Still confused about RAW & TIF

Hi,

I've only recently using digital, so please pardon my ignorance.
If shooting in RAW or TIF rather than jpeg, can I still manipulate
images afterwards? And without information loss?

Here's what I'd like to accomplish:
Highest image quality so I can take the occasional image to my local
photography shop for them to make 8X10 to 11X17 prints. But I'd like to
do the noise reduction, cropping and other enhancements myself.

Any suggestions appreciated............:-)

"Richard DeLuca" wrote in message
news

I've only recently using digital, so please pardon my ignorance.
If shooting in RAW or TIF rather than jpeg, can I still manipulate
images afterwards? And without information loss?

Yes and yes.

http://photo.net/learn/raw/

On Fri, 01 Dec 2006 19:45:59 +0000, Richard DeLuca wrote:

I've only recently using digital, so please pardon my ignorance.
If shooting in RAW or TIF rather than jpeg, can I still manipulate
images afterwards? And without information loss?

Well the TIF format can be lossless depending on the options you choose
when outputting it.

Also, don't compare RAW with formats like TIF and JPEG, because RAW isn't
an image format, it's just the unprocessed image data that the camera
uses to generate a JPEG or TIF. The advantage of using RAW data is
that you can you can use software to process the image data yourself,
rather than having the camera do it for you.

So with RAW, you're manipulating the data and outputting it as an image
in a non-destructive way, which has many advantages. With that said,
tools such as Adobe Lightroom and Apple Aperture allow you to work with
JPEGs or TIFs in the same way; the software stores the original image so
you can keep manipulating without fear of losing the original.

Here's what I'd like to accomplish:
Highest image quality so I can take the occasional image to my local
photography shop for them to make 8X10 to 11X17 prints. But I'd like to
do the noise reduction, cropping and other enhancements myself.

Any suggestions appreciated............:-)

If you have a fast machine, I would shoot RAW.

Matt

Richard DeLuca wrote:
Hi,

I've only recently using digital, so please pardon my ignorance.
If shooting in RAW or TIF rather than jpeg, can I still manipulate
images afterwards? And without information loss?

Here's what I'd like to accomplish:
Highest image quality so I can take the occasional image to my local
photography shop for them to make 8X10 to 11X17 prints. But I'd like to
do the noise reduction, cropping and other enhancements myself.

Any suggestions appreciated............:-)

If you shoot raw, and you should, then you will convert to an image
format the editer can deal with and edit that format. With photoshop
you can bring the photo directly in without first converting to another
format but when you save you will have to save as something other then
raw, I like either tiff or psd if I am going to do more work on the
photo or jpeg if I am done with it.

If you really want to limit the loss of information when editing your
photos you can use adjustment layers, in this way you are not changing
the underlying data. As an example if you make a number of levels
adjustments to a photo using a single layer each time you make an
adjustment you loss is little bit of data, with an adjustment layer you
avoid this loss in data.

For 95% of my photos the image directly converter from raw is good
enough for what I want
and they get converted directly to jpeg.

The other thing to note is that if you converter the raw file into a
highest quality jpeg and edit that you will get pretty much the same
image as it you converter to a 16 bit/color tiff and edit that, with a
very small set of exceptions. So why work with a jpeg instead of a
tiff file, those 16 bit/ color tiff files are pretty big like 48 MB,
whereas the raw file is closer to 8 MB, this can quickly get to be a
lot of room on the hard drive.

Scott



Scott

Correct me if I am wrong, but you should be aware that it is nearly or
completely impossible to send a picture taken in RAW format to anybody
via email. Unless you can change it beforehand to another format.


On Dec 2, 5:45 am, Richard DeLuca wrote:
Hi,

I've only recently using digital, so please pardon my ignorance.
If shooting in RAW or TIF rather than jpeg, can I still manipulate
images afterwards? And without information loss?

Here's what I'd like to accomplish:
Highest image quality so I can take the occasional image to my local
photography shop for them to make 8X10 to 11X17 prints. But I'd like to
do the noise reduction, cropping and other enhancements myself.

Any suggestions appreciated............:-)

stefan wrote:
Correct me if I am wrong, but you should be aware that it is nearly or
completely impossible to send a picture taken in RAW format to anybody
via email. Unless you can change it beforehand to another format.
Not true at all, as long as the person you are sending it to has a raw
converter. I have a friend that sends me photos that way, he just
assumes I have a raw converter and as it turns out he is correct.

Scott

FastStone Image viewer is also free and I think better than IRFanview
(though I use both) and will also reead RAW files.
--
Remove My_Skin to E-mail me.


nailer wrote:

Irfanview is free and can read a lot of different RAW files.
Otherwise, Adobe DNG conversion and/or Photoshop or alike.
RAW file is significantly smaller than TIFF from the same camera.


On 1 Dec 2006 14:44:53 -0800, "stefan" wrote:

#Correct me if I am wrong, but you should be aware that it is nearly
or
#completely impossible to send a picture taken in RAW format to
anybody
#via email. Unless you can change it beforehand to another format.
#
#
#On Dec 2, 5:45 am, Richard DeLuca wrote:
# Hi,
#
# I've only recently using digital, so please pardon my ignorance.
# If shooting in RAW or TIF rather than jpeg, can I still manipulate
# images afterwards? And without information loss?
#
# Here's what I'd like to accomplish:
# Highest image quality so I can take the occasional image to my
local
# photography shop for them to make 8X10 to 11X17 prints. But I'd
like to
# do the noise reduction, cropping and other enhancements myself.
#
# Any suggestions appreciated............:-)

There is more to data loss than just the compression in the file format.
Most programs that let you edit RAW images do it in a non-destructive way.
Meaning you always have the original RAW image. TIF is not that way. While
some programs like Adobe Lightroom let you edit TIFs and JPGs
non-destructively many do not. The first time you run levels or curves or
something on a TIF image you have data loss. Not so with Raw.

LDC


"Matt Jones" wrote in message
news
On Fri, 01 Dec 2006 19:45:59 +0000, Richard DeLuca wrote:

I've only recently using digital, so please pardon my ignorance.
If shooting in RAW or TIF rather than jpeg, can I still manipulate
images afterwards? And without information loss?

Well the TIF format can be lossless depending on the options you choose
when outputting it.

Also, don't compare RAW with formats like TIF and JPEG, because RAW isn't
an image format, it's just the unprocessed image data that the camera
uses to generate a JPEG or TIF. The advantage of using RAW data is
that you can you can use software to process the image data yourself,
rather than having the camera do it for you.

So with RAW, you're manipulating the data and outputting it as an image
in a non-destructive way, which has many advantages. With that said,
tools such as Adobe Lightroom and Apple Aperture allow you to work with
JPEGs or TIFs in the same way; the software stores the original image so
you can keep manipulating without fear of losing the original.

Here's what I'd like to accomplish:
Highest image quality so I can take the occasional image to my local
photography shop for them to make 8X10 to 11X17 prints. But I'd like to
do the noise reduction, cropping and other enhancements myself.

Any suggestions appreciated............:-)

If you have a fast machine, I would shoot RAW.

Matt

On Sat, 2 Dec 2006 12:11:13 -0800, "Little Juice Coupe"
wrote:

There is more to data loss than just the compression in the file format.
Most programs that let you edit RAW images do it in a non-destructive way.
Meaning you always have the original RAW image. TIF is not that way. While
some programs like Adobe Lightroom let you edit TIFs and JPGs
non-destructively many do not. The first time you run levels or curves or
something on a TIF image you have data loss. Not so with Raw.


The only thing unique about RAW in this context is that
it's a read-only file format.

AFAIK, no program saves a file in RAW format. RAW
can only be created in a digital camera, and only really
makes sense for images created with Bayer sensors.

[Capturing RAW in a film scanner makes very little
sense, IMO.]

If you edit a TIF file, and save the edits to a new file
name, there's no loss whatsoever in the original.


rafe b
www.terrapinphoto.com

Raphael Bustin wrote:
On Sat, 2 Dec 2006 12:11:13 -0800, "Little Juice Coupe"
wrote:

There is more to data loss than just the compression in the file format.
Most programs that let you edit RAW images do it in a non-destructive way.
Meaning you always have the original RAW image. TIF is not that way. While
some programs like Adobe Lightroom let you edit TIFs and JPGs
non-destructively many do not. The first time you run levels or curves or
something on a TIF image you have data loss. Not so with Raw.


The only thing unique about RAW in this context is that
it's a read-only file format.

But many raw converters allow you to save one or more setting for a
given raw file. The effect is that I can set my adjustments as to how
the file will convert and then go back and shift these setting without
any loss. As an example I might have all my WB set the way I want it
but then decide to adjust the exposure of one image, I can do this
without affecting the underlying data. I can do much of the same thing
saving as PSD files and using adjustment layers, but then these file
are much larger then the rather compact raw format.

Scott