What one gains from Raw

[eronald]

I've just printed one of my D3x images from Jpeg to A2, and got a very nice picture; so I decided to see what one actually gains from Raw these days. My impression is that on the D3x you gain one generation, roughly - you get a D4x

Edmund

[Rob C]

I've just printed one of my D3x images from Jpeg to A2, and got a very nice picture; so I decided to see what one actually gains from Raw these days. My impression is that on the D3x you gain one generation, roughly - you get a D4x

Edmund

Edmund, you should also post on the Art section of this site: you have the mental gymnastics required.

Rob C

[AlexM]

D4x? you mean H4D?  

[Ray]

Edmund appears to be a very intelligent guy who has defected to FF 35mm format. That's very interesting   .

[eronald]

Yeah, ok, I haven't been printing for 3 months so I was rusty. And I'm not the sharpest knife in the box these days

However, I've now run my files thru camera Jpeg, Raw Developer and CS4 . On balance, I'd say that the added color depth in the Nef is nice, but the added sharpness is probably not worth it for any normal sized print, even cropped. I'm now going to try the in-camera Tiffs and setting the camera to Adobe RGB space for Jpeg files.

CS4 seems better than expected compared to RD, but the  deconvolution in RD can extract some really cute detail at the price of artefacts.

Memo to digital back owners - good Jpeg files are worth gold. This part Nikon have done properly, I'd say almost perfectly.



Ray -
Im' not feeling very smart, but my "regression" is all about handling, speed, hi-iso. The focus speed and accuracy on the D3x is unbelievable, and the $100 50/1.8 is frighteningly good for any price.

Edmund

[digitaldog]

I’m actually surprised you’d have to ask this question!

Few would say in camera JPEGs are bad (they can be if you do something wrong in terms of white balance or exposure etc). The key to Raw is control. If you always love the JPEG (and don’t mind an 8-bit small gamut capture, including Adobe RGB (1998)), by all means do so. Many of us want control over rendering, bit depth and gamut. Some are fine sending their images to one hour labs or even Pro labs while others have to control the print process. I would have suspected you fell into the 2nd camp but maybe not. If you like the JPEGs, stick with them. It would be silly to say that the camera manufacturers haven’t spend a huge amount of time and money (R&D) preforming in camera JPEG conversions from the Raw originals.

[eronald]

I’m actually surprised you’d have to ask this question!

Few would say in camera JPEGs are bad (they can be if you do something wrong in terms of white balance or exposure etc). The key to Raw is control. If you always love the JPEG (and don’t mind an 8-bit small gamut capture, including Adobe RGB (1998)), by all means do so. Many of us want control over rendering, bit depth and gamut. Some are fine sending their images to one hour labs or even Pro labs while others have to control the print process. I would have suspected you fell into the 2nd camp but maybe not. If you like the JPEGs, stick with them. It would be silly to say that the camera manufacturers haven’t spend a huge amount of time and money (R&D) preforming in camera JPEG conversions from the Raw originals.

Hi Andrew,

 Yes, they spent the money, with varying results. As far as I'm concerned, the D3x has usable results for in-camera Jpegs. I don't enjoy the hours I need to invest in image-by-image Raw adjustment for Phase or the 5DII, when all I need is basically a lab-quality image. Of course, when I am pushing an image for all it's worth it's a different story. By the way, I did use to use a lab for A4 client prints - I profiled the lab first and results were then really good.

 Now, to get back to the Nikon Nefs, I've just discovered that CS4 smart sharpen is actually very nice - convert *without* sharpening in ACR, then run smart sharpen with a low radius in lieu of capture sharpening.

 And by the way, I've adopted those tiny Canon printers - strangely they work way better on my Nikon than on my Canon, but they're well worth dropping into one's luggage.

Edmund

[digitaldog]

I don't enjoy the hours I need to invest in image-by-image Raw adjustment for Phase or the 5DII, when all I need is basically a lab-quality image.

If you’re spending hours and hours, you’re doing something wrong.... Or you’re using the wrong Raw converter/tool. At least I’m not seeing that issue with my 5DMII and Lightroom.

I've just discovered that CS4 smart sharpen is actually very nice - convert *without* sharpening in ACR, then run smart sharpen with a low radius in lieu of capture sharpening.

Maybe you discovered something the late Bruce Fraser didn’t, or maybe Adobe has updated that technology, but at the time, Bruce found nothing smart about it nor found the need to incorporate it into PhotoKit Sharpener.

Personally, I’d far prefer to do metadata, non destructive capture and output sharpening in Lightroom.

[eronald]

Andrew,

  You know how it is, you test stuff, then you do production with a stable set of tools, and then suddenly you look at some new versions and stuff has changed. CS4 Smart Sharpen on D3x files is a pleasant surprise; I think it works especially well on the Nikon files because of the low noise. For Canon of course, there's always the incredible DPP sharpening, the first one which really, really worked.

 I think the day of smart sharpen may have come - for capture sharpening. Does LR have a Raw version of this embedded?

Edmund  

If you’re spending hours and hours, you’re doing something wrong.... Or you’re using the wrong Raw converter/tool. At least I’m not seeing that issue with my 5DMII and Lightroom.


Maybe you discovered something the late Bruce Fraser didn’t, or maybe Adobe has updated that technology, but at the time, Bruce found nothing smart about it nor found the need to incorporate it into PhotoKit Sharpener.

Personally, I’d far prefer to do metadata, non destructive capture and output sharpening in Lightroom.

[digitaldog]

Does LR have a Raw version of this embedded?

ACR and LR have capture and output sharpening based on Bruce’s work and PhotoKit Sharpener.

[eronald]

ACR and LR have capture and output sharpening based on Bruce’s work and PhotoKit Sharpener.

I tried the  ACR sharpening, and while it works, I found smart sharpen on an unsharpened file to be preferable. Other users may have a different and equally founded opinion.

I still need to test some more converters on that file.

Edmund

[Juanito]

I've got nothing against jpeg - shot it for years. If you're looking for SOOC images, jpeg is the bomb. Where jpeg falls down though is once you start pushing things. Try vignetting a sky and you'll see banding. Want to bring back some blown highlights? Forget it.

I still shoot some jpeg at weddings - usually at the reception where I'll often shoot thousands of images. But for my personal, portrait or  commercial work, it's raw all the way.

John

[Tyler Mallory]

my "regression" is all about handling, speed, hi-iso.

Edmund

Each of these three items would be an argument for RAW, not JPEG, both in shooting and in processing. Worrying about color balance while shooting? No thanks. Making sure to get the best capture under rapidly changing conditions? Not for JPEG. Making edits/adjustments after the fact for many images? Copy and paste simple in RAW.
Storage space and camera handling are no longer factors with the current crop of cameras and Cards, and the Nikon D3 is certainly as capable as they come.

Remember, which ever mode you are shooting in, the camera is always capturing RAW. Shooting in JPEG mode just means you have elected to do your post-processing on the spot, and permanently commit those edits to a final file in one swoop. Not bad if you get it right, but problematic when you get it wrong.

[RobertJ]

I found smart sharpen on an unsharpened file to be preferable.

I was surprised when I recently processed old Canon files in ACR, with zero sharpening, then sharpen afterwards.  I compared the files to the same ones that I processed in C1 3.7 from around 2 years ago, and the difference is very huge.  The ACR workflow gave me cleaner and sharper files, and they tended to take more abuse (they were "thicker"), and can take even more sharpening than the ones from old school C1, (but they didn't need it).  But I still like C13.x.x better than C14...

I think half the fun of RAW is that you can go back and process in different programs, or even the same program, and be like, "Wow, that's much better, I must've been an idiot or drunk at the time I processed that one file..."

[eronald]

If you're processing Canon files, you should look at DPP, it has an incredible Raw sharpening tool.
Which is not surprising, Canon doubtless have accurate measurements of their lowpass filters, so they can deconvolve their effect.

I've been playing with my Nikon D3x files, and so far C1 is the winner ... but NX2 has not yet spoken.

Edmund

I was surprised when I recently processed old Canon files in ACR, with zero sharpening, then sharpen afterwards.  I compared the files to the same ones that I processed in C1 3.7 from around 2 years ago, and the difference is very huge.  The ACR workflow gave me cleaner and sharper files, and they tended to take more abuse (they were "thicker"), and can take even more sharpening than the ones from old school C1, (but they didn't need it).  But I still like C13.x.x better than C14...

I think half the fun of RAW is that you can go back and process in different programs, or even the same program, and be like, "Wow, that's much better, I must've been an idiot or drunk at the time I processed that one file..."

[yaya]

I've been playing with my Nikon D3x files, and so far C1 is the winner ... but NX2 has not yet spoken.

Edmund

I am trial-ing NX2 for my D5000 files (why doesn't it come free with the camera is beyond me) and while the rendering is very good and most of the tools are there or thereabout, it is so clunky and unintuitive it's just not useable at all (for me at least). C1 is as good IQ wise plus it is much more powerful and useable...

[eronald]

I am trial-ing NX2 for my D5000 files (why doesn't it come free with the camera is beyond me) and while the rendering is very good and most of the tools are there or thereabout, it is so clunky and unintuitive it's just not useable at all (for me at least). C1 is as good IQ wise plus it is much more powerful and useable...

Wait! STop Press! I'm going to give our darling free GIMP and UFRaw another chance! Last time I looked it was pretty good.

Edmund

[eronald]

Yair,

I think I'm going round in circles. C1 is good. ACR has got much better. RD is not ok with the D3x although it is superb in many other cases. The Gimp is not quit there yet. But:

My conclusion for now is yet again that D3x in-camera Jpegs -while not as flexible as the Raw converter product-  are extraordinarily good, and I am now going to play round some more with the camera settings, maybe try and get the camera to write large-depth AdobeRGB tiffs.

Nowadays I prefer to spend more time getting the shot right than in post. I must be getting older.

 
Edmund

[yaya]

Yair,

I think I'm going round in circles. C1 is good. ACR has got much better. RD is not ok with the D3x although it is superb in many other cases. The Gimp is not quit there yet. But:

My conclusion for now is yet again that D3x in-camera Jpegs -while not as flexible as the Raw converter product-  are extraordinarily good, and I am now going to play round some more with the camera settings, maybe try and get the camera to write large-depth AdobeRGB tiffs.

Nowadays I prefer to spend more time getting the shot right than in post. I must be getting older.

 
Edmund

I'm also quite happy with the jpegs from the D5000...still a bit annoying as it writes them into the same volume with the NEF files...