Digital Diversity

This is going to be a fairly long one so I would make sure you have some supplies ready. Maybe a snack on stand by and your favourite method of getting your caffeine fix at the ready.

I want to cover several key areas:

RAW and Jpeg – whats the difference?

An introduction to Adobe Camera RAW (ACR)

Processing your images from RAW to final Jpeg

This should leave you understanding what a RAW file is and what advantages and disadvantages it gives you. The processing tutorial will also be more advanced than my previous article on basic photo processing.

RAW and Jpeg – Whats the difference?

If you have picked up and used a camera before you will have heard of a Jpeg. It’s the file type that the picture is saved as. It is a type of file that can compress an image reducing its file size so it uses less space on your hard drive. It does this by deleting data it thinks is not needed and then mathematically attempts to restore this data when the file is opened. You can also choose the level of compression. You can have a Jpeg that hardly compressed at all as well as one with huge compression. The difference is that a largely compressed file will lose quality. If you looked at a very high quality and a low quality Jpeg side by side there would be a large difference.

What your camera does when you take a picture is gather light information on its sensor. This is then turned into a readable image. At this point you would consider this the stage where the RAW file would be created. Your camera then applies a set of edits to this data. For example it alters the contrast, saturation, noise reduction and sharpening to what ever the in camera settings have told it to do. Then it saves this data as a Jpeg on your memory card.

I will use my own camera (fz-28) as an example. It produces 10MP images. This gives me a Jpeg thats about 5-6 MB in size. If you looked at a RAW file from this camera it would be about 10-12 MB in size. This means that the compression process has thrown out about half the original data.

A RAW file is the data taken directly from the sensor and totally unedited by the camera. For this it doesn’t matter what your in camera settings are as they wont effect this file type. Simply put, a RAW file is the raw data from the camera.

So why do some people use RAW and some use Jpeg? Well this debate has been going on for a long time. Lots of myths arise about both and anyone new to photography can easily end up getting confused. Hopefully my explanation will stick to the facts to make it plain and simple.

I have heard many people saying crazy thing like

“if you shoot RAW you can edit the image as you want, if you shoot Jpeg your are basically stuck with what you get out the camera”

This is totally untrue and a complete exaggeration. I used to shoot Jpeg and I still edited my photos all the time. The reality is that almost everything you can edit in RAW you can edit on a Jpeg as well. So why use RAW?

RAW will do it better. Why?
• Because it has more data to work with. No compression has occurred meaning you have 100% of the data your camera recorded.
• More data means its easier to recover highlight and shadow detail
• Your camera cant see the image as you do, its edits are just presets that will hopefully work. This means a Jpeg has been half processed for you then compressed.
• Your cameras edits may be too harsh causing even further loss of detail.
• RAW will have no compression artifacts.
• Software such as Photoshop can process an image a lot better than a camera set on autopilot can.

Does all this mean you shouldn’t shoot Jpeg? Of course not. If you shoot Jpeg and are happy with the results then by all means carry on. If you only print small size images then you wont notice the problem’s compression can cause. Jpegs also have an advantage in that they are faster and take up less storage space.

It’s a quality over time issue. The choice is yours and you need to make that decision yourself.

I now almost exclusively shoot in RAW. I want 100% out of my images and I’m willing to put in the time to process them. I processed my images when they were Jpegs so I may as well use RAW and get the best quality I possibly can.

An introduction to Adobe Camera RAW (ACR)

If like me you shoot in RAW then you need a program that can convert your RAW files into a usable file. Raw files are not called .RAW, each camera may have its own file type. For example the fz-28 uses .rw2.

The program I use is Adobe Camera RAW (I will now refer to as ACR). It comes free with all versions of Photoshop and is built into the program. If your RAW files dont open you may need to update you version of ACR or possibly even Photoshop if you have a very old version and a very new camera.

The best way to think of ACR is as the part of the processing that the camera does for you when shooting in Jpeg. It allows you to make quite a few edits to the image before it is then moved on into Photoshop.

Above you can see a RAW image that has been placed into ACR. In the top left you can see several tools you can use including crop and alignment options. On the right you can see the options for image correction.

From top to bottom.

White balance – 2 ways of changing it. Pre-sets from the drop down menu or the temperature slider below. I tend to use the slider. Below this is the tint slider which will push the image more towards the greens or the magentas. Using these three options you should be able to get the white balance perfect.

Exposure – Use this slider to increase or decrease the exposure

Recovery – Darkens the highlights of the image

Fill light – Lightens the shadows

Blacks – increases / decreased the strength of the blacks in the image

Brightness – increases / decreases the brightness

Contrast – increases / decreases the contrast

Clarity –  increase / decrease the contrast in the mid-tones making your image less flat.

vibrance - Increases the saturation of non-saturated areas while leaving highly saturated areas alone.

Saturation – Increases the saturation of all colours

There are also a few more options to look at. Above these options and under the histogram are 3 symbols. Click on the one with 2 triangles. This will open up some new options for you to see. Personally I would ignore the mask and sharpening ones. I do all this later in Photoshop. However if you dont have an external noise reduction software you may wont to use the sliders below. Make sure you are viewing the image at 100% (it wont show you the effect otherwise) and move the luminance and colour noise sliders around. You will notice the image noise levels reducing but also loosing slight detail. Find the right balance (dont over do it) for the image. Your image will look soft afterwards but you can sharpen this up again later.

I stopped using RAW for a while when I got bored having to process all my shots including my snaps. The reason I have come back to RAW is because I found a way to automate the process for all the snap shots. The default setting for ACR leave your image looking rather dull and flat. They will be what they are on my first image above. What I discovered is that you can save your own settings as defaults. The second image above shows what I use as my presets. This leaves shots looking acceptable. They have a lot more colour and contrast than they would with the ACR defaults which makes snap shots look fine as they are. To save your own presets simply open an image. Change the settings till it looks good enough. Click the symbol to the right hand side of the word basic. This opens a drop down menu. From here select the option to save settings as defaults. Now every RAW file you open in ACR will have these settings as a starting point.

To mass process your shots at these settings open up Photoshop.

In elements:
Go to file > process multiple files. set up the options for where the image can be found, the destination folder and then the settings you want. I keep them at the size they are and save them as maximum quality Jpegs.

In CS:
Go File > Automate > Batch and go through the settings to get the results you want.

These methods will open all files in the folder you selected, apply the ACR defaults you have set then save them as Jpegs in a new folder. It’s basically what your camera does for you except you now have the RAW files for all the image you want to spend that extra time on.

Why not shoot RAW and High quality Jpeg instead? Well thats a lot of extra room being used on your memory cards and not all cameras allow this option. The fz-28 only allows RAW and medium quality Jpegs.

So thats an introduction to ACR and how it works. Next its time to looks at my work flow from RAW to Jpeg

Processing your images from RAW to final Jpeg

First thing I do after uploading my RAW files to my PC is to make a new folder for them in elements organiser. This allows me to view all my shots in one place. I then go through them and delete the obvious one (out of focus etc etc)

With the badly shot ones deleted I can now batch process the rest. Using the method above this leaves me with basic processed snaps of all the shots from that day. I tend to have 2 folders in each image category. One for snaps and one for retouched. So all the images will end up as snaps (including the ones I will also retouch). While the PC is doing that I’ll go do something else, play with the dog or something I guess.

When thats done will then go back into my organiser and start editing the images I want to take more time on (or ‘keepers’ as people like to call them).

I wouldn’t class the image I will use as a keeper but it will serve its purpose in this tutorial.

Open up your RAW file into ACR.

The image should have the defaults you have set up previously. For example I have it pre-set to increase the contrast, clarity, vibrance and saturation. I may tweak all of these further if I feel the need.

One thing you will need to almost always adjust is the white balance. Simply move the temperature slider until you get the warmth your after. In this image I also needed to increase the shadow detail as it was far to dark.

The image is now a lot lighter and warmer. The colours are looking acceptable and its time for some more precise editing in Photoshop. Click Open Image to transfer it to Photoshops full edit mode.

The first thing I do when an image is in Photoshop is to add a level’s adjustment layer. Go Layer > add new adjustment layer > Levels.

Your level’s window will now open. The histogram clearly shows that the highlights have been cut off short. This is why the image is rather dark. Move the white, right hand slider to the left to meet the edge of the histogram. You should notice that the image lightens up somewhat. I also very slightly move the shadow’s slider on the left in. You can see the shadow’s detail peaks on the far left. move the slider just past this to correct it. This tool makes a huge difference to your pictures. Get this bit right and your image can sometimes look leagues ahead of what it did before. It will help correct lighting colours and contrast. Remember you can select each individual channel (red, green and blue) and edit them separately. In fact the next step is doing just that.

My camera leaves a slight red cast on my images. To get rid of this select Red from the drop down menu and move in the shadow’s slider on the left very slightly. You can imput this in the number box below if you prefer. In this case changing it from 0 to 5 helps remove the colour cast.

Remember each camera and photo is different. You may need to slightly alter different channels to the ones I have. Have a practise on a few pictures you have taken and work out what yields the best results for you.

There are other ways to correct lighting in the levels adjustments. Rather than correct the histogram in the master channel, you can just do each individual channel. Sometimes this gets better results sometimes it doesn’t. Use your own judgement. You may also notice the 3 eye dropper icons. This can be a quick way to correct lighting. The left is the blacks, middle is the greys and right is the whites. If you click the white’s eye dropper and then click a place in your image that is meant to be pure white it will adjust the levels on the whole image to suit that information. The same goes for using the blacks and greys eye dropper. I tend not to bother with these and do it by eye using the channels and sliders.

With these changes made your image should have a fair bit more punch with stronger colours and contrast.

The next step for me is to add a Hue / Saturation adjustment layer. Go Layer > New adjustment layer > Hue / Saturation.

With the channel (drop down menu called edit) set to master, I up the saturation slightly. In this case I increased it to 10. You can change the channel to a variety of colours to be edited individually. In this image I want to reduce the yellows slightly so I select Yellows and reduce the saturation.

The final result should have more punchy greens with a more realistic looking water and bank.

In this image I want to make the red of the otter’s fur stand out more. The problem is that if I increase the Red’s saturation in this same adjustment layer then I will increase the reds on the whole image. What I need to do is create a second Hue/ Saturation adjustment layer. Add this in the same way you added the last one. Then increase the red’s saturation till the fur looks correct. Ignore the effects on the rest of the image.

The next step is to use the adjustment layers mask so that these effects only take place on the fur. Select the mask (white box on the adjustment layer window). The way I do this is to Alt + left click the layer mask. The screen will now turn white. What you are seeing is the mask itself. Then press Ctrl + I to make it all black. When using a mask, black is hide and white is reveal. What I have done here is make the whole mask black so its effects arent seen anywhere on the image. Click on the adjustment layers symbol to go back to image view. Now select a soft white brush. Make sure the mask is selected and paint white over the fur. The final result should mean only the red fur has increased red saturation.

I am now left with an image that has the colours just as I want them.

After I have made these colour corrections I create a new flattened layer above my other layers. The next step can’t be done on an adjustment layer so I need a flattened version of what I have done to work on. Press Shift + Ctrl + Alt + E to create this new layer.

Open up a Shadows and highlights adjustment.

I use this adjustment to balance the lighting a little bit more. After all the edits you may find your image has shadows that are too dark or highlights that are too bright. Use this adjustment to correct this. For this image I just brought the highlights down to balance better with the shadows. I did this by setting the Darken Highlights slider to 17%. Hit OK.

This does leave the image looking slightly dark. To fix this is a matter of slightly adjusting the exposure of the shot. Duplicate the top layer. do this by right clicking on it and selecting duplicate layer. On this new layer change the blend mode to screen. You will notice the image gets very bright. Alter the strength of this effect by adjusting the opacity of the layer. In this case an opacity of about 50% seemed to do to trick.

The next step would normally be for me to use noise reduction. As I have said in my previous processing tutorial, I will skip this step as there are many methods and opinions on how to do this. Photoshops built in noise reduction isn’t very good. The ACR version is better but still lacking. I personally use Neat Image. If you can get away without noise reduction then that is best because noise reduction does reduce detail. However using it carefully can give you great results.

So with that step skipped my final step is always sharpening. Create a new flattened layer with the Shift + Ctrl + Alt + E method.

If using CS I would suggest using UnSharp mask. If using elements then you can use this or the adjust sharpness option. Both were mentioned in my basic processing article near the end. For this tutorial I will only show the element’s method.

You will find adjust sharpness under the adjustment options. With the top flattened layer selected open up this adjustment window.

The amount of sharpening needed varies from image to image. What I tend to leave the same every time is the radius at 1.5 and the Remove on Lens Blur. Keep the preview window at 100%, find a key visual point on your image and move the Amount slider till your happy. You can see a before and after on this preview by simply clicking on it. While the mouse is clicked down it shows the before. Release and it shows the after. Once the image is sharpened click OK.

Thats the lot. You have now taken an image from RAW and made all the edits needed. The only thing left to do is save your image as a Jpeg.

Once I have made all the edits to the RAW files I class as keepers I then go and delete all the RAWS that I didn’t do further edits on. Seeing as they were all just snaps there is no need for them. I do keep all the RAWs of the keepers though. If I ever need to re-edit them in the future or maybe a client wanted a TIFF version I could open up the file, apply the edits as before and save as a TIFF instead of a Jpeg meaning the client would get maximum quality.

Tags: adjustment layers, advanced editing, colour correction, colour pop, colours, contrast, elements, highlights, hue, hue / saturation, Jpeg, layers, levels, lighting, panasonic fz28, panasonic lumix fz28, photo editing, photoshop, processing, RAW, saturation, shadows, sharpening, thoughts, tutorial, tutorials

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 15th, 2009 at 11:37 and is filed under photography, photoshop. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.