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Posted: Sun Feb 24, 2008 7:46 am Post subject: Processing RAW files.
I took a few shots of Leah the other day and decided to shoot in JPG and RAW and am very glad I did, I think. In all the shots Leah has come out looking pasty and no matter what I do I can't seem to improve them.
One of the reasons I don't like working in RAW is that I just can't seem to get a decent picture out of it. I've read and watched tutorials and they all make it look fairly straight forward, but when I try, the pictures are rubbish.
Is anyone up for having a go and telling me what settings to use to process these pictures to give me some clues?
This is the JPG with no enhancements apart from the cameras own processing. I've put the RAW file on my site, link below (8,446,925 KB)
although I was getting near by using the settings in Raw viewer, I had forgotten about these pre sets (not too sure if CS3 only though) _________________ -----------------------------------------------------
Cor, that was fast and unexpected, thought you'd be sorting out kit and Thermos flasks.
Thanks so much Dave, I am using CS2 so no problem there, but do you think this looks a bit muddy? Maybe it's just down to whatever foundation she was using.
I'll have a look at the free pre-sets and thanks again. _________________
This is harsh, I think I am being paid back for all my years of using Paint Shop Pro instead of Photoshop. I abandoned Photoshop and opened the RAW file in Lightroom (the WOW presets are available for Lightroom as well and I installed and used them, cheers Dave) and made all the adjustments I wanted and saved the file as a Tiff. Excellant, except that it saved it as a 48 bit Tiff which nothing apart from Photoshop and Lightroom could open. I fiddled and faffed, and think I am going to be doing a lot more of that in the coming weeks, and eventually got it open in PSP to give it a makeover.
It's nice to have got the image into something like decent shape but I really didn't enjoy the process nor the feeling of floundering in the dark. Oh well, it's just another learning curve.
Here's a couple of what I think are acceptable pictures.
raw never look as nice because you're looking at a 'digital negative' - all those sharpness/colour/contrast settings you have set in camera are ignored unless you use nikon software
there's more work to do, but it's a 12-bit image so you have more to work with in the first place.
tbh i hardly ever use raw, i usually have far too many pics to belt through to worry about it, but for studio work i think you're worth taking some pain and mastering your workflow _________________ There is nothing in life that cannot be improved with either monkeys, pirates or ninjas NPU Member
Thanks Jon, I really don't like RAW generally, I'd rather try and get it right on the day and not have to process all those images, but, as you say, studio work is worth taking time over and I think saving in RAW and JPG is what I will be doing from now on. If I get it right, great, all processed and in JPG format, if I didn't then the extra work with RAW is worth it.
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