Still confused about RAW & TIF

Hi,

I've only recently using digital, so please pardon my ignorance.
If shooting in RAW or TIF rather than jpeg, can I still manipulate
images afterwards? And without information loss?

Here's what I'd like to accomplish:
Highest image quality so I can take the occasional image to my local
photography shop for them to make 8X10 to 11X17 prints. But I'd like to
do the noise reduction, cropping and other enhancements myself.

Any suggestions appreciated............

 

Yes and yes.

http://photo.net/learn/raw/

 

The advantages of Raw of Tiff go much further than just no compression loss.
There are a lot more data in the Raw file than in the Tiff file. The only
thing the Tiff file gives you us no lossy compression like JPG. Otherwise it
is the same camera interpolated image. Meaning all of the cameras in camera
processing has been done to the image, noise reduction, sharpness, white
balance, etc.

The Raw file is the Raw data from the cameras sensor and in general doesn't
have any of the image camera processing done to it. Which means you can
change white balance after the fact without loosing image data, etc.

Raw also because of the large amount of data that is available over the
bitmap formats of Tiff or JPG allows you to recover shadow and highlight
data that you couldn't do with TIFF or JPG without causing other problems
like lot of ugly noise in the shadows.

I suggest you find yourself a good Raw processing book and read it. PeachPit
Press has several that are very good http://www.peachpit.com.

R

 

Well the TIF format can be lossless depending on the options you choose
when outputting it.

Also, don't compare RAW with formats like TIF and JPEG, because RAW isn't
an image format, it's just the unprocessed image data that the camera
uses to generate a JPEG or TIF. The advantage of using RAW data is
that you can you can use software to process the image data yourself,
rather than having the camera do it for you.

So with RAW, you're manipulating the data and outputting it as an image
in a non-destructive way, which has many advantages. With that said,
tools such as Adobe Lightroom and Apple Aperture allow you to work with
JPEGs or TIFs in the same way; the software stores the original image so
you can keep manipulating without fear of losing the original.

If you have a fast machine, I would shoot RAW.

Matt

 

If you shoot raw, and you should, then you will convert to an image
format the editer can deal with and edit that format. With photoshop
you can bring the photo directly in without first converting to another
format but when you save you will have to save as something other then
raw, I like either tiff or psd if I am going to do more work on the
photo or jpeg if I am done with it.

If you really want to limit the loss of information when editing your
photos you can use adjustment layers, in this way you are not changing
the underlying data. As an example if you make a number of levels
adjustments to a photo using a single layer each time you make an
adjustment you loss is little bit of data, with an adjustment layer you
avoid this loss in data.

For 95% of my photos the image directly converter from raw is good
enough for what I want
and they get converted directly to jpeg.

The other thing to note is that if you converter the raw file into a
highest quality jpeg and edit that you will get pretty much the same
image as it you converter to a 16 bit/color tiff and edit that, with a
very small set of exceptions. So why work with a jpeg instead of a
tiff file, those 16 bit/ color tiff files are pretty big like 48 MB,
whereas the raw file is closer to 8 MB, this can quickly get to be a
lot of room on the hard drive.

Scott



Scott

 

Correct me if I am wrong, but you should be aware that it is nearly or
completely impossible to send a picture taken in RAW format to anybody
via email. Unless you can change it beforehand to another format.

 

Not true at all, as long as the person you are sending it to has a raw
converter. I have a friend that sends me photos that way, he just
assumes I have a raw converter and as it turns out he is correct.

Scott

 

Irfanview is free and can read a lot of different RAW files.
Otherwise, Adobe DNG conversion and/or Photoshop or alike.
RAW file is significantly smaller than TIFF from the same camera.



#Correct me if I am wrong, but you should be aware that it is nearly
or
#completely impossible to send a picture taken in RAW format to
anybody
#via email. Unless you can change it beforehand to another format.
#
#
#> Hi,
#>
#> I've only recently using digital, so please pardon my ignorance.
#> If shooting in RAW or TIF rather than jpeg, can I still manipulate
#> images afterwards? And without information loss?
#>
#> Here's what I'd like to accomplish:
#> Highest image quality so I can take the occasional image to my
local
#> photography shop for them to make 8X10 to 11X17 prints. But I'd
like to
#> do the noise reduction, cropping and other enhancements myself.
#>
#> Any suggestions appreciated............

 

FastStone Image viewer is also free and I think better than IRFanview
(though I use both) and will also reead RAW files.

 

There is more to data loss than just the compression in the file format.
Most programs that let you edit RAW images do it in a non-destructive way.
Meaning you always have the original RAW image. TIF is not that way. While
some programs like Adobe Lightroom let you edit TIFs and JPGs
non-destructively many do not. The first time you run levels or curves or
something on a TIF image you have data loss. Not so with Raw.

LDC

 

The only thing unique about RAW in this context is that
it's a read-only file format.

AFAIK, no program saves a file in RAW format. RAW
can only be created in a digital camera, and only really
makes sense for images created with Bayer sensors.

[Capturing RAW in a film scanner makes very little
sense, IMO.]

If you edit a TIF file, and save the edits to a new file
name, there's no loss whatsoever in the original.


rafe b
www.terrapinphoto.com

 

But many raw converters allow you to save one or more setting for a
given raw file. The effect is that I can set my adjustments as to how
the file will convert and then go back and shift these setting without
any loss. As an example I might have all my WB set the way I want it
but then decide to adjust the exposure of one image, I can do this
without affecting the underlying data. I can do much of the same thing
saving as PSD files and using adjustment layers, but then these file
are much larger then the rather compact raw format.

Scott

 

One of the less publicised features of Lightroom is that the above
applies to JPEGs as well as RAW or TIFF files (and PSD). I don't know
any others that allow editing of jpegs non-destructively- does anyone?
PLEASE put reply below this to keep the continuity.

 

I'm still digesting all your responses, but I really do appreciate the
help; this a a great newsgroup. Shot my first RAW images at Rockefeller
Center yesterday.

 

Also, if I understand what has been said by others using Lightroom Lightroom
allows you to export your images (including JPG and TIF) as a DNG which
would make it Raw. Now not in the true sense of the word since neither JPG
or TIF contain anywhere close to the amount of data a real Raw file has but
it does show that Raw files at least DNG ones are not read only.

LJC

 

What are you getting at? And could you not top post??

 

What are you getting at and you can you not top post! Having to sift through
all of the other crap in a post trying to find the reply is bull!

LJC

 

There is not a lot more data in the RAW over the TIFF file. The data in the
RAW file is linear in nature, which the TIFF file is not. Thus, in the RAW
file, 1/2 of all the information in the file is in the top stop of exposure.
In short, this means that you should attempt to shoot as exposed as possible
without clipping; then, adjust exposure to what was desired during post
processing. This assures the maximum amount of detail in your final viewable
image.

Changing these settings are just metadata values of the RAW file [like
changing the name ... it doesn't affect the actual image data] and these
values are applied during conversion to RGB (or whatever).

Nothing to do with a larger amount of data [or information]. See my comment
above.

 

Your above statement isn't correct. There is no way to know which has more
information based upon file format. Equal sized uncompressed TIFF and RAW
with the same bit depth should be similarily sized. The difference is in what
the data is that each file contains. RAW contains raw linear data captured
by the sensor and TIFF contains RGB data, which is non-linear.

The key difference to remember is that with RAW you are working with linear
data and with TIFF (or JPEG) you are not.

 

Of course, the real reason you top post is because you use Outlook Express and
it is hard to post "correctly" in that program.

Take a look at this little add-in that will allow you to do it should you feel
motivated.

http://home.in.tum.de/~jain/software/oe-quotefix/