Sony tells DSLR shooters they're idiots

In article , Alan Browne
says...
On 2012.12.01 17:12 , Alfred Molon wrote:

At 1 or 2 minutes per RAW conversion, if you process 200 RAW images,
it's 3-6 hours of work to process 200 images. It's a tedious time,
because you are in front of a computer screen playing around with the
sliders, wondering how much you should increase or decrease this or that
parameter.

Assume that 10% of images are worth some work in the editor (potential
keepers), then only 20 will need to be processed in ACR. Often that's
about 30 seconds to adjust 2 or 3 paramaters. Often that one setting
can be applied to several, many or most - if not all of the images in
the set.

No time at all.

Those 200 images I'm referring to are the keepers out of 1000 or so,
i.e. there has been a preselection step before. 200 RAW images which
need processing.

And a RAW conversion involves much more than just 2 or 3 parameters:

- white balance (at least two parameters)
- contrast, saturation, gamma, white point, black point and more
- shadow and highlight recovery
- selective hue, saturation, brightness etc.
- noise correction parameters
- sharpness parameters
- lens corrections (aberrations, vignetting etc.)

and so on. If you are only adjusting 2 or 3 parameters you are not doing
any editing at all.

Then, I don't know about you, but I don't shoot 50 images of the same
subject with the same lighting. All images have different subjects, with
different lighting conditions. Grouping, i.e. applying the same
parameters to several images is not possible or to put it differently,
would not yield good results.
--

Alfred Molon
------------------------------
Olympus E-series DSLRs and micro 4/3 forum at
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/MyOlympus/
http://myolympus.org/ photo sharing site

In article , Gary Eickmeier
wrote:

if you can't see the difference then no need, but others definitely can.

That is always the argument from the subjectivists, "if you aren't as
perceptive as we, then do what you want" but when subjected to blind testing
they can't prove any of it.

when have you done a double-blind test? oh right, you haven't.

do a test yourself. it won't be double-blind but the differences are
dramatic.

take a photo with the white balance set completely wrong and then try
to fix the jpeg and the raw. one is going to look a *lot* better than
the other and it's *not* going to be the jpeg. have you done that?
didn't think so either.

But they are very good at getting the neurotic
to spend thousands more than they need to for benefits that only others can
see.

thousands more? what the hell are you talking about?

first of all, you *already* have elements and lightroom! you don't have
to spent a single extra cent! it's *free*! what's even more amusing is
that you don't need to change your workflow either. it's *exactly* the
same as jpeg!

second, raw software doesn't cost much, nowhere near the 'thousands'
that you're claiming. elements is generally around $50 or so, aperture
is $79 and lightroom is a little over $100 (and well worth it).

In article , Alfred
Molon wrote:

And a RAW conversion involves much more than just 2 or 3 parameters:

- white balance (at least two parameters)
- contrast, saturation, gamma, white point, black point and more
- shadow and highlight recovery
- selective hue, saturation, brightness etc.
- noise correction parameters
- sharpness parameters
- lens corrections (aberrations, vignetting etc.)

the jpeg would need the same.

In article , David Dyer-Bennet says...
I strongly suspect your post-processing standards are low.

My standards are high.
--

Alfred Molon
------------------------------
Olympus E-series DSLRs and micro 4/3 forum at
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/MyOlympus/
http://myolympus.org/ photo sharing site

Alfred Molon writes:

In article , David Dyer-Bennet says...
I strongly suspect your post-processing standards are low.

My standards are high.

Okay, well, that's settled, then.
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Alfred Molon writes:

In article , Alan Browne
says...
On 2012.12.01 17:12 , Alfred Molon wrote:

At 1 or 2 minutes per RAW conversion, if you process 200 RAW images,
it's 3-6 hours of work to process 200 images. It's a tedious time,
because you are in front of a computer screen playing around with the
sliders, wondering how much you should increase or decrease this or that
parameter.

Assume that 10% of images are worth some work in the editor (potential
keepers), then only 20 will need to be processed in ACR. Often that's
about 30 seconds to adjust 2 or 3 paramaters. Often that one setting
can be applied to several, many or most - if not all of the images in
the set.

No time at all.

Those 200 images I'm referring to are the keepers out of 1000 or so,
i.e. there has been a preselection step before. 200 RAW images which
need processing.

And a RAW conversion involves much more than just 2 or 3 parameters:

- white balance (at least two parameters)
- contrast, saturation, gamma, white point, black point and more
- shadow and highlight recovery
- selective hue, saturation, brightness etc.
- noise correction parameters
- sharpness parameters
- lens corrections (aberrations, vignetting etc.)

and so on. If you are only adjusting 2 or 3 parameters you are not doing
any editing at all.

My workflow, and it sounds like what Alan is describing, is incremental
editing (to invent a name). Often I can set the white balance on a
batch, sometimes the whole set. I can nearly always set lens
corrections for a batch.

The quick work gets me a proof set; this is often good enough (for event
photos or sports, say), but when it isn't, I now know *for sure* whether
the highlights are folly recoverable, for example, when I make my
decisions about which photos get the full treatment.

Then, I don't know about you, but I don't shoot 50 images of the same
subject with the same lighting. All images have different subjects, with
different lighting conditions. Grouping, i.e. applying the same
parameters to several images is not possible or to put it differently,
would not yield good results.

Ah; I rarely have fewer than 5 photos of a pose, and sometimes I'll have
hundreds in the same lighting (corner 4 at the roller derby track, say,
though a dozen revolutions of the players)
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On 2012.12.02 14:55 , Alfred Molon wrote:
In article , Alan Browne
says...
On 2012.12.01 17:12 , Alfred Molon wrote:

At 1 or 2 minutes per RAW conversion, if you process 200 RAW images,
it's 3-6 hours of work to process 200 images. It's a tedious time,
because you are in front of a computer screen playing around with the
sliders, wondering how much you should increase or decrease this or that
parameter.

Assume that 10% of images are worth some work in the editor (potential
keepers), then only 20 will need to be processed in ACR. Often that's
about 30 seconds to adjust 2 or 3 paramaters. Often that one setting
can be applied to several, many or most - if not all of the images in
the set.

No time at all.

Those 200 images I'm referring to are the keepers out of 1000 or so,
i.e. there has been a preselection step before. 200 RAW images which
need processing.

And a RAW conversion involves much more than just 2 or 3 parameters:

There are more than 2 ro 3, but that does not mean you need many of them
(certainly not all of them) on very many shots.

- white balance (at least two parameters)

If the setting was correct on the camera - no need to change. Otherwise
the presets in the dropdown list are adequate in most cases (set both
temp and tint).

- contrast, saturation, gamma, white point, black point and more

Usually the blackpoint is the only thing I change. Occasionally
contrast and saturation.

- shadow and highlight recovery

Shadow: sometimes some fill.
Highlight: I pretty much never use it.

- selective hue, saturation, brightness etc.

Saturation occasionally. The rest rarely to never.

- noise correction parameters

Never touch them in ACR.
- sharpness parameters

Sharpness us something that should be done for each output size so it's
a waste of time at the ACR stage.

- lens corrections (aberrations, vignetting etc.)

Only where an issue. If I have a shot where there a lot of significant
dark/white edges then I'll apply a fringing correction. This does not
happen very often. My lenses generally do not noticeably vignette
(fast). My 28-70 will vignette wide open at the wide end if the
polarizer is mounted - which is not often.

and so on. If you are only adjusting 2 or 3 parameters you are not doing
any editing at all.

A raw import typically requires two or three adjustments and that's all.
Some images may require more. Then I'm in the editor for
crop/resize/USM - which is (90% of the time) all a photo needs.

But I always have latitude to do as I may wish or need to with the image.

Then, I don't know about you, but I don't shoot 50 images of the same
subject with the same lighting. All images have different subjects, with
different lighting conditions. Grouping, i.e. applying the same
parameters to several images is not possible or to put it differently,
would not yield good results.

I can shoot for hours in the same lighting - but not the same subject.
Esp. for studio work, but also on "blue sky" days outside.

I'm beyond boredom with this. Shoot as you will - I don't really care.

I have my workflow and it is dependable. That you complicate things by
making two files with every shot is your burden to bear.

--
"There were, unfortunately, no great principles on which parties
were divided – politics became a mere struggle for office."
-Sir John A. Macdonald

On 2012.12.02 14:56 , nospam wrote:
In article , Alfred
Molon wrote:

And a RAW conversion involves much more than just 2 or 3 parameters:

- white balance (at least two parameters)
- contrast, saturation, gamma, white point, black point and more
- shadow and highlight recovery
- selective hue, saturation, brightness etc.
- noise correction parameters
- sharpness parameters
- lens corrections (aberrations, vignetting etc.)

the jpeg would need the same.

Neither need much of those at all in most cases.


--
"There were, unfortunately, no great principles on which parties
were divided – politics became a mere struggle for office."
-Sir John A. Macdonald

"Gary Eickmeier" writes:

I can definitely see a reason to go RAW for portrait photogs who will be
making 20 x 24 canvas wall images, but for wedding especially I would rather
not. The last one I shot 750 images. Most were fantastic, some were low
light and might have benefited from RAW but I would rather get the exposures
right in the first place than rely on fixing it in post.

I find that exactly backwards; it's in fast-moving situations not under
my control (and wedding candids are a prime example) that I really NEED
raw. For a portrait, I can control things and take my time, and it's
reasonable to expect to be able to get it about right in camera, but for
candids not so much.

I'd "rather" get the exposure right in the first place too. However, I
shoot in the real world, and my *second* choice is to get the shot, but
have to do a bit of post-processing to make it look really good. This
is *so much* better than missing the shot!

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In article , nospam
wrote:

second, raw software doesn't cost much, nowhere near the 'thousands'
that you're claiming. elements is generally around $50 or so, aperture
is $79 and lightroom is a little over $100 (and well worth it).

You are so right!

I don't get this debate. Shooting RAW only is a no-brainer in all
circumstances.

Memory cards that outlast a battery are cheap. Disks are cheap. Sucking
your images into Lightroom or Aperture is wa-ay faster overall than
selectively playing about with JPEG. You get your shots organised and
classified in a searchable library for free. You get your backups done
for 5 seconds work per shoot (and a fair bit of computer time while you
grab a coffee or 6).

All that on top of getting far more latitude for fixing up messes. With
almost any numpty workflow, your starting point is better than
in-camera jpg with a cubic boatload of insurance. F'rinstance, you can
set Aperture to automatically apply presets and local time adjustments
on arrival. For my personal preference, that's auto RGB levels, and 0.2
of definition.

That's non-destructive costless. Most snapshots need nothing more. If
it is getting published to the web, it will get a straighten and a crop
and maybe a skin tone white balance. Say 10 sec total. The cost of
managing in camera jpegs is out of all proportion to their utility.
It's more work for less result.

Aside from that, whenever there is a large format print at the end of
it, there is the sheer pleasure of tweaking it to perfection knowing
that none of the data captured by the camera has been brainlessly
discarded.

Is there any point in taking pride in getting exposure and white
balance 'just so' before the shot walks away? If you got the
technology, flaunt it! It's the result that matters, as most here are
saying. You don't need a hair shirt. You don't have to starve in a
garret.

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