Eek! My raw images look totally messed up

duds

Howdy. So, I'm no expert with RAW, but I've shot in raw many times with no problems. However.....

I just did a shoot - some RAW, some JPEG - and I'm using CS4 to open the images. When I open the RAW images, they look totally flat and washed out. Whereas the JPEGs look just great.

Anyone got any clues? What did I do wrong? And what can I do to prevent it in the future?

More importantly, how can I save these pics? :dunno

Thanks..

Qarik

duds wrote:

Howdy. So, I'm no expert with RAW, but I've shot in raw many times with no problems. However.....

I just did a shoot - some RAW, some JPEG - and I'm using CS4 to open the images. When I open the RAW images, they look totally flat and washed out. Whereas the JPEGs look just great.

Anyone got any clues? What did I do wrong? And what can I do to prevent it in the future?

More importantly, how can I save these pics?

Thanks..

Can you post some samples?

I know that in lightroom when you import RAW files there is an option that mimics the in camera settings you would see on the LCD...so it is semi-processed. It almost sounds like your CS4 setting may have changed so that you are seeing "true" raw with out any mods.

Also check the camera again..do the raws pics still look good on the LCD? If that is teh case then they are definitely salvagable.

MarkR

duds wrote:

Howdy. So, I'm no expert with RAW, but I've shot in raw many times with no problems. However.....

I just did a shoot - some RAW, some JPEG - and I'm using CS4 to open the images. When I open the RAW images, they look totally flat and washed out. Whereas the JPEGs look just great.

Anyone got any clues? What did I do wrong? And what can I do to prevent it in the future?

More importantly, how can I save these pics?

Thanks..

Sounds as if you are looking at a raw file with a flat tone curve. Many raw converters give the option of seeing the image as it would appear without a tone curve applied.

Remember, jpegs out of camera automatically do a lot of things to your image, including applying a (usually fairly strong) tone curve. While a good image editor will allow you to undo some of the damage, your preference should be to start with the raw image and tweak until you find curves, etc. that work for your image.

cmason

RAW are straight from camera data. There is no brightness, contrast, whitebalance or sharpening applied. On the other hand, JPEG is the image (from the RAW) processed by the camera, applying brightness, contrast, whitebalance and sharpening.

RAW looks bad because nothing has been done to it. That is the beauty of RAW, it allows the photographer to determine what he or she thinks is best in terms of processing.

RAW must be processed with a RAW converter. Your camera most likely came with one. If you have Canon, you get Imagebrowser or Digital Photo Processor. Nikon ships with Capture. Other popular RAW processors include Lightroom, Photoshop (Adobe Camera RAW), Bibble, etc.