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Author Topic: Is the line between RAW vs RGB too fuzzy in LR?  (Read 4221 times)

NikosR

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Is the line between RAW vs RGB too fuzzy in LR?
« on: March 07, 2007, 08:58:31 am »

Playing around with LR, I have the sense that the line is very fuzzy in terms of the user interface between working with RAW data, linearised 'RAW' and RGB data.

For example, one can 'tune the WB' or 'adjust the exposure' on either kind of file. Obviously the underlying processing (and capabilities) are different (are they?)  but from the user's point of view there seems to be no difference.

I believe this is a deliberate design decision probably in an attempt to provide 'unified and input agnostic image processing' but personally I find it frustrating.

Am I an exception here or do others share my point of view? Maybe I'm missing something? I admit I have not worked with LR for too long.
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Nikos

Tim Gray

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Is the line between RAW vs RGB too fuzzy in LR?
« Reply #1 on: March 07, 2007, 09:08:20 am »

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I believe this is a deliberate design decision probably in an attempt to provide 'unified and input agnostic image processing' but personally I find it frustrating.
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Frustrating in what sense?  If you shoot 100% JPG or 100% RAW the issue never arises, and if you shoot some of each, I'd have thought that a relatively consistent workflow would ease frustration.
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NikosR

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Is the line between RAW vs RGB too fuzzy in LR?
« Reply #2 on: March 07, 2007, 09:15:16 am »

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Frustrating in what sense?  If you shoot 100% JPG or 100% RAW the issue never arises, and if you shoot some of each, I'd have thought that a relatively consistent workflow would ease frustration.
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Well, yes and  no. I mainly (like 99%) shoot raw, but sometimes I might have to import RGB files to LR which have been converted by an external RAW converter.

To put it simply, I would like to know which buttons work on RAW and which on RGB data (implying an internal conversion from RAW to RGB when the input is in RAW) in order to use the best tool for the job.

On another level, I recently saw a question in another forum by a somewhat novice user, asking whether we need RAW now that we have LR and we can change things like WB and exposure on jpeg files... See the confusion?
« Last Edit: March 07, 2007, 09:29:50 am by NikosR »
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Nikos

CatOne

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Is the line between RAW vs RGB too fuzzy in LR?
« Reply #3 on: March 07, 2007, 10:56:04 am »

Why should a distinction between RAW and non-RAW really be necessary?  That's what is nice about applications like Lightroom and Aperture -- they let you work with RAW files as though they were "RGB" files.  Edit your files, without worrying about what the underlying representation is.

Because it doesn't matter.  Both Lightroom and Aperture apply NO changes to the original files, whether they are RAW or TIFF files.  They store changes as "adjustments" in the database, and apply the corrections ONLY in the case that you export to a format such as TIFF or JPEG (often for a final output step).

Your question from a "novice" user indicates they still don't understand what's going on.  With tools like ACR you have a definitive input and output step -- output of ACR is a PSD file that is opened by Photoshop, and at that time the file has had permanent changes applied.  In Lightroom and Aperture, this need not happen.  Apple's marketing focuses on clarifying this distinction a bit, perhaps it's a good reference for this.
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jjj

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Is the line between RAW vs RGB too fuzzy in LR?
« Reply #4 on: March 07, 2007, 10:59:53 am »

Quote
On another level, I recently saw a question in another forum by a somewhat novice user, asking whether we need RAW now that we have LR and we can change things like WB and exposure on jpeg files... See the confusion?
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The novice was showing his lack of knowledge as you cannot alter WB in post on a JPEG. You can try and correct it, but that is not the same thing. At all.
I hope you corrected him on that.
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NikosR

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Is the line between RAW vs RGB too fuzzy in LR?
« Reply #5 on: March 07, 2007, 12:27:23 pm »

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The novice was showing his lack of knowledge as you cannot alter WB in post on a JPEG. You can try and correct it, but that is not the same thing. At all.
I hope you corrected him on that.
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Of course it is a different thing. The difference is between working on RAW data and RGB.

 But when the 'novice' works in Lightroom he sees that he can change the WB in 'exactly' the same way that he can do with RAW. See my point now? Nothing in the lightroom interface makes a distinction so the 'novice' cannot tell.

Should he be able to tell? I think so, maybe others have a different opinion.
« Last Edit: March 07, 2007, 12:31:11 pm by NikosR »
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Nikos

61Dynamic

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Is the line between RAW vs RGB too fuzzy in LR?
« Reply #6 on: March 07, 2007, 12:48:03 pm »

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Of course it is a different thing. The difference is between working on RAW data and RGB.

 But when the 'novice' works in Lightroom he sees that he can change the WB in 'exactly' the same way that he can do with RAW. See my point now? Nothing in the lightroom interface makes a distinction so the 'novice' cannot tell.

Should he be able to tell? I think so, maybe others have a different opinion.
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Sure you can tell. If you adjust the Jpeg too much it'll look like crap where the raw file will maintain image quality. The novice is simply naive of what is going on with image data. He/she needs to be taught that raw data is still raw data regardless what tools are being used.

Just because a novice is confused about a subject they don't know anything about is hardly a reason to make a program more complicated in design. A novice will be confused regardless how things are simply because they don't know what they need to know yet. That's part of being a novice. Learning how stuff works.

Complication is what would happen if there were a different set of controls for bitmaps than raw images. The whole reason for having unified controls is to streamline the interface and workflow. Why does someone need to learn two sets of controls to do the same thing?

Lightroom was designed not to be Photoshop.
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seanmcfoto

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Is the line between RAW vs RGB too fuzzy in LR?
« Reply #7 on: March 07, 2007, 12:58:15 pm »

The WB with Jpeg/Tiff in Lightroom is a relative scale, whereas RAW has a Kelvin scale. I think it's immediately noticeable.
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orangekay

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Is the line between RAW vs RGB too fuzzy in LR?
« Reply #8 on: March 09, 2007, 07:07:53 am »

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Of course it is a different thing. The difference is between working on RAW data and RGB.

I think you need to find another term besides RGB to refer to de-mosaiced, gamma adjusted images as every commercially available camera that I'm aware of is recording RGB data regardless of file format.
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tomrock

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Is the line between RAW vs RGB too fuzzy in LR?
« Reply #9 on: March 09, 2007, 11:26:30 am »

You could color the non-raw files with one of the available colors. Find them with the metadata browser. That way they'd stand out.
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