Raw

gopher78

I'm really confused by a RAW setting. When would a person use this, upside, downside etc. I have a 10D and tried reading the manuel. Big mistake. After I untwisted my eyes, I didn't have any more of a clue than when I started. Anyone help? T A L K S L O W.

DoctorIt

gopher78 wrote:

I'm really confused by a RAW setting. When would a person use this, upside, downside etc. I have a 10D and tried reading the manuel. Big mistake. After I untwisted my eyes, I didn't have any more of a clue than when I started. Anyone help? T A L K S L O W.

I just started shooting RAW myself, about 2 weeks ago after having my 300D for about 2 months, but I'll give you a quick start. First, RAW is the least "lossy" format you can save your image as. You MUST post process to get a viewable jpg out. So, in the post processor, you adjust exposure compensation, white balance, color saturation, and even sharpness (those are straight off the Canon FileViewer). The benefit for us new dSLR shooters - or at least me - is that you can worry primarily about shutter speed and aperture and leave things like white balance for later. Upside: It saves the most information so that you can adjust the image on your computer. Downside: you can't just pull images right off your CF card at anyone's computer, end quality of your jpg isn't any better, and it takes time. For us beginners, that time might not produce anything better than if you just used the Large jpg format and took a few shots of the same scence on 2 or 3 different settings.

Just my limited early experience though.

ian408

Another way to look at Raw vs. Cooked is whether you intend to do
a lot or a little post processing. If you do more than stitch pano's or
maybe a little level adjusting, you might want to consider Raw mode.
Otherwise, using the least lossy setting (Maybe called "fine" mode)
should be good enough.

Ian

pathfinder

ian408 wrote:

Another way to look at Raw vs. Cooked is whether you intend to do
a lot or a little post processing. If you do more than stitch pano's or
maybe a little level adjusting, you might want to consider Raw mode.
Otherwise, using the least lossy setting (Maybe called "fine" mode)
should be good enough.

Ian

One thing I think that can be done with a RAW file is that, like has been mentioned, you can adjust the contrast and color balance after the fact. What I think is not being well explained is that you can make many DIFFERENT jpgs from the same RAW file negative and then they can be combined in Photoshop to help give better control of scenes with a wide contrast range - This can be done with jpgs by putting the camera on a tripod and shooting several different exposures - but with RAW you can create different contrasted jpgs and then overlay them in PhotoShop. It is even better if you make diffferent exposures in RAW on a tripod of course.

Pathfinder

DoctorIt

I didn't want to start a whole new thread for this, so I'll put it here:

When I shoot in RAW, I get 2 files (on my Canon 300D): a .crw and a .thm. The thm is a very small file. I realize the benefit of saving RAW files for down the road when I decide to play with the image, I'll be upset if I can't alter something once I learn post processing better. But, do I have to save both the files? As in, is the .thm file just extraneous header information thats in the .exif anyway?

Guess I could try deleting one and then opening in my RAW converter...

cmr164

DoctorIt wrote:

I didn't want to start a whole new thread for this, so I'll put it here:

When I shoot in RAW, I get 2 files (on my Canon 300D): a .crw and a .thm. The thm is a very small file. I realize the benefit of saving RAW files for down the road when I decide to play with the image, I'll be upset if I can't alter something once I learn post processing better. But, do I have to save both the files? As in, is the .thm file just extraneous header information thats in the .exif anyway?

Guess I could try deleting one and then opening in my RAW converter...

How about thumbnail

DoctorIt

cmr164 wrote:

How about thumbnail

Sounds good to me, only it doesn't show up as one when in windows "thumbnail" view, or even when you click on it to try and open it. So whats the use? Is it the thumbnail for previewing IN the converter?

cmr164

DoctorIt wrote:

Sounds good to me, only it doesn't show up as one when in windows "thumbnail" view, or even when you click on it to try and open it. So whats the use? Is it the thumbnail for previewing IN the converter?

It is a 160x120 pixel image with all of the EXIF and IPTC data. You really should keep these together. If you want to email me a thm file, I will analyze its structure and tell you more.

cmr -at- iisc.com

Info about exif and iptc are at:

The EXIF Standard Organization

The IPTC Standard Organization

wxwax

I'm thinking it's the image that your camera's display shows you after you take a shot. The RAW image is too large. So the camera saves a smaller jpeg to display.

cmr164

wxwax wrote:

I'm thinking it's the image that your camera's display shows you after you take a shot. The RAW image is too large. So the camera saves a smaller jpeg to display.

I really was speaking from knowledge when I said: " It is a 160x120 pixel image with all of the EXIF and IPTC data."

DoctorIt

cmr164 wrote:

I really was speaking from knowledge when I said: " It is a 160x120 pixel image with all of the EXIF and IPTC data."

Would make sense as a preview "in camera" - doesn't do any sort of displaying/properties/preview in windows. I'll keep it, just curious. Does Nikon RAW do the same thing?

DoctorIt

I need to dredge this one back up, because its still kind of annoying. I want to know how other Canon RAW shooters organize their files - mainly because windows will not give you a quick thumbnail preview of the RAW file. I recnetly got Photoshop CS and now I have a great tool in their internal browser which obviously does recognize RAW and gives a thumbnail preview. But I'd like to be able to just "explore" my windows and see my RAW's the way I see my JPG's. Am I making sense?

So, using the internal CS browser, is there some freeware or shareware that gives windows the knowledge to display RAW thumbnails?

From what a friend (Nikon D1 shooter) tells me, NikonView essentially installs some sort of system file right in windows which lets you see RAW thumbnails right in your folders when exploring. So come on Canon guys, does such a thing exist? Is Nikon really better in this regard (i wouldn't be suprised, their format is smart enough not to need 2 files, .crw and .thm)?

Thanks!

and BTW, I think this link that I recently found has all the answers as to the method behind Canon's 2-file-RAW-system: http://www.photools.com/windowsxp_ar_002.html

soup

in RAW mode - you will get less noise in the image because the image is not compressed, and then decompressed like a JPEG image is. so there is no initial JPEG artifacts, no loss from JPEG compression which is unavoidable at any JPEG setting.

and therefore you will likely get a better JPEG out of the image than if you shoot at the finest JPEG setting the camera allows.

draw backs - much larger files, much longer write to CF time, much longer preview on LCD time, less space on card ( so to speak ), much longer post processing workflow - as each adjustment needs to be rendered to cache before you see the effects - buying a RAW convertor like C1 might speed this up, but its still very processor intensive to work with them. if you are likely to print above say - 8x12 - i would consider shooting in RAW mode.

rescue951

When in PS

soup wrote:

in RAW mode - you will get less noise in the image because the image is not compressed, and then decompressed like a JPEG image is. so there is no initial JPEG artifacts, no loss from JPEG compression which is unavoidable at any JPEG setting.

and therefore you will likely get a better JPEG out of the image than if you shoot at the finest JPEG setting the camera allows.

draw backs - much larger files, much longer write to CF time, much longer preview on LCD time, less space on card ( so to speak ), much longer post processing workflow - as each adjustment needs to be rendered to cache before you see the effects - buying a RAW convertor like C1 might speed this up, but its still very processor intensive to work with them. if you are likely to print above say - 8x12 - i would consider shooting in RAW mode.

When in PS, and i use image size to veiw image size. It shows my processed raw with abt a 3x5 inch size. Am i missing a step in the processing, so i am able to print say 13x20?? thanks rob

soup

well what is the dpi showing? 72 pixels per inch i figure

to print you need at least 150 pixels per inch

in the image size dialog - uncheck the resample image check box

then change the pixels per inch to 150

click OK

re-open the image size dialog - recheck the resample image check box

you can now - slowly add to the pixels per inch amount in small increments until the image is the size you want - the more to resample it the more noise will appear - so you have to compromise.

its unlikely your image will print at 13x20 - is it cropped majorly?

a 6MP camera can print up to 20x30" - i dunno what you have for a camera.

rutt

pathfinder wrote:

One thing I think that can be done with a RAW file is that, like has been mentioned, you can adjust the contrast and color balance after the fact. What I think is not being well explained is that you can make many DIFFERENT jpgs from the same RAW file negative and then they can be combined in Photoshop to help give better control of scenes with a wide contrast range - This can be done with jpgs by putting the camera on a tripod and shooting several different exposures - but with RAW you can create different contrasted jpgs and then overlay them in PhotoShop. It is even better if you make diffferent exposures in RAW on a tripod of course.

Pathfinder

I went through a phase of trying to do this, but never had much luck with multiple conversions of a single RAW image.
I concluded that the things I cared about the most (sky and landscape at dawn/dusk, inside and outside with windows, etc.) were limited by the sensor itself not by inherent problems of jpeg. So I stopped using RAW.

I did use multiple shots at different exposures with a tripod once, but really wasn't that happy with the results; they look fake to me. (See the windows in the topmost panorama here.)

Anyway, does anyone have any good examples of making this work?

pathfinder

rutt wrote:

I went through a phase of trying to do this, but never had much luck with multiple conversions of a single RAW image.
I concluded that the things I cared about the most (sky and landscape at dawn/dusk, inside and outside with windows, etc.) were limited by the sensor itself not by inherent problems of jpeg. So I stopped using RAW.

I did use multiple shots at different exposures with a tripod once, but really wasn't that happy with the results; they look fake to me. (See the windows in the topmost panorama here.)

Anyway, does anyone have any good examples of making this work?

Here is an image I have peviously shown to demonstrate using a RAW file to create two jpgs with different processing to compensate for different exposure values - The interior of the bridge was 3 - 4 fstops darker than the sunlit snow outside the bridge. So from one RAW image file, I made two jpgs - one to properly display the interior of the bridge and then a second jpg rebalanced to properly display the sunlit exterior of the bridge - all this from one solitary exposure remember and then painted the exterior scene from the end of hte bridge into the first image of the interior of the bridge and here is the result



Not as good as two completely seperate exposures with camera on a tripod, but a LOT better than most single exposures would be....

In the discussions on the WEB about RAW vs jpgs a lot of heat and little light has been created. The 10D/300D Rebel take excellent images as jpgs - I was blown away how nice they can be compared to 35mm film - and they are fast and easy BUT.......

When you shoot RAW and expose it well and then process it in Adobe CS RAW converter or another converter of your choice - this allows all the levels and exposure and white balance corrections to be done in 16bit and then import the file into PS as a 16 BIT image rather than as an 8bit jpg.

16bit jpegs from RAW will have more colors and better gradations than 8bit -Hands Down!! (64,000 versus 256 levels per each color )

SO if image quality is a primary goal - there is no substitute for shooting RAW. Here is an image shot in RAW and processed in PS......



RAW takes more time to process - but not much - most of the steps are done in PS anyway - but is worth it for the very best images. Jpgs are perfectly adequate for snapshots and webshots and pictures for newspapers etc. I shoot a lot of jpgs directly - but they do involve some in camera processing from 16 to 8 bit that involves some image degradation and that data is lost forever, compared to the data available from a RAW file shot.

Just my two cents worth

pathfinder

soup wrote:

in RAW mode - you will get less noise in the image because the image is not compressed, and then decompressed like a JPEG image is. so there is no initial JPEG artifacts, no loss from JPEG compression which is unavoidable at any JPEG setting.

and therefore you will likely get a better JPEG out of the image than if you shoot at the finest JPEG setting the camera allows.

draw backs - much larger files, much longer write to CF time, much longer preview on LCD time, less space on card ( so to speak ), much longer post processing workflow - as each adjustment needs to be rendered to cache before you see the effects - buying a RAW convertor like C1 might speed this up, but its still very processor intensive to work with them. if you are likely to print above say - 8x12 - i would consider shooting in RAW mode.

The significant thing about RAW versus Large Fine jpegs - is that the jpgs you create from a RAW file can be 16 BIT jpgs not the 8 bit jpgs the camera creates itself. Prior to the introduction of PS CS, PS 7 would not perform most tasks on 16bit images and hence there was a lesser incentive to work in 16 bit. BUT Adobe Photoshop CS will perform almost all the tasks necessary in 16 bit -

To repeat - 16 bit jpgs will have 64,000 gradation levels of hue - 8 bit images will only have 256 levels of hue gradation - There really is no
comparison

Shooting in RAW allows almost all the image correction steps to be done in 16 bit before conversion to 8 bit for final storage - 8 Bit for final storage because current printers cannot print 16 bit levels that can be seen - BUT the 16 bit data is safely stored away in your original RAW file.

rutt

Very nice covered bridge shots.

I have a technical question about JPEG. You say:

pathfinder wrote:

16bit jpegs from RAW will have more colors and better gradations than 8bit -Hands Down!! (64,000 versus 256 levels per each color )
...
I shoot a lot of jpgs directly - but they do involve some in camera processing from 16 to 8 bit that involves some image degradation and that data is lost forever, compared to the data available from a RAW file shot.

Here are my questions:

1. Is 8 bits/color/pixel a feature of jpeg itself, or just something the camera manufactures do? I thought that one of differences between jpeg and jpeg2000 was that the later allows more bits/color/pixel. Unfortunately, I don't think the browsers support jpeg2000, at least not many of them.
2. I have a 10D. I think RAW has 12 bits/color/pixel, not 16. Do you have a camera with more?

I tried to use RAW in the school classroom project here. It didn't solve the problem, but it was probably more like 5 f-stops than 2. I also tried to use it for some flowwer closeups, but couldn't see the difference from jpegs. Maybe it's a sharp tool and needs to be used in just the right situations in order to be useful.

rescue951

Oh

rutt wrote:

Very nice covered bridge shots.

I have a technical question about JPEG. You say:


Here are my questions:

1. Is 8 bits/color/pixel a feature of jpeg itself, or just something the camera manufactures do? I thought that one of differences between jpeg and jpeg2000 was that the later allows more bits/color/pixel. Unfortunately, I don't think the browsers support jpeg2000, at least not many of them.
2. I have a 10D. I think RAW has 12 bits/color/pixel, not 16. Do you have a camera with more?

I tried to use RAW in the school classroom project here. It didn't solve the problem, but it was probably more like 5 f-stops than 2. I also tried to use it for some flowwer closeups, but couldn't see the difference from jpegs. Maybe it's a sharp tool and needs to be used in just the right situations in order to be useful.

Hey SOUP sry I forgot to mention, I'm using a 300D from canon 6.3MP.

soup

well actually from what i know RAW is actually only 12bit, in a 16bit space, not actually 16bit. still better than 8bit. and i forgot tomention that.

wrote:

The significant thing about RAW versus Large Fine jpegs - is that the jpgs you create from a RAW file can be 16 BIT jpgs not the 8 bit jpgs the camera creates itself. Prior to the introduction of PS CS, PS 7 would not perform most tasks on 16bit images and hence there was a lesser incentive to work in 16 bit.

pathfinder

rutt wrote:

Very nice covered bridge shots.

I have a technical question about JPEG. You say:


Here are my questions:

1. Is 8 bits/color/pixel a feature of jpeg itself, or just something the camera manufactures do? I thought that one of differences between jpeg and jpeg2000 was that the later allows more bits/color/pixel. Unfortunately, I don't think the browsers support jpeg2000, at least not many of them.
2. I have a 10D. I think RAW has 12 bits/color/pixel, not 16. Do you have a camera with more?

I tried to use RAW in the school classroom project here. It didn't solve the problem, but it was probably more like 5 f-stops than 2. I also tried to use it for some flowwer closeups, but couldn't see the difference from jpegs. Maybe it's a sharp tool and needs to be used in just the right situations in order to be useful.

You are correct that the 10D does not really have 16bit images but more like 14 bit and hence does not have 64,000 shades but 32,000 shades (the other bits are used for internal housekeeping somehow) - 32,000 is what Tom Ang says in his books on digital images. Still - compare 32,000 with 256 levels a dramatic 2 orders of magnitude

One other point is that the 10D will ONLY shoot RAW in the creative zone - eg. M, Av, Tv, P, A-dep

If you shoot beginner modes( Cannon calls them the Basic Zone ) - like landscape or portrait or macro or sports, the camera defaults to saving the images as jpgs even if you have it set to save RAW files - To get RAW files you must shot in the Creative zone

And yes - jpgs can be 8 or 16 bit, but until Photoshop CS could edit 16 bit images most jpgs were 8 bit unless you worked for NASA or someplace -joke!!
Photoshop CS does support jpg2000 as well as "16Bit" jpgs as well as psd, tiff, png, gif, 8 bit jpgs, Kodak Photo CD - well you name it and PS can probably manage it.

When I process RAW files from the 10D, after converting, they are then loaded into Photoshop for further image editing as "16 bit" images - I say "16 bit" because PS identifies the file as an 8 bit or a 16 bit file in the top of the window the image is viewed in - Thus I can do almost all my levels and curves and thresholds in "16bit" before converting to 8 bit for printing. The extra data helps prevent banding in the color shading like you can see in the sky sometimes where there is not sufficient data to create a smooth even gradient of color change but just discontinous color bands. Well exposed jpgs that don't have a lot of high frequency data can be VERY good straight out of the camera, but they will not be as good as files saved as RAW. Poorly exposed jpgs will suffer even more than poorly exposed RAW files.

If you are getting satisfactory results with jpgs straight from your camera - Be Happy! I shoot lots of jpgs . But if you want the very best your camera can do ( and the 10D can do very good images) - listen to the fellows who shoot and print fine art prints for a living - they almost all shoot RAW - maybe they might just know something - just a thought

rutt

pathfinder wrote:

If you are getting satisfactory results with jpgs straight from your camera - Be Happy! I shoot lots of jpgs . But if you want the very best your camera can do ( and the 10D can do very good images) - listen to the fellows who shoot and print fine art prints for a living - they almost all shoot RAW - maybe they might just know something - just a thought

OK, next time I'm shooting portraits or macro or landscapes, I'll try RAW. Thanks for clearing up the issue of 16 bit jjpeg. Is that what your images are?

pathfinder

rutt wrote:

OK, next time I'm shooting portraits or macro or landscapes, I'll try RAW. Thanks for clearing up the issue of 16 bit jjpeg. Is that what your images are?

This is a file from RAW




This is from a jpg


But you will not be able to see any difference from looking at the images on the web - only from looking at the originals can you see any diference in quality

As for shooting portraits, macros, landscapes etc in RAW - do that in the Creative zone with the camera in the Av,Tv, Program, or manual mode. If you just turn the MODE dial to the little head signifying portrait or the little mountain signifying landscape the camera defaults to jpgs - not RAW.

darryl

DoctorIt wrote:

But I'd like to be able to just "explore" my windows and see my RAW's the way I see my JPG's. Am I making sense?
....
So, using the internal CS browser, is there some freeware or shareware that gives windows the knowledge to display RAW thumbnails?

Hey guys -- I know this is a stale old thread, but...

I recently came across a Windows Registry hack that allows the seemingly useless .THM files to show up in the Windows Explorer (thumbnail view, preview window, etc.):

http://www.bahneman.com/liem/photos/tricks/digital-rebel-tricks.html#usage

That page has a *bunch* of cool tips on the Rebel (300D), including some firmware hacks that add functionality to it. I'm very temped to install it so I can have a little more control over the flash.

BTW, the THM file isn't completely useless because it contains some metadata (EXIF) that isn't in the RAW (CRW) file itself, at least according to this link: http://www.breezesys.com/BreezeBrowser/help/raw.htm
(Search for EXIF)

So when you do convert the CRW to a JPEG, if you don't have the associated THM file, you may lose some metadata (distance from subject, for instance). Even more on this subject here:

http://www.rogercavanagh.com/helpinfo/13_why_thms.htm

StevenV

darryl wrote:

Hey guys -- I know this is a stale old thread, but...

yea, and getting older every day

darryl wrote:

BTW, the THM file isn't completely useless because it contains some metadata (EXIF) that isn't in the RAW (CRW) file itself, at least according to this link: http://www.breezesys.com/BreezeBrowser/help/raw.htm
(Search for EXIF)

So when you do convert the CRW to a JPEG, if you don't have the associated THM file, you may lose some metadata (distance from subject, for instance). Even more on this subject here:

http://www.rogercavanagh.com/helpinfo/13_why_thms.htm

that last URL's changed, now http://www.rogercavanagh.com/helpinfo/13_why_thms.stm, though it seems to just be copied from the folks at Breeze.

This is because THM's contain the full EXIF data including the undocumented Canon MakerNote and this is simply copied to the converted file. If you don't keep the THM's the EXIF data has to be generated from the CIFF data held in the CRW file and this is less accurate.

I'm not even sure where I'd see a "MakerNote."

I've been through all the sections of PhotoShop's "File Info" screen for an image with it's THM and one without - I can't find anything different between them.

Anyone have something that says what (of use) is really in the THM file that's not in the CRW file?

colourbox

I've seen some threads about this over at the Adobe user forums. Here is one.

StevenV

thanks.

this is interesting, from Adobe's Thomas Knoll

Actually, the ".THM" files directly from the camera don't contain any metadata that is not already in the ".CRW" files.

Now if only we could find someone from Canon writing in a forum...