RAW woes

[tonygamble]

I find it almost impossible to reproduce the detail and sharpness of a jpg from a raw edit....the tones and colors are often better but its hard I find to nail the detail to the same level of the jpg without a lot of work if at all

That is really disappointing to someone who has never even bothered to set a camera to record jpgs (except in the very early days when the one built into the RAW file was too small for batch culling). I shoot RAW only all the time. I would never have thought ot bothering to save in camera jpgs.

[croos]

Isn't the curve displayed on the Grey tab the base curve? It looks the same as the base curve in other programs.

[priort]

I'm only using version 8 with DNG so maybe i missed this for the older version that can do raw imports I believe...sometime color space can be an issue as well....images saved or manipulated in a large color space can appear dark if displayed on a monitor that only displays sRGB and if the image has not been saved or converted to that space...Even so maybe your curve needs tweaked....I have more experience with Darktable and there are a range of camera specific base curves employed with it or a module called filmic to create a tone curve....I am not sure how the older version of PWP handles raw imports.....

[priort]

I find it almost impossible to reproduce the detail and sharpness of a jpg from a raw edit....the tones and colors are often better but its hard I find to nail the detail to the same level of the jpg without a lot of work if at all

That is really disappointing to someone who has never even bothered to set a camera to record jpgs (except in the very early days when the one built into the RAW file was too small for batch culling). I shoot RAW only all the time. I would never have thought ot bothering to save in camera jpgs.

It might be worth checking out...there are many proponents of JPEG files...esp if lighting and focus are fine....you will be able to find many opinions to just stick with the JPG files...which contrary to misconceptions and esp for display on devices can also be edited and pushed quite far if need be...certainly not to the degree of the raw files but usually noise and sharpness and tone can be already set by the camera and be bang on so editing the raw is just extra work if you have a nice JPG already.....

[priort]

I usually sharpen in PWP although there is no harm is doing some light sharpening in the raw converter.

Because I have been very interested in learning what functions in so-called raw processors actually work with original raw data and had difficulty finding a source of this information that I felt was reliable, I jumped at the opportunity last year to have a conversation about this with a person who identified himself as a member of the RawTherapee development team. (That's not the raw software I use.) He told me that, for example, the sharpening algorithms in that software do not work with original raw data. Instead they are manipulating the RGB output of the conversion process. He said that data would be identical to the data that could be saved in a 16-bit tiff at that point.

He said that if there are differences in sharpening result between sharpening within RawTherapee or using the 16-bit tiff in other software, the differences would be solely due to differences in the algorithms and not because they were working with different data. I have yet to learn if other raw software uses raw data in the sharpening process or are also manipulating the RGB output of the conversion process.

Doug I have 2 suggested references for you in your quest to understand this...go to Cambridge in Color website...they have excellent illustrated tutorials on raw workflow and every aspect of the digital imaging process from the initial capture of the light...https://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutor ... format.htm The link is an example I would poke around the site its great...also there is an engineer that created a module for Darktable.....he talks about the whole concept of light and the aspects of scene referred light and elements that affect the collection of the raw file and subsequent processing...if you want a nice physics tutorial he sketches it out nicely.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FFU-Ltvm0I

[priort]

Isn't the curve displayed on the Grey tab the base curve? It looks the same as the base curve in other programs.

I'm only using version 8 with DNG so maybe i missed this for the older version that can do raw imports I believe...sometime color space can be an issue as well....images saved or manipulated in a large color space can appear dark if displayed on a monitor that only displays sRGB and if the image has not been saved or converted to that space...Even so maybe your curve needs tweaked....I have more experience with Darktable and there are a range of camera specific base curves employed with it or a module called filmic to create a tone curve....I am not sure how the older version of PWP handles raw imports.....

[croos]

Yes, this is v. 7. Color space is the same.

My original question has boiled down to pure curiosity now and me trying to understand. Since v. 8 doesn't support RAW (more than DNG) and I need lens correction, I've realized it's better for me to use other software for the RAW bit.

[priort]

Yes, this is v. 7. Color space is the same.

My original question has boiled down to pure curiosity now and me trying to understand. Since v. 8 doesn't support RAW (more than DNG) and I need lens correction, I've realized it's better for me to use other software for the RAW bit.

I went back and looked and the gray tab base curve looked pretty shallow....I should go back and get the old version and experiment with that part....