RAW images - why and how to...

[Marko]

Hmm this is from another thread with good info from Ben H

Originally Posted by Lovin
How should I process RAW images? Is anything special about this post-processing?

Ben H answered
When a camera takes a picture in JPG mode (ie, not RAW), the camera does the following:-

- Grab the data from the sensor
- Adjust the colour temperature (white balance) according to its own settings (or user settings)
- Adjust the contrast according to its own settings (or user settings)
- Adjust the colour according to its own settings (or user settings)
- Sharpen the data according to its own settings (or user settings)
- Save/compress to JPG according to its own settings (or user settings)

So given this, RAW data is just the data from the first step above.

Once you have that, then you may want to adjust those other things in a manner similar to how the camera would. RAW images in general are often flat and soft, so they do benefit from contrast adjustments and definitely sharpening. You sometimes may need to adjust the white balance too.

But as always, these things are down to you, and depend upon your tastes and the image in question.

I do agree though that at first it's difficult to assess what you "should do" to a RAW image - a podcast on this would be beneficial to a lot of people I think, so it's a good idea.

But as always, the more images you do, the better you develop your understanding and experience to make good decisions.

Question - what program will you use to process your RAW images?
thx Marko

[Lovin]

I'm using Adobe Lightroom 2, and Photoshop CS2.