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Nov 15 2008 07:23pm
So i made this little guide on how to process your raw files, since it looks like not meny on this forum knows the advantages of shooting in raw format. Hope this helps someone. I have learned this just by testing what everything makes, so if someone has something to add please tell.

Why shoot in raw format? Better question would be that why let your camera to process the raw files into jpg, when u can do it yourself and make the pics look the way you want them. Raw processing gives you way more flexibility on making the pics the way you like than on jpg files.


Im using photoshop cs3 for processing my pics, but i think other programs have atleast most of the same adjustments that photoshop does. Im shooting with raw + small jpg, so i can choose the picture i want more easilly from the jpgs. Opening raw files you need to open them in photoshop, so its way easier to choose the image for processing from jpgs using windows picture viewer(or similar on macs).

This is what jpg of this picture looks like straight from the camera:


And lets start the processing. I do it step by step, so you can see how different adjustments show in the picture.

When you open the raw file in ps it opens in this kind of screen:


Camera makes quick processing on the file, like white balance and tint, but not as much as for jpg. These are the base setting where u start the processing, tint and white balance differs on pictures depending what your camera set them.

First i start by adjusting the white balance, this case i think the pic needs more warmer colors. This is the result:


This post was edited by Antichrist- on Nov 15 2008 07:41pm
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Nov 15 2008 07:23pm
Next is the tint:




Then i adjust the recovery. Recovery is keeping the highlight areast look the same, while making other areas more shady, so the highlights pop out of the pic more.




Next is the fill light, its the opposite of recovery and it makes the dark areas more bright. You can use it for digging up the dark areas in your pictures, but adding it much makes dark images more noisy.

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Nov 15 2008 07:24pm
Now i adjust the blacks, on this one ill add it, it makes the blacks look more deep. Base setting for blacks is +5, lowering it on dark pictures will let you get to dig stuff from the dark areas more.




I dont think this picture needs the brightness adjusted, so i skip it since you should know what brightness does enyways.


Next i adjust the contrast.



Clarity adds more clarity to the picture(compare it to previous image closely), im not completely sure how it works, but i think it adjusts pixels contrast more like the pixel next to it and chooses the pixel that looks more like it, or something like that. Adding this too much will ruin bokeh on the picture since it tries to clarify it too much and makes nasty looking halo on spots that arent totally blurred.
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Nov 15 2008 07:25pm
Vibrance makes the colors look more or less vivid, im lowering this litte, so i can later add toning and adjust the colors better without colors getting too vivid.



Saturation makes the colors more saturated(naturally), putting this to zero you get black and white, but if you make b&w pic you should do it from other setting, that i show later. This i lower the same reason as vibrance.



On this screen you can adjust curves highlights, lights, darks and shadows more brighter or darker, you most likely wont need to change these if you got other settings right, but i felt like i wanted the shadows look bit darker afterall.
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Nov 15 2008 07:25pm
Here you can change hue of each color seperatly, like make the reds look more orange, orange more red or yellow etc. you get the picture.



This lets you to adjust the saturation for each color, if u put all to 0 you get black and white again, but if you want b&w just push that button "convert to grayscale" and you can adjust each color in black and white



Finally on this page you got the luminance, it makes each color look darker or lighter
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Nov 15 2008 07:26pm
n this page you got the split toning. Basicly what it does it adds color layer on highlights and shadows, balance makes it to weight more to highlight or shadow area, i use these split tone setting quite alot.



Here you can remove chromatic aberration( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromatic_aberration ), there is none on this picture, so i just ignore this option.


This lets you add or remove vignetting, if there is some vignetting from the lens, you can remove it by setting it to the white side and same size as your pic has. For this picture i thought some vignetting might look good, so i added some. Amount is for how black you want the vignetting, it will allso make it look bigger. Midpoint will adjust the size of it, without making it look eny darker.



Here you can adjust the main colors hue and saturation, changing one will effect to meny colors since every colors is made from red, green and blue on computers. Allso you can change shadows tint here, to more purple or green, i dont think i need to change that.

Here you can see how it effects, but look closely since im not changing them much for this picture.
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Nov 15 2008 07:26pm




I desided to add bit more clarity afterall, and i think you are going to have to go back and change things pretty much for the first few times, untill you learn to predict how you should do the first setting, like i lowered the vibrance and saturation at first. And here is the change on clarity:
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Nov 15 2008 07:27pm
Now im adjusting sharpeness, you should set the radius to 0.5 if u want details to show in the picture better. Remember to zoom to 100% or you cant see the sharpeness changing. If you do some heavy shapening its better to do it on other options at photoshop after getting your picture adjusted at raw setup, i only add a little sharpening usually, so mostly i do it here with these setting. That 25% color noise reduction is there without eny adjusting, i dont think this one needs eny noise removed so i dont touch those setting.


Now the picture is ready, so push the done button. Pic opens in photoshop normally and you can save it as jpg.

When im adding pic to net first(after saving the full sized jpg) i make the picture smaller and save it for web, this makes the pic ignore icc profile and colors look normally even if someones internet browser doesent support icc profiles. If you dont do this pics might look bit undersaturated after posting to internet and looking with browser with no icc support.

Use these setting for best results


And here is the picture ready for web:

Quite different from what camera made happy.gif


The end

This post was edited by Antichrist- on Nov 15 2008 07:29pm
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Nov 15 2008 07:35pm
lol well I only read the first two posts but it does look interesting. Ive bookmarked this thread so once ive got a new camera body I will try to shoot in Raw laugh.gif
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Nov 15 2008 11:04pm
Wow lol. That's a lot of stuff to know! ohmy.gif But I do want to try it. I spose what might look good to you might look like crap to someone else. It must take a lot of practice to get used to this, no?

Thanks for posting up the guide! I think it should be stickied smile.gif

This post was edited by chantal7 on Nov 15 2008 11:05pm
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