Paul Saunders wrote:
wrote:

When exporting a RAW file to TIFF, should the TIFF look exactly like
the RAW file, in terms of color, clarity, sharpness, etc.?

Actually, you can't "see" a RAW file, it's just data. It has to be
converted to something else before you can see it. When you look at RAW
files on your hard drive or in an image browser, you're probably looking at
the jpeg thumbnails that the camera saved at the same time, or a jpeg
embedded with the RAW file. When you look at a preview of a RAW file, the
preview is an on-the-fly conversion. Adobe Bridge actually creates its own
thumbnails direct from the RAW files, but it's a slow process so it shows
the jpegs initially while it does the conversions. If you look carefully
you can see them changing colour as they are processed.

The jpeg thumbnails that are saved with the RAW files use whatever camera
settings were in force when you took the photo (same as if you saved a jpeg
instead of a RAW file) but your RAW converter probably uses different
settings.

It seems
my TIFFs are a little dull, somewhat "hazy" I guess you would say.
Curves, color adjustments, background highlights, and sharpening bring
them almost back around, but it's something I've always wondered
about. No, this isn't a monitor issue as I'm looknig at them on the
same monitor - RAW file - very crisp, TIFF file - not so much!

Most in-camera processing tends to boost contrast, saturation and sharpness
for a more punchy image straight out of the camera, which jpeg shooters
like. This is what you're looking at when you view the thumbnails. The low
contrast, low saturation RAW file is much better for post processing,
although you can boost these as you convert them if you want, depending on
which RAW converter you're using. For example, the RAW converter in Canon's
Zoom Browser can be set to the same settings as your camera, so therefore
*should* give the same results as the camera (same as the thumbnail), but if
you use a different converter the results are likely to be different.

For example, if I use Adobe's "Daylight" white balance setting to convert a
300D photo, it uses a Temperature of 5500 and a Tint of +10. But if I
choose the "As Shot" setting (the 300D's daylight setting) it uses a
Temperature of 5650 and a Tint of +4. So they don't even agree on what
colour daylight is!

Adobe's daylight is slightly more red/magenta than the 300D's daylight, so
it looks slightly warmer. Sometimes I prefer one, sometimes the other, it
depends on the photo. It's only a small difference, but it's worth being
aware of this if you're very picky about colour accuracy.

Great info, Paul. As I posted previously, I am using RSP 2006 - CS2.
Anything I should be aware of in terms of color management from app to
app? Thanks again for the post...

B