ACR and apply adjustments just to
> those selections. But when you use selections in Photoshop, the
> different effects achieved inside and outside the selections may have
> originated in ACR. It is possible to use Photoshop's regional
> adjustments as a substitute for having selections in ACR.
>
> For example, suppose you take a picture inside a tungsten-lit room that
> includes a window to a daylight-lit scene outside. It would be useful
> to select the window in ACR and so apply a different white balance to
> the outside scene from that of the room. But we can't. Should we just
> choose one white balance, say tungsten, and pass the problem to
> Photoshop, perhaps then trying to compensate, using inadequate tools,
> for converting with the wrong white balance for the outside scene?
>
> A better method may be to use 2 conversions in ACR, one with tungsten
> white balance, the other with daylight white balance, and make these
> separate layers in Photoshop. By deleting the outside scene in the
> upper layer, the proper white balance, achieved in both cases by ACR,
> may then be obtained. Photoshop has then been used to compensate for
> not being able to do selections in ACR. (The same method can be used
> for exposure, noise reduction, and lens aberrations, or combinations of
> these).
>
>
> Yes to that last point. But what I advocate is that anyone attempting
> this judgement should be aware of the extremes of what can be achieved
> by either, or by both in combination. CS2 and ACR 3.1 are pushing at
> (and beyond) the boundaries that some people believed applied to Raw
> conversion. (A year ago, how many people would have thought about
> cropping and alignment as ACR features?)
>
> And, although Raw conversion currently applies globally, it is useful
> to think about what could be achieved if it were to apply regionally,
> then think about how to achieve that by using a combination of ACR and
> Photoshop.
>
> --
> Barry Pearson
> http://www.barry.pearson.name/photography/
> http://www.birdsandanimals.info/
>