trial raw format photos

[sandik17]

Here's the thing...I am looking at getting the olympus 550xp...1) for the zoom, and 2) because it does RAW formatting.
I have found the Sony Cybershot DSC-H9 is cheaper, offers a 15x zoom (which really would do!), BUT no RAW formatting.

NOW, I have never even used raw. Don't know anything about raw, and don't know if I even have the skills to do raw?? Is there a website I could download a trial raw photo to see if I can use it is my question.

It seems crazy to buy this olympus camera, just for this raw if I'm not going to end up using it!

Thanks in advance

[Juergen D]

Sandra,
Here is an article on the subject:
http://www.ronbigelow.com/articles/raw/raw.htm

Juergen

[Goofup]

You have to remember that raw files out of the camera look horrid. They are, well, "raw". They aren't meant to be viewed, printed, etc. That's not what they're for. They're for YOU to adjust instead of the camera. They have the possibility of looking better than jpegs, especially when extreme exposures are involved, but how good they eventually end up looking is up to YOU. Most people have enough trouble just making their raw's look as good as their jpegs.

Another advantage sited by raw folks is having total control of the outcome. You can try this yourself now: take your camera, turn off all the sharpening, contrast, auto white balance, etc, and take a few "raw" jpegs (jpegs with no extra in-camera processing) and see how you like shooting "raw".

I'm not against raw- it has it's advantages. However...

[Chuck S.]

Sandra, just to muddy the water on your camera choice:

Here's a link to the dpreview.com review of the 550; it only got a rating of "Above Average":

Olympus 550 review (http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/olympussp550uz/page18.asp)

Likewise, the Sony H9 was also viewed as only "Above Average"

Sony H9 (http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/sonyh9/page19.asp)

One other choice for your consideration: the Canon S3 IS ("Highly Recommended"):

Canon S3 (http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canons3is/page14.asp)

and its just-out successor the S5 IS (not yet reviewed).

The Canon models don't have RAW. The camera I'm using right now (Canon G7) doesn't have RAW either, and I don't really miss it that much. It's making me pay more attention to exposure values when I shoot, rather than trying to rescue a photo that I badly underexposed as I might have done with one of my cameras that does shoot RAW.

Just my two cents. :)

[Codebreaker]

I'll beg to disagree with Goofup - RAW files do not look horrid coming out of the camera if you use your camera correctly and you like the default processing that Photoshop applies. You even have the choice of determining what that default processing should be

They can be viewed and printed just as they are if you like what you see. The most significant difference is that you are trading in camera processing to acheive a JPEG image versus the default processing of Photoshop. In Photoshop you then have the ability to change the processing to something that you like rather than something that's pre-determined for you.

If you've gone to the trouble to use RAW then you really shouldn't be making them look like your in camera JPEGs. If you are then you may just as well use the JPEGS and save yourself some time. It's pretty much impossible to produce a raw JPEG equivalent since processing is always needed to produce the image....you would not be comparing eggs with eggs

Colin

[LeeOtsubo]

RAW is to JPEG as a cow is to ground beef. When you look at a cow, you can see possibilities for filet, rib eye or ground chuck. When you view a RAW file, you can visualize all the different possibilities of 4096 luminosity values vs 256 levels, you can personalize what red, green, blue and black mean to you vs what it means to some Japanese engineer, you can see how you would process for a print differently than for a Web image, you determine the warmth or coolness of an image vs letting the camera decide.

I can sit here an talk about it all day but, if you're a visual person, you'll never understand unless you actually see it. I can send you a RAW file but it will be difficult to see the value because you weren't there when the image was made. You don't know what I saw and what I was trying to accomplish.

I've never done this so I don't know how it would work but, if you're interested, I'll set up a RAW demo on-line and show you how I would process a RAW file. You would have to log-in at a specific time to watch me process a RAW file. It would be as if you're looking over my shoulder as I go through the steps. Let me know if you're interested.

[JulieM]

Hi Lee: I'm not the original poster but I thought I'd let you know that I'd be interested in a demo of RAW processing. And especially if it were using Lightroom... :):):)

[Steve Cat]

Just when I think I have a handle on RAW then a comment comes along like

>"you can visualize all the different possibilities of 4096 luminosity values vs 256 levels"

now this implies to me a greater range, almost like ev's are not limited, but I assume they are.

then someone says

>"take your camera, turn off all the sharpening, contrast, auto white balance, etc, and take a few "raw" jpegs (jpegs with no extra in-camera processing) and see how you like shooting "raw"

now this implies to me that its just about presets vs non presets and I assume its more than that.

Can I actually squeeze more info out of raw than the jpeg that comes out of my camera? In particular can I generate a larger/wide ev range that would give me greater/more accurate ranges to simulate 3 different evs for purposes of HDR?

Isn't there just so much info that can come from a sensor, lens and light? Or does jpeg reduce what my camera is capable of and if so why would Sony make a camera like the H5 that can't do RAW? or is it "just" the difference between letting my laptop do all the processing of the same info vs the camera and presupposes my laptop and photoshop are better at photo processing than the ity bity cpu of my camera.

[Byron Gale]

Lee,

If you're taking names... I wouldn't mind watching a RAW processing demo, too!!

Byron

[Juergen D]

Steve,
One difference between a JPEG and a RAW image is that the former is compressed and the latter is not. Any camera takes essentially RAW images, but does not necessarily store them as such. In your regular point and shoot camera the image is processed to some degree, then compressed and stored as a JPEG. There are more data in the RAW file, which give a wider range for processing.
Please forgive my ignorance, what are evs?

Juergen

[sandik17]

Sandra, just to muddy the water on your camera choice:

Here's a link to the dpreview.com review of the 550; it only got a rating of "Above Average":

Olympus 550 review (http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/olympussp550uz/page18.asp)

Likewise, the Sony H9 was also viewed as only "Above Average"

Sony H9 (http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/sonyh9/page19.asp)

One other choice for your consideration: the Canon S3 IS ("Highly Recommended"):

Canon S3 (http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canons3is/page14.asp)

and its just-out successor the S5 IS (not yet reviewed).

The Canon models don't have RAW. The camera I'm using right now (Canon G7) doesn't have RAW either, and I don't really miss it that much. It's making me pay more attention to exposure values when I shoot, rather than trying to rescue a photo that I badly underexposed as I might have done with one of my cameras that does shoot RAW.

Just my two cents. :)

Yes...but then look at this one!!!!

http://www.megapixel.net/reviews/oly-sp550/sp550-results.php

I liked the look of the s5IS ... but am keen on trying raw.

[Steve Cat]

I believe exposure value, the little -1 and +2 that tells whether you are over or underexposed.

FWIW I read the in depth article posted in this thread about raw, and if I understand it and I doubt I did, the main value of RAW is that it is 12 bits and jpeg is 8, whether it be in camera processing or computer processing something gets lost even before the compression, RAW has more room to lose something. The pictures look that way too. The differences are visible when zoomed in on and exacerbated when sharpening takes place. Judicial editing and color correction probably make the differences to the unzoomed eye minimal, but from what I see I wish my camera had this capability. My Sony H5 has an excellent zoom lens and anti shake stabilization that compensates somewhat. My photo skills, especially composition, overide all this, because an average photo is an average photo. Nobody I know would really care about any, small noise and perceived sharpness issues on any print I'm likely to make

[Chuck S.]

Yes...but then look at this one!!!!

http://www.megapixel.net/reviews/oly-sp550/sp550-results.php

I liked the look of the s5IS ... but am keen on trying raw.

Sandra, I'm sure the 550 will be great in your capable hands! :)

[sandik17]

Thanks Chuck....but that's the thing! I am very much at present a point and shooter! I am not sure about the results of the 550 when just on point and shoot.
I really think it comes down to whether or not I want raw! And realistically how much I'd use it!

[LeeOtsubo]

Hi Lee: I'm not the original poster but I thought I'd let you know that I'd be interested in a demo of RAW processing. And especially if it were using Lightroom... :):):)

Hi Julie,
Sorry but this is NOT Burger King. I can only do free demos of products I think will have a large audience. After all, I am running a business. I don't think LR has a large enough audience for me to make any money.

[LeeOtsubo]

Lee,

If you're taking names... I wouldn't mind watching a RAW processing demo, too!!

Byron

Hi Byron,
I'll open it to the public if my current and past students don't fill it. I'll post here if there are any openings.

[LeeOtsubo]

Hi Sandi,
I rxd you PM. There's no fee for demos but I don't have any time flexibility for a webcast that requires special preparation. I conduct it during peak hours for the US audience which is 6PM on Wednesdays (11AM Sydney Time or 9AM Perth Time, Thursday). The purpose of free demos is to interest people in taking my Webcast classes. It wouldn't do much good to conduct one when my primary audience is away from their PCs. Let me know if you're still interested.

[LeeOtsubo]

Just when I think I have a handle on RAW then a comment comes along like

>"you can visualize all the different possibilities of 4096 luminosity values vs 256 levels"

now this implies to me a greater range, almost like ev's are not limited, but I assume they are.
Let's first define EV (exposure value). One EV is ISO 100 at 1 second at f1.0, IOW, there's enough light to correctly expose an image at 1 second shutter speed, f1.0 aperture and ISO 100. I'm not sure how you're relating EV to luminosity but, AFAIK, the correlation is non-linear. The 4096 levels are derived from standard binary math, e.g. most digital cameras capture 12 bits of data, therefore 2^12 is 4096 (2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, 2048, 4096).

...then someone says

>"take your camera, turn off all the sharpening, contrast, auto white balance, etc, and take a few "raw" jpegs (jpegs with no extra in-camera processing) and see how you like shooting "raw"

now this implies to me that its just about presets vs non presets and I assume its more than that.

The above quote is flat wrong. JPEG is an 8-bit format (256 levels). When you squash (a technical term) 12-bits into 8 bits, data are irretrievably lost due to JPEG's lossy algorithm. JPEG has also had several destructive adjustments applied including Sharpening (even with Sharpening set to 0). There's no recovering from USM. That's why sharpening is usually the last adjustment one makes to an image.

Can I actually squeeze more info out of raw than the jpeg that comes out of my camera? In particular can I generate a larger/wide ev range that would give me greater/more accurate ranges to simulate 3 different evs for purposes of HDR?

In this context, yes. You can squeeze out more dynamic range (DR) from a RAW file than from a JPEG. If any of my past students here have my MMT (Monday Morning Tip) on High Dynamic Range available, feel free to jump in but my recollection is that today's dSLRs capture about 8 stops of DR in RAW but, in JPEG, DR drops to about 5 stops. If you haven't already read this article (http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/understanding-series/u-raw-files.shtml), it might help, note Fig 1 and Fig 2 (about 3/4 down the page).
Isn't there just so much info that can come from a sensor, lens and light? Or does jpeg reduce what my camera is capable of and if so why would Sony make a camera like the H5 that can't do RAW? or is it "just" the difference between letting my laptop do all the processing of the same info vs the camera and presupposes my laptop and photoshop are better at photo processing than the ity bity cpu of my camera.
JPEG doesn't reduce your camera's capability, per se, it limits how much of your camera's information is saved. The camera still captures 12 bits of data per pixel but the JPEG algorithm throws away 4 bits to fit it into an 8 bit format. As for why Sony does anything, only Sony can answer that but regardless of how wimpy or powerful your on-board CPU might be, you're stuck with whatever RAW conversion algorithm has been programmed into the firmware. By working the image in PS or PSE, you have infinite control over how the algorithms are applied.

It's late and I'm tired so there are probably factual errors in this but the gist of it is technically correct. HTH.

[ShaneM]

In Kelby's chapter on Raw processing for PE4 he takes a high contrast raw shot - converts it twice, once exposed for the highlights, once for the shadows. He then blends the two resulting JPG's together in elements for a much more appealing image.

It was a powerful example to me of why you would use RAW. You can do similar things in PS but there is more information to work with in RAW so the results can be better.

I am starting to shoot both simultaneously, JPG's get used for quick edits etc but anything that comes out "special" gets treated in RAW.

Shane.

[hukari]

RAW is to JPEG as a cow is to ground beef. When you look at a cow, you can see possibilities for filet, rib eye or ground chuck. When you view a RAW file, you can visualize all the different possibilities of 4096 luminosity values vs 256 levels, you can personalize what red, green, blue and black mean to you vs what it means to some Japanese engineer, you can see how you would process for a print differently than for a Web image, you determine the warmth or coolness of an image vs letting the camera decide.

Which, I assume, also means you must have your monitor correctly color calibrated to take advantage of RAW?

[NickLewis]

Hi,

About a month or so ago, a similar question came up in this thread (http://www.photoshopelementsuser.com/forum/showthread.php?t=22704), and I posted the following comments:
......... the difference between using JPG or RAW to output the image from your camera to your PC. A RAW file is the data more or less straight off your camera's sensor. In most cameras that is 12 bits deep, and is in monochrome, with each pixel site representing just one colour. To turn it into a JPG, the camera assigns a full spectrum colour to each pixel by looking at the neighbouring pixels, discards 4 bits of the greyscale data to fit it into the 8 bits allowed in a JPG, applies a tone adjustment to make the tonal distribution match what the human eye perceives, sharpens the image, and finally compresses it according to the setting you've chosen on the camera (Small, Medium, Large, whatever).

Most of these processes are one way only, and discard data - so you can't get back to the original RAW data from the JPG. Which is the issue that Lee and others are alluding to when saying that loading a JPG into Adobe Camera RAW cannot be the same as if you had loaded the equivalent RAW file.

The reason that it is "better" to do the RAW processing on your PC/Mac is that in the camera it has to be done "on the fly", while the camera is getting ready to take the next shot, with a less powerful processor than your PC has, with a software routine frozen at the time the camera was made, and with settings & parameters forced on you by the software designers.

If you do it on your PC, all those constraints go away, your software has access to all the sensor data, and, most importantly, you can choose precisely how your image looks. And, in principle, you can make this choice with a finer level of control, simply because you still have all your RAW data to work with, not the reduced and processed subset that survives into the JPG.

Whether this all matters to you is a personal issue - RAW processing undoubtedly takes up your time, and you may not want to spend it that way. And the results you get from your camera's JPGs may be perfectly acceptable to you.

If you want to think about this in film camera terms, imagine that you took a film to be developed and printed. Shooting JPEG is the equivalent of not having your negatives returned to you - only the prints. All the major decisions about how your pictures will look have been made for you by the developer (i.e. in camera, in the case of digital capture). You have a finished product, and there's only a limited amount of work you can do in future. If the negatives are returned to you (i.e. you have the RAW file), you can still work on the images in whatever way you choose, limited only by what the sensor/film actually captured.

And returning to a point made earlier, it really doesn't take very long in PSE to batch process a set of RAW files into JPGs that are at least as acceptable as JPGs from your camera, if that's what you want do. But the real power of RAW is in working on images individually.

Nick

[LeeOtsubo]

Which, I assume, also means you must have your monitor correctly color calibrated to take advantage of RAW?

You need a color calibrated monitor for any color work if you plan to show the image to anyone in any format or medium. If your monitor is not calibrated, how will the printer know what color you really want? How will the professional lab know what color you intended? How will the web site viewer know what the true color should be. Of course, all this pre-supposes that the receiving end is also calibrated. RAW vs JPEG has no bearing on monitor color calibration.

[JulieM]

Hi Julie,
Sorry but this is NOT Burger King. I can only do free demos of products I think will have a large audience. After all, I am running a business. I don't think LR has a large enough audience for me to make any money.

Point taken, Lee.

[LeeOtsubo]

...If you want to think about this in film camera terms...

Nick,
I think the issue is that most people on this forum have never done any chemical processing. There's nothing like the odor of fixer to get the juices running, eh! :D

They have no experience pushing film to change exposure, they have no history of dodging and burning under the dim glow of a red bulb and they certainly have no concept of how a print is actually made in multiple baths. As a consequence, film analogies are near impossible for most people to comprehend. Just my US$0.02 worth.

[Goofup]

What I said about "raw" jpegs was absolutely correct. I never said that if you turn off all the in-camera processing you would get a real raw file, I said you would get a "raw" (unprocessed except for compression) jpeg that would need to be corrected. (I put "raw" in quotes on purpose).

I said this because the original poster said: "NOW, I have never even used raw. Don't know anything about raw, and don't know if I even have the skills to do raw??"

The idea was to give her a file (even though it's just a jpeg) to "practice" her raw conversion skills with.

[LeeOtsubo]

What I said about "raw" jpegs was absolutely correct. I never said that if you turn off all the in-camera processing you would get a real raw file, I said you would get a "raw" (unprocessed except for compression) jpeg that would need to be corrected. (I put "raw" in quotes on purpose).

No one has said you made the assertion that a true RAW file will be produced but what you said is still wrong. Most (all?) in-camera RAW conversion algorithms apply some level of anti-aliasing, noise reduction and sharpening, even when the JPEG parameters are set to 0 or whatever the "no processing" position might be. The level of processing differs depending on the camera, e.g. consumer P&S have more in-camera processing at "0" than a dSLR.

I said this because the original poster said: "NOW, I have never even used raw. Don't know anything about raw, and don't know if I even have the skills to do raw??"

The idea was to give her a file (even though it's just a jpeg) to "practice" her raw conversion skills with.

A RAW file is 12 bits (14 bits in some cases) and a JPEG is 8 bits. To use my "cow vs hamburger" analogy, practicing RAW conversion on a JPEG is like teaching veterinarians bovine surgery using ground chuck. There are important pieces missing. Someone doing so may very well get the impression RAW is inferior to JPEG when blue skys turn into bands or smooth cheeks become pixelated because JPEG doesn't have the tonal range of RAW.

Here are some articles by Bruce Fraser (RIP) that clearly explain (for those willing to wade through some technical jargon) the advantages and differences between RAW and JPEG. Article 1 (http://www.adobe.com/digitalimag/pdfs/understanding_digitalrawcapture.pdf) Article 2 (http://www.adobe.com/designcenter/dialogbox/why_shoot_raw.html)

My comments are made in the spirit of community knowledge. Please accept that I'm not "flaming" or otherwise putting you down. There are many things where "close enough is good enough" but this is one of the fundamentals of digital photography that, if misunderstood, can cause grief down the line. I don't want the OP (or anyone else) to think that RAW will somehow turn poor photographs into great images. If anything, RAW will add to your workflow process.

[Codebreaker]

What Lee said....:)

However, just to be a little picky on the monitor calibration and profiling issue.... :)

This has no direct effect on printing or viewing on other screens. What you print is whats in the computers memory and that may not be the same as what you see on the screen. For example if you wack the brightness of your screen right up then it will look bad on screen but may still print our correctly or look good on another screen.

What calibrating and profiling brings to the game is the ability to assess the fidelity of the image and make meaningful processing or editing changes. In other words there is an indirect effect to printing - for example if your screen is too bright and you darken the image accordingly then resulting prints may be too dark.

Colin

[Chuck S.]

The fact that the Adobe Camera Raw converter can now be used on JPEG images in addition to RAW images is likely to muddy the waters further. Not sure what to do about that, except to keep putting the facts about RAW vs. JPEG out there whenever a question arises.

With my Canon G7, which doesn't have RAW, the recommendation of the user community is to dial down (can't turn off) in-camera contrast, sharpness, and saturation so that some degree of control of those factors is left to post-processing. Recommendation is also to be careful about white balance and exposure value, as the latitude for PP adjustment of those parameters is significantly less than might be available with a RAW image. I believe that's good advice, and has helped me be more thoughtful about my settings before I 'pray and spray' (:)).

When using my cameras that have RAW capability, I do shoot RAW 90+% of the time. No good reason not to....I actually enjoy the post-processing!

[LeeOtsubo]

...What calibrating and profiling brings to the game is the ability to assess the fidelity of the image and make meaningful processing or editing changes. In other words there is an indirect effect to printing - for example if your screen is too bright and you darken the image accordingly then resulting prints may be too dark.

Colin

Colin,
I think we're saying the same thing but I'm being verbose (as usual). If your monitor is "out of whack" (a technical term) and you adjust your colors, anyone else using a calibrated monitor will see an "out of whack" image. For that matter, anyone else using any monitor will see something different unless their monitor is "out of whack" to the exact same degree as yours.

[Steve Cat]

What I said about "raw" jpegs was absolutely correct. I never said that if you turn off all the in-camera processing you would get a real raw file, I said you would get a "raw" (unprocessed except for compression) jpeg that would need to be corrected. (I put "raw" in quotes on purpose).

I said this because the original poster said: "NOW, I have never even used raw. Don't know anything about raw, and don't know if I even have the skills to do raw??"

The idea was to give her a file (even though it's just a jpeg) to "practice" her raw conversion skills with.

I knew that, but it will be interesting to try. Thanks for pointing it out. I have also thought about turning off as much as I can and shoot in B & W and see how that compares to post processing. Idea being to use a High ISO which causes grain but it is not as annoying as color noise and in fact desireable in some cases. Push processing. Fooling around with this stuff is part of the fun for me. The ACR 4.1 plugin brings me even closer to simulating RAW

[NickLewis]

Nick,
I think the issue is that most people on this forum have never done any chemical processing. There's nothing like the odor of fixer to get the juices running, eh! :D


Lee,

I didn't think of that! You're probably right. How sad! :(

Well, we old dinosaurs have to stick together......... ;)

Nick

[Chuck S.]

Lee,

I didn't think of that! You're probably right. How sad! :(

Well, we old dinosaurs have to stick together......... ;)

Nick

Anyone need a Beseler 23C enlarger that's been a box in my attic for 25 years??:)

[LeeOtsubo]

Anyone need a Beseler 23C enlarger that's been a box in my attic for 25 years??:)

Only if you have the chemicals, trays, red light and tongs to go with it. Remember the bamboo tongs? Of course, a nice rubber apron and dodging paddles would add value to the whole package.:D Yup, nothing like the smell of fixer! ;) I'm so glad the digital darkroom is here!

[Codebreaker]

Since we're going down memory lane - did you ever use a Glazer. I could never quite figure out how it worked. A warm metal plate with a canvas cover. You put the developed print emulsion down on the metal plate, closed the cover and then ran a roller over it - result, a sort of glossy finish.

How about the test strip device - a plastic device in which had 5 seperate flaps. You place the paper under all the flaps- put it under the enlarger and then lifted the flaps one at a time at 1 or 2 second intervals.

Colin

[LeeOtsubo]

Since we're going down memory lane - did you ever use a Glazer. I could never quite figure out how it worked. A warm metal plate with a canvas cover. You put the developed print emulsion down on the metal plate, closed the cover and then ran a roller over it - result, a sort of glossy finish.

How about the test strip device - a plastic device in which had 5 seperate flaps. You place the paper under all the flaps- put it under the enlarger and then lifted the flaps one at a time at 1 or 2 second intervals.

Colin

Geez Louise, I'd forgotten about the test strips. OK, we can skip down memory lane but I'm NOT holding hands with you! :D

p.s. - Never heard of a Glazer. You must be really old!

[NickLewis]

Well, I must be really old as well...... I remember glazers........ And the test strip things.....

"Do you smell that? It's fixer, son. Nothing else in the world smells like that. I love the smell of fixer in the morning......" (With apologies to Francis Ford Coppola) :)

Nick

[Steve Cat]

I know what a glazer is but never used one. I believe they were for paper papers, rather than the plastic papers that dried glossy. I used the Ilford poly contrast and yes it was cool, but remember the major pain that dust was on negatives. Anyway I even develope ectachrome color slide film and it was pretty darn good. Temperature contol was critical so I used ice chests and diddled with the water temperatures for the various stages using an analogue
thermometer. Any I was a rank amateur, and got good results but it just wasn't worth the effort for color. Kodachrome 25 slide film had virtually no grain and lovely colors. Could never afford the diffusion enlargers so my battles with dust got the best of my b&w works. I'm really happy with digital and have seem some people get really good looking b&w. Working on it!