RAW processing advice sought

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Alan Bremner - 23 Jul 2005 18:23 GMT

I am shooting exculsively RAW with my Canon 350D, importing with ACR
into Elements 3, and would like the advice of more experienced
photographers as to what settings to experiment with. What processing
do you do in the RAW processing application and what do you undertake
after import in your editing software? As a newcomer to RAW processing
I'm confused by the plethora of options and am having trouble finding
a consistent workflow.

Thanks in advance.
Al

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Randall Ainsworth - 23 Jul 2005 19:40 GMT

> I am shooting exculsively RAW with my Canon 350D, importing with ACR
> into Elements 3, and would like the advice of more experienced
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
> I'm confused by the plethora of options and am having trouble finding
> a consistent workflow.

Most often, all I have to do is bring up the shadow level a bit and
that's it. Sometimes I might tweak the exposure just a little.

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Alan Bremner - 24 Jul 2005 00:17 GMT

>Most often, all I have to do is bring up the shadow level a bit and
>that's it. Sometimes I might tweak the exposure just a little.

Thanks, Randall. Do you apply any sharpening or noise reduction at the
RAW import stage?

Al

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Randall Ainsworth - 24 Jul 2005 00:29 GMT

> Thanks, Randall. Do you apply any sharpening or noise reduction at the
> RAW import stage?

I'm on a Mac (not that that makes any difference), but after bringing
up the shadows to 15-30 (depends on the scene), I might clean up any
dust boogers or little things like that. Then I use the Unsharp Mask,
save as a TIFF, then send it to the lab.
I used to do photography for a living so I can usually crop in the
camera and get exposure pretty close. No noise reduction...nothing
fancy.

I use a professional lab in Seattle. The supply Java-based software -
corrected and uncorrected. Print prices are less for uncorrected, of
course. I use uncorrected since my monitor is calibrated well enough
(no perfect, just close enough). After you've cropped your images and
selected services like mounting and spraying, it ZIPs the files and
FTPs them to the lab along with your account information. Pretty
simple.

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Alan Bremner - 24 Jul 2005 15:56 GMT

>> Do you apply any sharpening or noise reduction at the
>> RAW import stage?

> I'm on a Mac (not that that makes any difference), but after bringing
>up the shadows to 15-30 (depends on the scene), I might clean up any
>dust boogers or little things like that. Then I use the Unsharp Mask,
>save as a TIFF, then send it to the lab.

Nice and simple. I like that approach. :-)

> I used to do photography for a living so I can usually crop in the
>camera and get exposure pretty close. No noise reduction...nothing
>fancy.

I try to get it right first time too. Cropping 35mm transparancies
wasn't an option and old habits die hard.

> I use uncorrected since my monitor is calibrated well enough
>(no perfect, just close enough).

I was shocked at the improvement when I calibrated my monitor. It made
a huge difference to how I preceived my images.

Al

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Siggy - 24 Jul 2005 00:41 GMT

> I am shooting exculsively RAW with my Canon 350D, importing with ACR
> into Elements 3, and would like the advice of more experienced
[quoted text clipped - 6 lines]
> Thanks in advance.
> Al

Perhaps a bit of a read here will help. These are some short white papers
and workflows written in easy to follow english by a digital colour science
guru, Bruce Fraser.
Fist look at the 4 page overview of RAW photography, called 'Understanding
Digital Raw Capture' (a PDF file). Then get the 6 page tutorial on his
'Digital Photo Workflow' (also a PDF file), which although is based on the
use of Photoshop CS, the concept still applies to Elements etc.

http://www.adobe.com/digitalimag/ps_pro.html

hth

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Alan Bremner - 24 Jul 2005 15:57 GMT

>Perhaps a bit of a read here will help.

Excellent! Thanks very much.

Al

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Jeremy Nixon - 25 Jul 2005 19:19 GMT

I've found that with Camera Raw 3.1, I can do pretty much everything I
need to right in Camera Raw, and Photoshop proper is reduced to a dust-
removal tool and preparation for print (sharpening, etc). The addition
of Curves to Camera Raw was the clincher; that's got to win some kind
of award for Best Thing To Happen To Photography Lately. It certainly
makes upgrading to CS2 well worth it, as it turns out.

So at this point, for the usual case, I'm doing all tonal adjustment
and color correction in Camera Raw, then just hitting "save" in
Photoshop unless I have to remove some sensor dust or something.
In terms of post-processing, Photoshop proper is now the Big
Hammer that gets pulled out when something needs it, not the tool
to use every time. It's funny how Photoshop is pretty much now
a plugin for Camera Raw rather than the other way around.

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Alan Bremner - 25 Jul 2005 22:41 GMT

>I've found that with Camera Raw 3.1, I can do pretty much everything I
>need to right in Camera Raw, and Photoshop proper is reduced to a dust-
>removal tool and preparation for print (sharpening, etc).

That's where I risk becoming confused, as I appear able to do most of
what I've previously done with Elements in Camera Raw now.

>So at this point, for the usual case, I'm doing all tonal adjustment
>and color correction in Camera Raw, then just hitting "save" in
>Photoshop unless I have to remove some sensor dust or something.

Time for me to go back to the RAW version of a few images that I'm
happy with and investigate how to achieve the same results in Camera
Raw, then. The only path to enlightenment is experience.... :-)

Thanks for your input, Jeremy. It's a great help to find out how those
with more experience go about the process.

Al

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