Dan Margulis Applied Color Theory

Camera Raw and Color Shift

   Date: Thu, 01 Apr 2004 08:32:03 -0000
   From: Blaine Franger
Subject: Am I the only one noticing this problem in Photoshop CS?

I am new to this group, so I hope I'm doing this right.  A couple months ago I upgraded to Photoshop CS from 7.0.1 and I am having some problems with accurate color with Raw files (Canon and Nikon) in PS  CS. The colors are perfect in PS 7. The colors in CS are washed out and have a very noticable magenta shift. It kills my blues and makes skintones very pink. I can't figure out a way to fix it. The shift is there in the file browser even before I process the image in Adobe Camera Raw (Version 2.1), which leads me to believe it is possibly bad profiles in  photoshop and not the fault of Adobe Camera Raw. Has anyone else experienced this? FYI, I have tested it on many different computers with different copy's of PS CS, and different cameras also and it was there every time.  Please look at the example I posted here-  http: //www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=2251209&size=lg

Thanks for any help on this issue!  
Blaine Franger
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   Date: Thu, 1 Apr 2004 11:32:29 +0100
   From: "Andrew Haley"
Subject: Am I the only one noticing this problem in Photoshop CS?
 
It's really hard to tell what's going on because I don't know what the original scene looked like, or what colour temperature you set when doing the conversion.

Can you post a shot of a colour test card, taken under a known light
source?  Or maybe a grey card?

Andrew.
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   Date: Thu, 01 Apr 2004 10:54:17 -0000
   From: "Stephen Marsh" \
Subject: Re: Am I the only one noticing this problem in Photoshop CS?

Blaine Franger writes:

The colors are perfect in PS 7. The colors in CS are washed out and have a very
 noticable magenta shift. It kills my blues and makes skintones very pink.

Initially, there would seem to be two things to look into:

i) Are the same settings in use between the ACR plug and ACR2 built into CS?

ii) The settings may be the same, but the colour description hard wired into CS has changed from the v1 plug.

The second point seems fair, but it is unknown about the first point.

I can't figure out a way to fix it.

ACR2 offers a calibrate tab...but perhaps there is a simpler fix.

CR is not something I have a lot of experience with, I usually only handle 'processed' files.

Good luck,

Stephen Marsh.
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   Date: Thu, 1 Apr 2004 09:39:09 -0500
   From: Dragonfly Imaging & Printing
Subject: Re: Am I the only one noticing this problem in Photoshop CS?

Hi Blaine,

I've been using CS since last fall, and I am quite happy with Camera Raw
.
Canon and Fuji imports are better than the plugin, and I like the new controls.

I'm not sure what's going on with your workflow.
I assume you've reset your camera to defaults etc. etc.
Could it be white point related?
Make sure that you aren't using the prior settings as your default.

John Toles
Dragonfly Imaging & Printing
http://www.dragonflyprinting.com/
http://www.dragonflygallery.ca/
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   Date: Thu, 01 Apr 2004 17:11:45 -0000
   From: Blaine Franger
Subject: Re: Am I the only one noticing this problem in Photoshop CS?

Andrew: The original scene's looked like the images converted in PS 7. PS 7 with NEF plugin did a great job of rendering colors when processing the raw file. PS CS is doing a really bad job. The color temperatures were kept the same on both 7 and CS during processing (color temp. was "as shot")

Stephen: In PS 7, I used the nikon NEF plugin to make the conversion. I understand this adds a variable, but why are the colors changed when I preview the thumbnails in the file browser even before I process them? I cannot get the original colors back using any of the adjustments in Camera Raw like "calibrate".

I'm noticing this problem is very image-dependent. Because some conversions the color change between PS 7 and PS CS is hardly noticable. But a lot of my images are greatly affected, especially ones with deep blues and bright yellows. Look at the difference in the yellow on the road sign in that example.

If you have any further insight please let me know, I'm dying to fix this!
Thanks, Blaine Franger
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   Date: Thu, 1 Apr 2004 10:15:59 -0800
   From:Paul D. DeRocco
Subject: RE: Am I the only one noticing this problem in Photoshop CS?

I've generally found the color better with ACR2, for Canon 10D raw files.

Ciao,               Paul D. DeRocco
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   Date: Thu, 1 Apr 2004 10:27:34 -0800
   From: Lee Varis
Subject: Re: Am I the only one noticing this problem in Photoshop CS?

My guess is that you are processing using the default "as shot" settings in ACR. It is quite possible that Adobe's assumptions about the camera settings have changed in ACR v2. It looks like they are favoring a cooler "auto-white balance" setting. The beauty of ACR is that you can determine your own custom defaults for your particular camera. The raw file is actually unaffected by the white-balance default you set in the camera. The camera setting only tags the raw data with some basic instructions for the white balance setting as shot. This info can be somewhat cryptic so Adobe has to guess at a setting based on just one camera that they purchased to do the tests.

Instead of using the "as shot" default you can pull down the white balance menu and try out other "guesses" to see if any of those get you closer. When you do this you'll see the temperature slider change to various different numbers based on Adobe's idea of what a good corresponding color temperature should be (5500 for "flash" for instance) The "tint" slider will also change. I've noticed that CS ACR puts a +10 tint setting for "daylight"  this is a magenta shift. The "Flash" setting has "0" tint - negative settings would move you towards green.

You can think of the "Temperature" and "Tint" sliders like the B and A channels in LAB respectively. "Temperature", or the "B" channel, affects the yellow-blueness of the color and "Tint", or "A" channel, affects the magenta-greeness. It usually takes me about 5 seconds to dial in the color this way. Once you have the color dialed for the first image in a series you can option/alt click (the "OK" button) to update the settings for that raw file in the browser without opening it. then select the rest of the images in the browser and apply the "previous conversion" to them through the automate menu in the File Browser. Now you can batch those files with the new setting.

If you find yourself constantly increasing the contrast slider past the default of 25% you can save a new default contrast slider setting either as "Set Camera Default" or "Save Settings Subset" using the small triangle menu next to the "settings" pull down menu.

A small investment in time learning to use ACR will pay off with huge benefits. The default settings were never meant to be the last word on the color for any camera  only you can decide what that is. ACR allows you to save out new defaults or apply custom tweaks to numerous files all at once. CS gives you additional controls through the advanced tabs with Lens and Calibrate that provide additional benefits over the original ACR.

regards,

Lee Varis
http://www.varis.com
888-964-0024
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   Date: Thu, 1 Apr 2004 12:19:29 -0800
   From: "fotoman"
Subject: Re: Am I the only one noticing this problem in Photoshop CS?

Paul:

Adobe CS has a long history of problems in just about all areas for some computer and almost none for others...The camera Raw is one of the few that works for me and I would try and reinstall or contact Adobe if you can't find an answer...PS please be able to hold on the phone for a Very long time and have no more than One problem for them....They will not support more than One thing at a time

Doug Jirsa
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   Date: Thu, 01 Apr 2004 20:53:24 -0000
   From: Blaine Franger
Subject: Re: Am I the only one noticing this problem in Photoshop CS?

Lee,

Thanks for all help on adjusting the image in the ACR window, but I have tried that many times and I can never get the same colors that I get in PS 7 ( using ACR 1.0 or NEF plugin). I really think this is an internal problem with CS, maybe in the profiles or something.

Blaine Franger
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   Date: Thu, 01 Apr 2004 20:06:18 -0000
   From: Blaine Franger
Subject: Re: Am I the only one noticing this problem in Photoshop CS?

I just tested it with some 10D CRW files and they had the color shift as well..

Blaine Franger
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   Date: Fri, 02 Apr 2004 01:01:57 -0000
   From: "jafent2002"
Subject: Re: Am I the only one noticing this problem in Photoshop CS?

I haven't seen anyone mention ACR 2.1 Have you tried upgrading ACR?

Personally I don't use ACR with my Minolta A1. MRWFormat does a much better job, and extracts all the data that Adobe does not. But, the above was just a thought.

John Fagerberg
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   Date: Thu, 1 Apr 2004 20:03:32 -0500
   From: Scott Southerland
Subject: Re: Re: Am I the only one noticing this problem in Photoshop CS?

Hi Blaine - perhaps you could post one of the problem RAW files on the web so that we could take a look at it and give more meaningful suggestions?

Scott
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   Date: Fri, 02 Apr 2004 09:53:06 +0100
   From: Shangara Singh
Subject: Re: Re: Am I the only one noticing this problem in Photoshop CS?

It was 1/4/04 9:53 pm, when bfranger82 wrote:

Thanks for all help on adjusting the image in the ACR window, but I have tried
that many times and I can never get the same colors that I get in PS 7 ( using ACR 1.0 or NEF plugin). I really think this is an internal problem with CS, maybe in the profiles or something.

Blaine

I don't think it's a problem. It's just how the two versions work. You will definitely get different results if you use the Default & As Shot settings. I would put that down to the hard wired profiles in the two versions. If you like the look that ACR 1 produces, you will just have to use Photoshop 7.

Here are for versions of the same file from a Fuji S2 that confirm your results. The settings used on the top two versions were Camera Default and As Shot, and on the bottom two versions Camera Default and Auto. None of the sliders were moved from their default positions.

http://www.photoshopace.com/acr_cmp.html

HTH.

Shangara Singh.
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   Date: Fri, 02 Apr 2004 09:48:05 -0000
   From: Blaine Franger
Subject: Re: Am I the only one noticing this problem in Photoshop CS?

Scott- I'd be up for that....how would I go about posting a NEF on the web? Sorry, I don't know a lot about web and FTP stuff. I don't have any online storage space either...

Blaine Franger

--- In colortheory@yahoogroups.com, Scott Southerland wrote:

Hi Blaine - perhaps you could post one of the problem RAW files on
the web so that we could take a look at it and give more meaningful
suggestions?
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   Date: Fri, 2 Apr 2004 16:54:26 -0500
   From: Alex Lippisch
Subject: Re: Am I the only one noticing this problem in Photoshop CS?

Blaine,

I'm pretty sure your problem is in not using a correctly defined "Camera default", and using "as shot" white balance settings in Photoshop CS ACR. My images from my 10D looked similar to yours at first until I redefined the "Camera default" by playing with the various sliders and then clicking on the button next to Settings, going to the drop down menu and selecting Set Camera Default.

As Lee has said, the camera setting only tags the raw data with some basic instructions for ACR as to the colorspace, white balance, and all the other settings that it thinks represent the "Camera default" conditions. My findings are that WB "as shot" is rarely "very good" and so you need to create custom settings for batches of images. The ACR camera default sets the WB to "as shot"  which picks up the WB from the camera's EXIF tag, however the WB is much better if using the ACR definitions of pre-set WB ie: Tungsten, Flash, etc. or best yet is to use custom and measure the photo with the eyedropper.

I would start with increasing the saturation level and that should bring your images a lot closer to looking right.

The previews in file browser will also look better when you have redefined the "Camera default", because that is where it gets its idea of what the image should look like.

Let us know if this helps.

Alex Lippisch
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   Date: Fri, 02 Apr 2004 22:03:04 -0000
   From: Blaine Franger
Subject: Re: Am I the only one noticing this problem in Photoshop CS?

Well, for those of you who care, I finally got an answer. I went directly to the man in charge, Thomas Knoll (supposively the inventor of photoshop). This was his response to my email-

"Adobe and Nikon use different algorithms, and different color calibrations.  When the file browser first displays the thumbnails, it extracts the small preview image inside the file.  This preview is computed the camera, so it uses Nikon's calibration.  The second pass computes the preview from actual raw data using Adobe's calibration. This results in a different colors.  If you consider Nikon's calibration to be perfect, you are going to consider anything else to be wrong. Adobe Camera Raw is NEVER going to generate EXACTLY the same results as Nikon's, since the underlying algorithms are different.  You can come very close by using the "Calibrate" tab in Camera Raw's advanced mode and creating a new default for your camera model. The only change from Camera Raw 1.0 (optional plug-in for Photoshop 7--do you actually have this or are you using Nikon's plug-in?) and Camera Raw 2.x (included with Photoshop CS) is Photoshop 7 did not do the second pass in the file browser."

Bottom line, if you can use ACR and get the colors right (or however you like it) then ACR is great for you. If you can't get the right colors, like me (this problem is very image- dependant) then were forced to use something other than ACR, like NEF plugin or C1...ect.

I have another email out to Thomas asking if Adobe plans on improving the algorithms to more closely match the Nikon NEF plugin. We'll see what happens with that.

Thanks for all the help.  

Blaine Franger
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   Date: Sat, 03 Apr 2004 13:25:33 +0100
   From: Shangara Singh
Subject: Re: Re: Am I the only one noticing this problem in Photoshop CS?

It was 2/4/04 11:03 pm, when bfranger82 wrote:

The only change from Camera Raw 1.0 (optional plug-in for Photoshop 7--do you actually have this or are you using Nikon's plug-in?) and Camera Raw 2.x (included with Photoshop CS) is Photoshop 7 did not do the second pass in the file browser."

Well, maybe you missed my post and included link (I spent some 20-30 minutes creating the page, btw) but, as I said, if you use the very same "default" and "as shot" settings in ACR1 and ACR 2.1, you get different results from the same file. So, something else _has_ changed. Nikon's plug-in does not affect my files as they are Fuji Raw files.

BTW, although the look of the thumbnail changes, unfortunately, Photoshop CS does not mark the thumbnail to say that it is getting the preview from the processed Raw file. IMO, a serious oversight because, if your exposures and colors are pretty good, it's hard to tell which files have been processed and which haven't. If it displayed a tiny triangle in one corner, or someSuch, it would alert the viewer.

Shangara Singh.
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   Date: Sat, 3 Apr 2004 11:55:22 -0800
   From: Dennis Dunbar
Subject: Re: Am I the only one noticing this problem in Photoshop CS?

One of the big problems with processing camera raw files is that there is no standard format for camera raw. In many ways this has some very large implications. The complications range from: archiving (what if the manufacturers change their format or somehow support for the old ones goes away? How will you be able to use archived raw images in the future?) to the difficulty Thomas Knoll has in reverse engineering the necessary algorithms so PhotoShop can support these files.

I am very certain Thomas and Adobe would love to have the manufacturers share the info so it's easier to properly support the various versions of camera raw. But since the manufacturers insist on having their own secret sauce built into their raw files and since they largely refuse to share the info with Adobe there will inevitably be some differences in how Adobe's ACR processes the files and how the individual camera companies' software does. Blame the manufacturers, not Adobe on this one.

Dennis Dunbar
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   Date: Sat, 3 Apr 2004 18:35:04 -0800
   From: David Cardinal
Subject: RE: Re: Am I the only one noticing this problem in Photoshop CS?

From: Dennis Dunbar

One of the big problems with processing camera raw files is
that there is no standard format for camera raw. In many ways
this has some very large implications. The complications
range from: archiving (what if the manufacturers change their
format or somehow support for the old ones goes away? How
will you be able to use archived raw images in the
future?)

Amen. Kodak has already orphaned the raw formats from 3 cameras. There are upwards of 100 different variations of Raw formats out there now. They won't all be supported by software in a year, let along 10 or 100 years.

manufacturers insist on having their own secret sauce built
into their raw files and since they largely refuse to share
the info with Adobe there will inevitably be some differences
in how Adobe's ACR processes the files and how the individual
camera companies' software does. Blame the manufacturers, not
Adobe on this one.

Frankly this is mostly a different issue. The raw file itself only contains very limited data on how to interpret the sensor information. Most raw files do contain information on the camera settings, but that is about it. And it would be _VERY_ helpful if those were standardized so those of us who write raw file decoders could get at them without spending nights hacking.

But, the "secret sauce" in Nikon Capture is not in the file itself. It is in Nikon's knowledge of how the camera works, plus their bench testing of the sensor and camera system, plus their own vendor specific work. Same for any other Raw converter. They rely on their own algorithms to cleverly interpret the data as the file does not contain any information that says how exactly to interpret (for example) a sensor reading of (say) 1234 Red or 1000 Blue or the best way to demosaic or resample, etc.

So a standard format would at least level the playing field and hopefully make all of us feel more secure about archiving Raw files as if they were digital negatives, but there would still be plenty of room for innovation in the calibration, profiling and interpretation of images from various cameras.
 
--David Cardinal
Pro Shooters LLC
http://www.proshooters.com
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   Date: Sun, 4 Apr 2004 15:32:20 +0100
   From: "Andrew Haley"
Subject: RE: Re: Am I the only one noticing this problem in Photoshop CS?

David Cardinal writes:
 
 Amen. Kodak has already orphaned the raw formats from 3 cameras. There are
 upwards of 100 different variations of Raw formats out there now. They won't
 all be supported by software in a year, let along 10 or 100 years.

This is perhaps where free software can come to the rescue.  dcraw supports a bunch of formats, and is not about to disappear any time soon, even if the manufacturer's own software does.

 Frankly this is mostly a different issue. The raw file itself only
 contains very limited data on how to interpret the sensor
 information. Most raw files do contain information on the camera
 settings, but that is about it. And it would be _VERY_ helpful if
 those were standardized so those of us who write raw file decoders
 could get at them without spending nights hacking.

True enough, but at least the ability to decode the files isn't going away.

 But, the "secret sauce" in Nikon Capture is not in the file
 itself. It is in Nikon's knowledge of how the camera works, plus
 their bench testing of the sensor and camera system, plus their own
 vendor specific work. Same for any other Raw converter. They rely
 on their own algorithms to cleverly interpret the data as the file
 does not contain any information that says how exactly to interpret
 (for example) a sensor reading of (say) 1234 Red or 1000 Blue

You can get some of that by profiling, can't you?

 or the best way to demosaic or resample, etc.

But why would Nikon Capture necessarily have the best demosaicking? This is quite an active research area, and it's quite possible that in the future we'll be able to do better than we can now.

Andrew.
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   Date: Sun, 04 Apr 2004 11:40:27 -0700
   From: Andrew Rodney
Subject: Re: Re: Am I the only one noticing this problem in Photoshop CS?

The biggest issue hitting digital photography today (and conceivably into the future) is this huge mess we have with RAW file formats. We need a standard! We need something a bit like the ICC spec for profiles that is open but has some private tags that allow those silly camera manufacturers some idea that they can use their secrete sauce while allowing converters to be able to process the files into something we can use in the future. IF a camera today produces this non standard RAW file, we have no guarantee that the data is going to be readable by future software. I have far less a concern that a format like Tiff can be read but RAW as it stands today is a huge potential issue! We need the ability to process RAW data but we need a standard that allows this process to be conducted now and in the future.

Andrew Rodney
http://www.digitaldog.net
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   Date: Sun, 4 Apr 2004 09:19:45 -0600
   From: Ron Kelly
Subject: Re: Re: Am I the only one noticing this problem in Photoshop CS?

Folks

I have been following this thread with interest. It seems as though quite a few folks out there feel that raw shooting and post processing is the way to go.

I have tried this myself but found it insufficiently rewarding for the cost of admission. I have a few comments and questions if anyone would care to respond.

What is the big advantage of a raw workflow over jpeg?

Presently, I shoot several jpegs of a given scene very easily. I have the ability to combine the images if necessary to deal with excessive contrast. This works very well in situations where I can't get the exposure right in one shot.

I hear people mentioning that they can change the white balance if they shoot raw. Well, what's wrong with your ability to get it right in the first place? Do you have to make such a gross post-exposure adjustment that it's really significant? Are you expecting not to have to color-tweak before printing? Why don't you just white-balance bracket when you find a tricky situation, such as with mixed light sources?

Jpegging does introduce artifacts, admittedly. This is a very small problem my tests show. Shoot jpegs on the highest setting and you'll lose very, very little. Perhaps on the very highest magnification use it could show, but only then. It's very subject dependent, and for my work (scenery, rocks trees, water) it's practically a non-issue.

Here's what I gain if I shoot jpegs:
-speed
-convenience
-file size
-retain the ability to post-exposure combine images for contrast  control and "creative" purposes

Here's what I gain if I shoot raw:
-can adjust the white balance (minor advantage, IMHO)
-no artifacts on extremely high magnifications
-?

The big problem with shooting raw is the post processing. I've tried a few different ones, and as this thread shows there is considerable challenges in post processing the raw files for a variety of reasons. I must admit that I haven't used raw converters enough to get very good with them. I don't like my results so far, so I'm actually getting a worse result than if I make the same photograph from a jpeg and processed in Photoshop.

The raw converter that came with my camera, a Canon 10D, is insufferably slow. I've also tried Photoshop CS, which by comparison is much faster, but still a very time consuming task.

However, they ALL take too much time! Get a super fast computer but you still have to sit there and make choices. Then, your equipment grinds away on the files, slowing down your computer all the while. But what then? Do you archive the processed file - no. This would remove potential advantages for raw file conversion in the future. So, you've got a job to do now, AND in the future as well. This seems to me to be a heavy tax to pay.

Furthermore there are many programs that don't work with raw. You have to process a file before you can show it to anybody, or in most cases, use it with a filing/browsing/indexing program.

It occurs to me that perhaps a jpeg/raw combination (I believe my camera allows for this) might offer the best of both worlds. However, it's going to slow things down in the camera, as well as later, in the card reading. What is a worthwhile price to pay for bloating your files system by several times? It's got to be more than just a slight occasional advantage, doesn't it?

So what's the big deal with raw workflow? Am I missing the boat here? I just don't get it.

Ron Kelly
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   Date: Mon, 5 Apr 2004 12:13:48 +0100
   From: Andrew Haley
Subject: Re: Re: Am I the only one noticing this problem in Photoshop CS?

Ron Kelly writes:

What is the big advantage of a raw workflow over jpeg?

Apart from the white balance issue:

Better exposure latitude, by maybe a stop or more.
Double the chroma resolution.
The colour gamut issue.  Some colour prints exceed the gamut of both Adobe RGB and sRGB in bright yellow and darker blue/green.  This is less important for prepress work, granted.

 The big problem with shooting raw is the post processing. I've tried a
 few different ones, and as this thread shows there is considerable
 challenges in post processing the raw files for a variety of reasons. I
 must admit that I haven't used raw converters enough to get very good
 with them. I don't like my results so far, so I'm actually getting a
 worse result than if I make the same photograph from a jpeg and
processed in Photoshop.

Well, I just open the raw file in Photoshop CS. It doesn't seem to be very time consuming.

 So what's the big deal with raw workflow? Am I missing the boat here? I
 just don't get it.

Does anyone really make the decision in a dogmatic way?  Surely the only sane way to proceed is to use JPEG for fast shooting and non-critical work but save raw for the special circumstances where you need the last 10%.

Andrew.
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   Date: Mon, 05 Apr 2004 07:24:16 -0600
   From:Andrew Rodney
Subject: Re: Re: Am I the only one noticing this problem in Photoshop CS?

on 4/4/04 9:19 AM, Ron Kelly wrote:

What is the big advantage of a raw workflow over jpeg?

There are a lot! First, when you shoot JPEG, you1re rendering the color from the Grayscale file and that is now fixed and locked in stone. Having a RAW file and a good converter allows all kinds of tuning based on your preferences in how the de mosaic of the chip is controlled and color is produced. You also get with many cameras, as much as half a stop more dynamic range to work with and you can use two different RAW conversions of the same data to pull (and combine) even more tonal data. As RAW converters get better and better, you can go back and recreate the color any time in the future. I've seen amazing quality increases from the SAME data converted with different converters or updates to the same converter. You1ve got digital clay. The image you shot is not a color image. It1s RAW. So having the ability to render the color now and in the future, plus the quality increases (you want 16 bit color, ain1t going to get it from that JPEG), is a big factor in why so many pro1s shoot and deal with RAW files.

Andrew Rodney
http://www.digitaldog.net
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   Date: Mon, 5 Apr 2004 09:36:59 -0600
   From: Chris Murphy
Subject: Re: Re: Am I the only one noticing this problem in Photoshop CS?

On Apr 4, 2004, at 9:19 AM, Ron Kelly wrote:

What is the big advantage of a raw workflow over jpeg?

Raw is the negative, JPEG is the print. If you are happy with prints and throw out all of your color negatives, then you'll probably be happy with just JPEG.

The camera itself always shoots raw. Raw is a dump of sensor data, plus a bunch of metadata some of which is consumable and some of it is proprietary. When you ask the camera to just give you JPEG, it still shoots raw but it processes the result before you ever see anything. It's like taking an instant polaroid. If you're happy with the results, great, but if you ever wanted more refined control such as highlight detail recapture that's something unique to the algorithms that process the raw file.

I hear people mentioning that they can change the white balance if they
shoot raw. Well, what's wrong with your ability to get it right in the
first place? Do you have to make such a gross post-exposure adjustment
that it's really significant? Are you expecting not to have to
color-tweak before printing? Why don't you just white-balance bracket
when you find a tricky situation, such as with mixed light sources?

There are all kinds of photography in practice. A captured moment only occurs once and it's possible to just not have the ability to perfectly expose in the first place. Over time our ability to understand how sensors react to light, the imperfections of lenses, and the mosaic pattern of the CCD/CMOS element itself is always improving. A raw image processed with Camera Raw 2.1 can be noticeably better than even Camera Raw 1.0, depending on the camera. Moderate to major edits on a JPEG will expose artifacts as well.

You may never need the negative, you may never need to reprocess with more advanced technology 2 years from now, or 10 years from now, or 50 years from now. But there are people who want a digital equivalent of a color negative and that's essentially what a raw file is.

However, they ALL take too much time! Get a super fast computer but you
still have to sit there and make choices. Then, your equipment grinds
away on the files, slowing down your computer all the while. But what
then? Do you archive the processed file - no. This would remove
potential advantages for raw file conversion in the future. So, you've
got a job to do now, AND in the future as well. This seems to me to be
a heavy tax to pay.

Photography is changing rapidly. It will get easier and faster. But do you really want to risk important images now by throwing away the negatives, confident you will never need to reprocess them for some reason? If you are that confident, don't worry about raw.

Furthermore there are many programs that don't work with raw. You have
to process a file before you can show it to anybody, or in most cases,
use it with a filing/browsing/indexing program.

The workflow I imagine we're in is just like that with film vs digital files. How often do you go back and rescan a piece of film? Hopefully not very often, but it's there if you ever needed it—unless you threw it away in which case your SOL, you'll just have to live with the scan you've got.

The raw file you will process immediately to something that satisfies you today. You'll work with the resulting TIFF most of the time. The raw file gets archived. It's not a daily workflow file format, or an exchange file format. You wouldn't share your negatives with people, and in the same way you aren't going to share your raw files with people.

Chris Murphy
Color Remedies (TM)
www.colorremedies.com/realworldcolor
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   Date: Mon, 5 Apr 2004 08:04:56 -0700
   From: David Cardinal
Subject: RE: Am I the only one noticing this problem in Photoshop CS?

From: Andrew Haley [mailto:andrew-yahoo@l...]

This is perhaps where free software can come to the rescue.  
dcraw supports a bunch of formats, and is not about to disappear any
time soon, even if the manufacturer's own software
does.

I sure hope it doesn't, but I'm not betting my photo archives on it.

 But, the "secret sauce" in Nikon Capture is not in the file  
itself. It is in Nikon's knowledge of how the camera works, plus  
their bench testing of the sensor and camera system, plus their own  
vendor specific work. Same for any other Raw converter. They rely  
on their own algorithms to cleverly interpret the data as the file  
does not contain any information that says how exactly to interpret  (for
example) a sensor reading of (say) 1234 Red or 1000 Blue

You can get some of that by profiling, can't you?

Some, yes, but not all of it. Nikon, for example, characterizes their cameras by measuring their response to direct light at a large number of frequencies, allowing them to build a "physical" model of the response of the sensor. You can't get this just by profiling in a traditional sense.

But why would Nikon Capture necessarily have the best demosaicking?
This is quite an active research area, and it's quite
possible that
in the future we'll be able to do better than we can now.

Sure, it'll improve. But the manufacturer knows the filter material they use to generate RGB, its impurities, the size and shape of the electron wells and therefore something about the color noise between adjacent sensor sites, etc., so they have a big headstart (if they choose to use it). Anyone else would have to spend quite a bit of time and probably destroy a few cameras to get that data.

Personally, along with standardizing on a format for Raw sensor data, I'd like to see some of this additional information standardized and encoded in the Raw file as well. Just like when you load film into a mini-lab it has data about the specific type of film to help make the prints look good.

Imagine if Kodak had said they would not provide film curves for their films so that if you wanted them processed "correctly" you'd have to use Kodak processing equipment.

--David Cardinal
Pro Shooters LLC
http://www.proshooters.com
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   Date: Mon, 5 Apr 2004 10:52:38 -0700
   From: David Cardinal
Subject: RE: Re: Am I the only one noticing this problem in Photoshop CS?

From: Chris Murphy

Raw is the negative, JPEG is the print. If you are happy with
prints and throw out all of your color negatives, then you'll
probably be happy with just JPEG.

For negative shooters that analogy works well, but the analogy I prefer and I think more accurately represents the characteristics of a high quality JPEG is that Raw is similar to shooting negatives and JPEGs are similar to shooting slides.

With both slides & JPEGs we still have quite a bit of flexibility, but the color and visual image is "pre-developed" in the slide itself. There is less room to make changes later and they are both high-gamma formats. Negatives and Raw are both much closer to a linear/low gamma capture.

OT: FWIW, I'm thrilled that with the D2H I can now shoot Raw+JPEG and to a great extent get the best of both. For high-volume action shooting I often shoot JPEG only to save card space and transfer time, but for almost everything else I can now shoot both formats as quickly as I used to be able to shoot JPEGs.

--David Cardinal
Pro Shooters LLC
http://www.proshooters.com
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   Date: Mon, 5 Apr 2004 11:33:46 EDT
   From: Paul Harding
Subject: Re: Re: Am I the only one noticing this problem in Photoshop CS?

I have not responded to the thread in quite a while. After my initial exposure to the authors and the content of their submissions, it became clear that "that world" was way beyond the capabilities of both myself and my computer/printer set up. So .... I continued down my path, doing as I had done before, abiet with more knowledge but not changing my work flow. I still shoot with hi rez JPEG and have yet to be disappointed .. not only me ( perhaps I don't have the discerning eye that the rest of the group has) but my clients always ask "How do you get such good pics?" WHY CHANGE?.

I'll proclaim it again, It's the message .. not the messanger.

Paul Harding
JIT Graphics
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   Date: Mon, 05 Apr 2004 10:10:24 -0700
   From: John Denniston
Subject: Re: Re: Am I the only one noticing this problem in Photoshop CS?

Hi Ron,

The advantages of RAW are many but any work flow must be tailored to the project you are working on.

In my retirement I shoot a lot of sports, always jpg, most of the time with auto white balance, because this is the work flow where the time quality equation is best for me. I also do scenics and editorial features. These are shot RAW because the number of prints I'm making for these projects are few and I have more time to fuss over them.

Regards, John

John Denniston
www.dirtbikephoto.com
www.dennistonphoto.com
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   Date: Mon, 5 Apr 2004 20:05:20 +0100
   From: Andrew Haley
Subject: RE: Am I the only one noticing this problem in Photoshop CS?

David Cardinal writes:

 Sure, it'll improve. But the manufacturer knows the filter material
 they use to generate RGB, its impurities, the size and shape of the
 electron wells and therefore something about the color noise
 between adjacent sensor sites, etc., so they have a big headstart
 (if they choose to use it). Anyone else would have to spend quite a
 bit of time and probably destroy a few cameras to get that data.

Imagine fifty years from now.  Let's say you had

1.  A copy of dcraw source code.
2.  A raw file that is a shot of a colour target.
3.  Okay, so you need the values of the target's colour patches.

and a little time.  How much of the image quality do you suppose you could retrieve?  99%?

Andrew.
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   Date: Tue, 6 Apr 2004 02:57:13 -0400
   From: John Castronovo
Subject: Re: RE: Am I the only one noticing this problem in Photoshop CS?

From: David Cardinal

Imagine if Kodak had said they would not provide film curves for
their films so that if you wanted them processed "correctly" you'd have to
use Kodak processing equipment.

Wait a minute. I've been printing color negs in a custom/commercial lab for nearly 30 years, and I haven't seen useful data from Kodak (or anyone else) yet. We're pretty much on our own to do our own calibrations. Even our new Agfa digital minilab is totally unaware of film specs from manufacturers, and for $180,000, there's no place in the software to even put such information.

Excuse the tangent, this is now O.T.

john c.
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   Date: Tue, 06 Apr 2004 23:47:22 -0400
   From: Lee Clawson
Subject: Re: Re: Am I the only one noticing this problem in Photoshop CS?

At 08:19 AM 04/04/2004 , Ron wrote:

So what's the big deal with raw workflow? Am I missing the boat here? I
just don't get it.

Ron,

I look at image quality needed for a particular end use. Last year we did signage that was screen printed. Though I didn't ask for the format the JPEG's had more than enough image quality.

In regard to workflow with JPEG. After receiving images I recommend working in an uncompressed format. That is, not processing and (re)saving in JPEG.

Lee
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   Date: Mon, 5 Apr 2004 17:23:06 -0600
   From: Chris Murphy
Subject: Re: Re: Am I the only one noticing this problem in Photoshop CS?

On Apr 5, 2004, at 11:52 AM, David Cardinal wrote:

For negative shooters that analogy works well, but the analogy I prefer and
I think more accurately represents the characteristics of a high quality
JPEG is that Raw is similar to shooting negatives and JPEGs are similar to
shooting slides.

The analogy works in the respect that color negative is more forgiving and so is raw, whereas chromes are less forgiving and so are JPEGs. BUT where it doesn't work is if you have any serious editing to do, high-bit scans of positives are easier to make heavy edits on than JPEG which will expose JPEG artifacts. IF you're able to get a TIFF from the camera, you're better off than JPEG if the images were to need lifting.

With both slides & JPEGs we still have quite a bit of flexibility, but the
color and visual image is "pre-developed" in the slide itself. There is less
room to make changes later and they are both high-gamma formats. Negatives
and Raw are both much closer to a linear/low gamma capture.

Yeah. Raw is full sensor data dump. There is no tonal mapping yet. You could say that it's exactly linear, depending on the response of the CCD/CMOS array.

Chris Murphy
Color Remedies (TM)
www.colorremedies.com/realworldcolor
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   Date: Wed, 14 Apr 2004 06:15:41 -0500
   From: "Michael Streibel"
Subject: Re: RE: Am I the only one noticing this problem in Photoshop CS?

Dan:

I have been following the discussion about RAW storage and conversion with increasing dismay since my digital work-flow and that of my students now includes burning CDs and DVDs of all RAW images immediately after capture and only converting them as needed.  If companies are going to be secretive about their in-house knowledge of RAW formats and then drop RAW formats as they develop new cameras, they really should release this in-house information into the public domain once they drop a format.  Since you are a well-known public figure who has advocated for the right thing time and time again, could you begin a public campaign for an industry policy of full-disclosure by companies about their RAW formats once they drop a format from their products?  That way, third party developers could create utilities for the digital imaging community and we could retrieve digital images with old RAW formats without having to keep old versions of software, operating systems, and computers on hand.
  Thanks.
Michael*

Michael J. Streibel
The University of Wisconsin-Madison
___________________________________________________________________________

   Date: Wed, 14 Apr 2004 07:03:37 -0600
   From:Andrew Rodney
Subject: Re: RE: Am I the only one noticing this problem in Photoshop CS?

on 4/14/04 5:15 AM, Michael Streibel wrote:

Since you are a well-known public figure who has advocated for the right thing
time and time again, could you begin a public campaign for an industry policy
of full-disclosure by companies about their RAW formats once they drop a
format from their products?

Many of us are doing as much as we can to push a Standard RAW format. Not going to be easy but it really has to be done. This is a critical factor for all future use of digital cameras and hugely affects all users!

The very first such discussion of industry power users was two weeks ago at the i3 forum in Laguna Beach (see http: //www.i3forum.com/ and check out the guest by invite only list). I'm sure more about the meetings with some of the industry big-wigs will be forth coming from the i3 organizers.

Andrew Rodney
http://www.digitaldog.net
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   Date: Wed, 14 Apr 2004 14:03:43 EDT
   From: Dan Margulis
Subject: Re: RE: Am I the only one noticing this problem in Photoshop CS?

Michael Streibel writes,

Dan:
\I have been following the discussion about RAW storage and conversion with
increasing dismay since my digital work-flow and that of my students now
includes burning CDs and DVDs of all RAW images immediately after capture and only
converting them as needed.  If companies are going to be secretive about their
in-house knowledge of RAW formats and then drop RAW formats as they develop
new cameras, they really should release this in-house information into the
public domain once they drop a format.  Since you are a well-known public figure
who has advocated for the right thing time and time again, could you begin a
public campaign for an industry policy of full-disclosure by companies about
their RAW formats once they drop a format from their products?

Obviously the companies *should* do this but equally obviously there is going to be limited interest in supporting a format that is no longer being used. The fact that they have disclosed the format won't do you any good if, as likely, nobody develops software to read it.

The idea of *working* with somebody's raw format makes a lot of sense, for the reasons stated by many of the people in this thread. The idea of *archiving* in that format and not having any backup is a bad one IMHO. Save in Photoshop format or standard TIFF and it's most unlikely that the format will become a total orphan during your lifetime. Save only in a proprietary raw format and in five years it may become inaccessible.

As for the lack of a uniform format, this story has played itself out again and again in many areas. One or more leading vendors think they will give away a competitive advantage by allowing everybody else to access their stuff, and thereby hose the remaining 99.9% of the world who want open standards. Getting a standard that is acceptable to all the vendors takes a long time, a lot of negotiation, and tends to be designed by a committee. And, in order to be fair to all, it often tends to be incompatible with anybody's prior formats. So, while it would be great if there were a uniform format for raw images, it's quite likely that it would make anything saved in previous raw formats obsolete.

Dan Margulis
___________________________________________________________________________

   Date: Sun, 18 Apr 2004 07:17:18 -0500
   From: "Mike Davis"
Subject: Re: RE: Am I the only one noticing this problem in Photoshop CS?

I'm way out of my field of expertise here.  It is my understanding that a RAW format, being a simple chip "dump" with some EXIF information added, would be dependent upon the specific capture device (chip) being used (i.e. it's relative sensitivity to various wavelengths of light being captured).  Just as different film captures light values differently, the resulting data from various cameras and their respective chips will be different.  A RAW converter must take the terribly unbalanced captured data (inherent in sensitivity to varying wavelengths of light due to their energy variations) and "reinterpret" them to create a "balanced" image, similar to what we would perceive as human interpreters of those light values without the camera (or scanner) intermediary.  

Conversely, if there were a single algorithm used to "read" all capture information between the storage memory and a graphics editor (Photoshop), the output would certainly be different for each chip, and indeed for each camera due to lens coatings, etc.  The only alternative would be to create additional "in camera" processing to output a "standard" result from a "standard" image so that a single RAW format converter would give everyone "exactly" the same image (whatever THAT is).  But by doing that, you simply move the proprietary conversion from between the storage memory/Photoshop to between CCD/storage memory, which would slow operation of the camera.  What am I missing here in the discussion to "standardize" the RAW format?  How can you possible "standardize" a RAW format?

Mike Davis
mldavis2 AT sbcglobal DOT net
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   Date: Sun, 18 Apr 2004 09:46:17 -0600
   From:Andrew Rodney
Subject: Re: Re: RE: Am I the only one noticing this problem in Photoshop CS?

on 4/18/04 6:17 AM, Mike Davis wrote:

What am I missing here in the
discussion to "standardize" the RAW format?  How can you possible
"standardize" a RAW format?

Good question. Let me direct you to a site you should address this to:

http://www.rawformat.com/

This is a new site that was just put up after the i3 forum last month to encourage this discussion among users and manufacturers.

My understanding is that a RAW standard format would not limit the rendering of the color data moot and identical to all converters. My understanding is that the open standard would allow each converter access to the data in such a way that there would be no need to 3reverse engineer" a way to get to the data for de-mosaicing and image production.

I1ve run the same RAW data through a number of RAW converters what have done this hard work and found vast differences in the final image rendering and quality. The issue was that each converter had to come up with a method of doing this since there may or may not be any kind of SDK from the manufacturer so it was difficult to handle the file in the first place. My understanding of coming up with a RAW standard is simply a way in which the basic recipe for getting to this data could be produced making it easy to support RAW processing now and into the future for every camera. The alternative is the possibility that a company might decide not to support some product in the future leaving all the RAW files useless to future users who may or may not have access to the original converter. That1s a huge concern.

Assume a RAW format could be developed by someone like Adobe and we actually could convince the major manufacturers to stick to some predefined methods of communicating ways to process the data. That would not guarantee that we'd have a way of handling this data forever but it would certainly be better than what we have today which is 100+ different, unique file formats we lump together as RAW whereby anyone that wants to process that data (besides the originator) could more easily handle.

Andrew Rodney
http://www.digitaldog.net
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   Date: Sun, 18 Apr 2004 12:05:10 -0700
   From: David Cardinal
Subject: RE: Re: RE: Am I the only one noticing this problem in Photoshop CS?

Like many standards, this one will need to have "levels" of compliance. If you break apart the problem of standardizing a raw data format for D-SLR images there are many pieces. Some vendors will want to open up some of them, others all of them, and some may stick with their current position of opening up none of them. A simple list of pieces for a standard includes:  *

Description of basic sensor data encoding (bits per sample, padding, ordering of colors)
        (some of this is allowed for in EXIF and used by some vendors already)
* Description of compression or other advanced techniques used by the vendor to reduce image size
* Description of any alternate representations also included in the file for\previewing purposes (some of these are in a standard place already, but many are not)

Those three might be considered "level 1" and would at least give everyone access to the raw sensor data.

Then there is the potential to standardize the next level of info, either by embedding it or perhaps using a style sheet like mechanism that could point to the info for a given camera at a well known URL/URI.

That information could include:

* Spectral response of the sensor
* Settings on the camera beyond EXIF standard (WB, etc.)
* Any other "hints" available from the camera, like color temp recorded by color sensor, etc.
* Other information on the linearity of the sensor, its native noise characteristics, etc.

The "Level 1" info is pretty well decoded for all major cameras, but only through the hard work of various folks around the world and it changes with every new model.

The "Level 2" info is spotty, and mostly kept proprietary both by the camera vendors and by those who have decoded it for use in products.

If someone wanted to be _really_ aggressive there is room for a "Level 3" which would be the tone curves, color matrices and other corrections to apply to process the raw data the way the camera would by default. That would allow the most open system for raw file viewing.

Some vendors have SDKs which allow Raw file processing (Canon & Nikon, for example)--which is a laudable first step--but they have several problems:

1) They are usually late--lating 2-6 months behind the camera bodies
2) They have mediocre and inconsistent interfaces
3) To be multi-vendor and use them you'd need to drag around a set of changing libraries for each camera vendor and update them every time a camera is shipped given the way things work now
4) They don't provide open access to the format. They let you "develop" the image according to certain parameters, which is great, but if you want to tweak the algorithms they aren't really designed to do that.

Then there are ancillary issues like standardizing the way Raw+JPEG is handled, the way voice annotations are handled, etc., which are already drifting between vendors.

--David Cardinal
Pro Shooters LLC
http://www.proshooters.com
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   Date: Mon, 19 Apr 2004 10:56:24 -0400
   From: Lee Clawson
Subject: Re: Re: RE: Am I the only one noticing this problem in Photoshop CS?

How can you possibly "standardize" a RAW format?

Andrew,

Adobe, as the leader doesn't impress me, but the model they used publishing
and placing postscript in the public domain does.

Lee
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   Date: Sat, 24 Apr 2004 00:03:34 -0000
   From: Blaine Franger
Subject: Re: Am I the only one noticing this problem in Photoshop CS?

For all of you that were following this thread, just wanted to update you on the latest. If  you didn't know already, Thomas Knoll finished the Camera Raw 2.2 update for PS CS. It is  available on the Adobe site.

It turned out that there actually was color problems in certain situations with the plugin,  and I'm not crazy! I just did a few quick tests on some of the files that were being affected  the worst, and ba-da-da-da! The problem is fixed! With just a few quick adjustments in  the calibration features, the colors I got were perfect! They actually even looked better  than the colors I was getting with Nikon's NEF plugin for PS 7.
 
Thanks to everyone for the help, those of you who are interested in keeping up to date on
ACR features, issues and stuff go to www.adobeforums.com

Blaine Franger

Adobe Photoshop training classes are taught in the US by Sterling Ledet & Associates, Inc.