I remember that certain folks would say that to lighten or darken you images, you should use curves or levels and stay away from the rudimentary tools as they could harm you image. What about the Raw dialogue box? Should I not use its exposure slider and other tools?
"because once info is lost there, it can’t be recovered. "
What do you mean? Don’t understand that. As Buko states, you can always go back and redo anything as long as you keep the Raw file.
"you can do everything you need to in ACR and not have to adjust it further. " Again what concerns me is that in Photoshop, if you were to use, for example, brightness/contrast in menu items, to lighten your image, most ps experts say don’t do that, use levels or curves to optimize you image. I don’t think Raw offers levels or curves to lighten darken does it? The analogy does not hold here?
I don’t think Raw offers levels or curves to lighten darken does it? The analogy does not hold here?
Adjusting the brightness slider is just like moving the grey slider in levels and adjusting the "contrast" setting is just like adjusting the highlight and shadow areas on an s shaped curve. Watch your histogram as you do these in ACR – it’s pretty amazing. It’s totally non-linear so that analogy does hold.
Overall ACR offers more adjustments than Curves and Hue/Sat combined so by all means – do it in ACR. Some people have mentioned they would prefer to use ACR to adjust non RAW files (which of course can’t be done) since it is so powerful.
Scottie- Because working with RAW images you can get a more information out than you can with doing the same thing on 16bit processed files. Personally (and I’ve only been shooting RAW for a week) I open the RAW files in the converter, and use the white balance controls to get the white blance OK. Then I tweak the exposure settings, holding down the alt key to show the highlight clipping, making sure there aren’t any blown out highlights (if possible). Adjust the shadows to get the black point in the right place and the contrast (ACR’s default on my camera is a bit lower in contrast than Canon’s idea of what it should be – usually I prefer ACR but not always). Processs as a 16bit tiff and archive the RAW and processed Tiffs to CD at this stage. I’m going to need a new hard drive though! What I need to do now is sit down and work out a batching action with settings that will work on most images so I don’t have to tweak all of them, exccept for the really good ones. So Buko I am definitely keeping the RAW files – in fact I am achiving the Tiffs as well as the RAW, but keeping the RAW files on the harddrives for easier access.
Susan – have you tried updating the RAW files with your changes instead of opening them? In ACR, hold down the alt or option key and choose update. If you don’t need to print or deliver any tone mapped files you might be able to get away with updating your raw files with your preferred settings so they will be there when you go to print them or work on them at a later date. In terms of long term storage, the file savings and flexibility of the file is quite good!
you can always go back and redo anything as long as you keep the Raw file. how many do this?
Buko, I do. I can create two different exposures if I want to. One that is for the shadows and one for the sky for instance. I can then blend the two pictures together giving me good overall exposure. I love RAW.
Scott – no I haven’t got to grips yet with all the wonderful things that the file browser can do! (I’m still working with the trial of CS so i haven’t finalised all my preferences and settings yet as I’ll lose them when i install the full version- my own copy is in the post…). But that sounds very useful. But I’m archiving reasonable tiffs of anything that I could possibly want to read in the future in case for some reason I don’t have PS or there are problems reading a proprietary RAW format of a long obsolete camera. I’m a belt and braces girl! Susan S
I don’t know how many, but I know I do it from time to time. It might be for trying out different degrees of noise reduction to arrive at the precise amount for that image. It might be to see which software offers the best raw conversion for a particular image. Try running the same image through ACR, Canon and C1Pro and you’ll see a huge difference.
It does tend to make one feel that colour and tone are purely arbitrary concepts which are open to further negotiaion using the original digital capture as a starting point (at least on my Canon camera’s RAW captures – but then it’s a long way from a pro camera). For me it’s great as I’m interested in getting the picture out that best matches my previsualisation of the scene and it gives me masses more latitude in colour and and contrast and just about everything. I’m not sure how well it would work for colour critical shots like product images though…
It does tend to make one feel that colour and tone are purely arbitrary concepts which are open to further negotiation
It’s not arbitrary at all if you shoot the scene with ‘a reference to reality’ like the Gretag Macbeth Colorchecker. With it and the right technique, you can get extremely accurate color reproduction. With this process, all subjectivity is thrown at the door and the science of color reproduction kicks in.
Of course there’s tons of room for subjectivity for shots that don’t require accurate color reproduction, and these possibilities are pretty fun!
Scott – yup, a basic colour checker/white/grey card is something that I really ought to get and put in my camera bag. But of course even in the real world (to my eyes at least!) white, for example, appears coloured depending on the reflections of the objects around it as well as the colour temperature of the light -and sometimes you want to keep those reflected colours in the image and sometimes you don’t. I’ve just tried to get the white balance right on a photograph of my daughter wearing a purple sweater and I found it difficult to find neutral colours to check against that weren’t contaminated by reflection from the clothing – but the ambient room light and skin tones were much more influenced by the flash bouncing off the peach coloured curtains…I should have done a white balance shot under the same conditions first without her in the picture, I guess (or better still found a venue with less weird lighting! -I’m still learning all this stuff!). And with natural lighting, early in the evening or late in the morning, using a white card/colour checker gives everything too much of a neutral tint – I want to capture the warmer or cooler light, but ex poste it’s really hard to remember exactly how warm or cool the light was. Susan S
Is there an ACR forum? Please provide links. thanks
Has anyone noticed how slow CS is in updating more than a few dozen Raw photos. I think it’s the slowest thing in my workflow now. And I was thinking of keeping the G4 for awhile…
