RAW

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RAW converter help Workow advice Sharpness tips White balance answers Easy exposure Contrast skills

CONTENTS
By shooting RAW, Andrew was able to give the original blue-tinted scene a much warmer appearance by adjusting the white balance and boosting saturation.

RAW BASICS
What is RAW? Camera settings Whats possible with RAW 6 8 10

RAW CONVERSION
Choosing a RAW converter Adobe Photoshop Elements 5 Canon Digital Photo Professional Capture One Pro 14 18 20 22

IMAGE ENHANCEMENT
White balance Exposure Contrast Saturation Sharpening 26 30 32 34 36

EXTRA SETTINGS

Welcome from Practical Photography editor Andrew James

OWNING A DIGITAL SLR and never shooting RAW les is, I believe, a bit like never taking the camera off auto. Youre simply allowing an inanimate object to control your creativity. Im not suggesting that you should only ever shoot RAW, but I do believe that when a new technology comes along its up to us to make the most of it. In the days when it was all lm, unless
2 | Shooting RAW on your D-SLR

Advanced contrast adjustments

40 42

you had the facility to develop and print your own pictures, you handed control of that process over to a third party. But now the opportunity to control the whole image-making process, from capture to print, is easily available to all. When you start shooting RAW you do add in an extra layer of work. Instead of allowing the camera to make many of those

processing decisions for you and presenting you with a JPEG, you can take the RAW le and enhance it to your hearts content. Why wouldnt you want to? If anyone feels that changing white balance, enhancing contrast or boosting colours is cheating, then in evidence I submit lters, darkroom techniques, and even the choice of lms like Fuji Velvia. Anyway, enjoy this booklet and have fun with your photography.

Theres more...

THIS GUIDE IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY...

Shooting RAW on your D-SLR is brought to you by Practical Photography and is published by EMAP Active Limited. No part of this booklet can be reproduced without the publishers permission. For more about PP , visit: www.practicalphotography.co.uk Field guide editor: Ben Hawkins Field guide art editor: Chris Rigby Additional words/photography: Andrew James, Chris Rutter, Ben Turner & Bob Martin Additional production: Shane Collins Additional design: Rob Holmes

RAW BASICS

RAW basics

SHOOTING RAW ON YOUR D-SLR

RAW les are your gateway to ultimate image quality and maximum control. Lets start by weighing up the pros and cons, and seeing exactly what can be achieved and how...

RAW BASICS

What is RAW?
RAW ingredients
RAW is the name given to a whole group of image le formats, including CRW, CR2 and NEF, which are produced by digital cameras. Unlike normal image formats, such as JPEG and TIFF, RAWs dont contain the nished image ready for viewing. Instead they contain the unprocessed data thats read directly from the cameras image sensor. At this stage its not really an image, much like a beef sirloin joint isnt roast beef, but the nest quality raw ingredients are there waiting to be turned into the nished article for all to enjoy. To cook our RAWs we use a RAW converter software package and this gives us loads of creative exibility for changing the appearance of our photos.

ENHANCED RAW

What youre about to learn in this booklet could change your photography forever, as were going to show you everything that you need to know in order to master RAW. But dont jump into the deep end just yet. If youre not sure what all the fuss is about then you need to bring your knowledge up to date. Heres our in a nutshell explanation of RAW and its key benets...

ORIGINAL RAW

This original scene looks okay, but its atter than we remember it and a bit blue. All of the ingredients are here though, so a quick tweak in the RAW converter and you get the punchy image on the right.

The benets
QUALITY
RAW is a lossless format, unlike JPEG, which means that all image detail is preserved. Correctly processed RAW images are sharper, more detailed, and contain more accurate colours. RAWs are also recorded in a higher bit depth, commonly 12-bit or 14-bit, rather than the usual 8-bit. This extra information can hold brighter highlights and darker shadow details, and the tonality is smoother.

The drawbacks
CONTROL
Its not just the usual contrast and white balance settings that we get to play with on the PC. Using a decent RAW converter package (turn to page 14) you have a massive amount of control, from contrast adjustments with curves through to noise smoothing. Also, some adjustments, such as sharpening, are often far more sophisticated than the methods employed by your camera so the pictures look even better.

FILE SIZE

COMPATIBILITY
JPEGs are compatible with most software packages because they have been around for years and are strictly standardised. RAWs arent so accessible however, because every model of camera produces its own RAW le to a different specication. Unfortunately, you need to install a compatible RAW converter on your computer to view and enhance the RAW images.

Probably the biggest problem with RAW is the saved le size. They are roughly three to four times larger then the equivalent JPEG, so less images will t on a memory card. However, CompactFlash and SD memory cards are becoming cheaper and cheaper, so a couple of 1GB cards will cure this problem for most people.

FLEXIBILITY
The RAW data is hardly touched by the cameras image processors before it is saved to the memory card, which allows our computer to perform a lot of the cameras usual corrections post-capture. So if we dont get the white balance, contrast or sharpness settings right when we take the shot, we can correct this on the PC (turn to page 10). Even poor exposures can be sorted, to a point.
6 | Shooting RAW on your D-SLR

WRITE TIMES
Large les take longer to write to the memory card, which means that youll rely heavily on your cameras buffer. The buffer is used to temporarily store new shots as others are being saved. However, the buffer is limited and can easily ll up when taking loads of pictures in quick succession as you would when shooting sports and wildlife. If it does ll up, youll have to wait a few moments before you can take another shot.

EASY ENHANCEMENTS
Making good-looking corrections and enhancements to RAWs in a RAW converter is much easier then the equivalent enhancement to a JPEG using Photoshop or Elements. In just a couple of minutes you can completely overhaul an image to give it much more impact. Most corrections can be made by dragging a few simple sliders.

PROCESSING TIME
A RAW image generally needs to be converted into a standard TIFF or JPEG before you can do much else with it. This potentially adds an extra step to your digital workow and could hold up a busy pro shooting press pictures. However, if you do need to make any corrections to your images, youll probably save hours with RAW because most enhancements are quicker to make.
7

RAW BASICS

Camera settings
Before you can start to explore the creative potential of RAW les you need to set your camera to shoot the right image format. Every digital SLR and even some compact cameras give you the choice of RAW mode in

OLYMPUS

E-400

the le format menu. This isnt a complicated process, but its still worth checking the options available on your camera. Heres how to set the Canon EOS 400D, Nikon D80 and Olympus E-400 to shoot RAW les

CANON

400D
Step 1: The easiest way to access the le formats on the E-400 is to press the OK button while in any shooting mode. This will activate the camera settings on the rear LCD screen. Using the four-way navigation buttons, highlight the le settings at the bottom of the screen and then press OK again. Step 2: This will open the le format options on the rear LCD with the current format highlighted. To change these you can scroll through the options using the main input dial or the four-way navigation buttons. Highlighting the RAW setting then pressing the OK button will set the camera to RAW mode.

STEP 1: Before you can set the RAW format on the EOS 400D you must be in one of the creative exposure modes such as aperture-priority, shutterpriority, program or manual. It doesnt allow you to use RAW in the automatic scene modes or the fully automatic green mode.

Step 2: Once youve set the exposure mode, press the Menu button on the back of the camera to bring up the rst camera settings screen. Go to the Quality menu and use the four navigation buttons to scroll through to highlight the RAW option, and then press the right-hand button to conrm the setting.

RAWTIP
You dont have to sacrice the convenience of shooting JPEG images when you want to use RAW les. Most cameras allow you to shoot both le formats simultaneously by setting the appropriate option in the le format menu. But why would you want to record duplicate les of the same images? While there is no doubt that RAW offers many more options and potentially improved quality over JPEG, you need the right software and extra time to view and process RAW les. By shooting JPEG images as well you can quickly sort through your images, share them with friends and family or even get prints directly from your camera (or memory card). Shooting two les for each image does mean that youll need more memory, but many cameras allow you to choose a low quality JPEG option to make these les as small as possible. While these les wont give you the best images they will still be okay for small prints or screen use.
|9

NIKON

D80

STEP 1: All Nikon cameras allow you to use RAW in any of the exposure modes, but there are two ways of setting the le format. The quickest way is to press and hold the QUAL button on the bottom left of the back of the camera.
8 | Shooting RAW on your D-SLR

STEP 2: While holding the QUAL button turn the rear input dial to scroll through the format options on the top LCD screen (shown in the bottom left corner) until RAW is displayed, then release the QUAL button.

RAW BASICS

Whats possible with RAW

Get it right in-camera
Here are the major things that you need to get right in-camera if you forget to pay attention to any of this then RAW wont help you at all.

ENHANCED RAW

Shooting RAW opens up a huge range of exciting corrections and enhancements that you can apply to your pictures post-capture. You can salvage pictures with poor colours and bring at shots to life, but RAW converters cant perform miracles. There are still many things that you must get right while youre taking the shot to ensure your images are of the highest quality. So what must you get right in-camera and what can you get away with sorting back on the computer? Find out here

ORIGINAL RAW

Aperture
You cant change depth-of-eld once youve taken the shot. If you want both close and distant objects to be in sharp focus then youve no option but to use a small aperture (f/22). On the ip side, a wide aperture (f/2.8) is needed if you want just a thin band in your image to be in sharp focus.

RAW les allow you to change white balance post-capture for improved colours.
Exposure
Get the exposure as close as possible in-camera. If you overexpose a stop or so then your highlights may block-out to pure white and the detail will be obliterated not good! Drastically underexposed shots will be too noisy to be useful once brightened.

Shutter speed
Freezing quick subjects with a fast shutter speed or blurring moving subjects with a slow shutter speed are other effects that are impossible to accurately recreate using a RAW conversion software package.

The possibilities of RAW

Although wed always recommend that you get the shot as close as possible incamera, you can actually control quite a lot of settings back in the RAW converter. Lets take a quick look at your post-capture options.

White balance/tint
It doesnt matter what white balance you have selected when you take the shot, you can always override it in the RAW converter. White balance is a software effect, so opting to change it wont degrade the image at all.

to get your shots just right. Darkening a touch may even reduce noise levels.

Contrast
Dont bother with any contrast settings in your camera. Use the contrast sliders, along with the Levels and Curves tools, to get the perfect contrast post-capture.

RAW converters are far superior to the options offered by your camera. Just ignore your cameras settings as the RAW converter can override this without degrading the quality.

ISO
Using a fast ISO creates a grainy effect known as noise. Although many RAW converters have tools to suppress the levels of noise, there really is no substitute for using a slow ISO (such as ISO 100) for really smooth tones.
10 | Shooting RAW on your D-SLR

Colour saturation
Whether you want to tone down a colourful scene or give a at shot more impact, it makes sense to make colour adjustments in the RAW converter where you can really see what youre doing.
11

Focus
You cant make a soft image sharp. Once the detail has been blurred, its lost forever. If youve focused poorly or have visible camera shake in your shots, then forget it.

Fine-tune exposure
Small adjustments to the exposure wont degrade the quality much at all so you can tweak the exposure

Sharpness
The sharpening controls offered in

RAW CONVERSION

RAW conversion
For the best possible results youll need a RAW converter that offers control and quality. Lets take a look at the best options and the basic features needed to convert your rst RAW le.

SHOOTING RAW ON YOUR D-SLR

RAW CONVERSION

Choosing a RAW converter

When you nally switch to shooting RAW instead of JPEG, you will need to adjust your workow slightly. Unfortunately, this does mean adding one more step early on but thankfully it will save you some time later in the process and improve the end results too. To make this step easier you need to choose the right piece of software. Here are the best bundled plus one download-only software RAW converters, and over the page what we consider to be the best RAW converter software packages out there

RAWTIP
If you buy a new D-SLR soon after its release, its likely that your RAW converter wont support it straight away. New

cameras often have different RAW les to other models, so your software will need updating. Check its website for updates or click on the Search for updates options in your softwares menu.

CANON DIGITAL PHOTO PROFESSIONAL

Canons standard software is one of the most comprehensive packages supplied with any D-SLR. Theres a complete range of options available, PROS AND CONS the workow is easy to use Very comprehensive and there are some really for free software. nice touches. It offers you Enables you to make the option of selecting the the best use of PictureStyle, which can PictureStyles. produce some good results. Not very intuitive Overall, DPP is a pretty editing views. damn good package.

BUNDLED SOFTWARE

While the name may sound less than appealing, the software that Sony bundles with the 100 is one of the best you can get. All of the options are accessible from the Tools palette, so theres no hunting around for options. Its not brilliant for rst-time users but youd struggle to think of any options that are missing it even has a Send to Photoshop command, which speeds up workow.

SONY IMAGE DATA CONVERTER BUNDLED SR SOFT

WARE

PROS AND CONS

One click will send

layout, with plenty of useful shortcuts.

the image to Photoshop.

Simple to navigate Could be confusing

for new users.

NIKON PICTURE PROJECT

Picture Project is supplied with all Nikon D-SLRs (even the pro models) but it offers little more than basic RAW adjustments. Its useful for organising your images but RAW conversions can be a pain in the backside. The PROS AND CONS main reason for this is Comes free with that Nikon wants you to every Nikon D-SLR. invest in Capture NX Excellent for (turn the page for organising your les. details), which is their Converting RAWs is a excellent commercially bit of a struggle. available software.
14 | Shooting RAW on your D-SLR

BUNDLED SOFTWARE

BIBBLE LITE

$69 (around 36)

DOWNLOAD ONLY

Only available as a download from www. bibblelabs.com Bibble Lite has a lot to offer. The main window may look a little on the cluttered side but the range of options is PROS AND CONS second to none. In fact, it even puts some of the Amazing range of extra features such as NoiseNinja. more expensive Has a set-up wizard to help software to shame. you customise the software for Download the trial your needs. version and give it a go The layout is quite cluttered we were quite with the multitude of options. impressed by it.
15

RAW CONVERSION

erter Choosing a RAW convpackages software

The best RAW converter

APPLE APERTURE 215

The question with Aperture was can Apple do for RAW workow what it did for the MP3 player?. Well, Aperture is certainly a good stab at it. It is one of the most stylish, well thought-out RAW converters on the market right now but its doubtful that many amateurs will benet from its many awesome features. Its also aimed primarily at Mac-using pro photographers.

ADOBE PHOTOSHOP ELEMENTS 5 70

You can convert most types of RAW le using Elements and its actually pretty comprehensive. A RAW converter pops up when you try to open a RAW le, where you can make your adjustments and then open the image straight into Photoshop. The controls are extremely comprehensive and are laid out in a very simple and intuitive manner.

PROS AND CONS

Offers some clever Latest version can Workow is more

browse multiple storage devices. features, such as the virtual loupe.

suited for professionals.

PROS AND CONS

You probably
RAW controls.

Massive range of Not great for

converting batch loads of RAWs.

already have Elements installed.

CAPTURE ONE PRO 299

Perhaps the most comprehensive RAW converter available, Capture One Pro offers just about everything you could want. Theres an excellent browser, and a whole host of editing and adjustment options that will really help you get the best from your RAW les. Its not the simplest package to use but once you master it, youll be loathed to use anything else.

PROS AND CONS

Offers excellent
workow for most photographers.

One of the most Can be very confusing

for new users. comprehensive RAW converters available.

NIKON CAPTURE NX
Capture NX is something of a revolution as RAW converters go. The main reasons for this are control points we think they are the next big thing where RAW converters are concerned. They offer precise control over any part of your image and allow you unequalled editing capacity. If only it could convert les from non-Nikon cameras...

119

PROS AND CONS

ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS2 500

If youre really into digital photography, no doubt you will already have CS2 and theres no surprise that its good for converting RAW les. The layout and options are pretty much the same as those in Elements but there are a couple of advanced extra options. Whether or not youll use options such as Lens Correction is a different matter.

Control points have Offers just about Only converts

to be seen to be fully appreciated. everything you could want from a RAW converter.

PROS AND CONS

Plenty of

Produces great

adjustment options. results with good levels of sharpness. extra features make it more than worthwhile.

Expensive but the

Nikon RAW les.

16 | Shooting RAW on your D-SLR

| 17

RAW CONVERSION

nverting you rst RA CoADOBE PHOTOSHOPrELEMENTS 5 W IN

Heres your beginners guide to opening, editing and saving your RAW les in Adobe Photoshop Elements 5.

2 The Exposure and Brightness

sliders are used for ne-tuning the exposure of the photo. The Shadows and Contrast sliders are mainly used for getting the contrast of your shot just right. Saturation is used to adjust the strength of the colours.

boxes show you areas of the image that are so bright, dark or overly saturated that detail is being lost.

SAVE...
Once youve nished making adjustments dont be tempted to click the Save button as all this will do is save a copy of the image in Adobes digital negative format. Instead click OK to open the converted RAW straight into Photoshop this is great if you want to do some more work on the image, which is usually the case. When youre ready, save the picture as you would any other by going to File>Save As. From the Format menu select one of the following TIFF for maximum quality, PSD if youve used layers and want to keep them intact, or JPEG to compress the images so it takes up less disk space. If you do decide to use JPEG ensure that you use the maximum quality setting and try to only use it for images that are ready for print as re-saving JPEGs as JPEGs can degrade the quality.

6 This can be used to change the

default positions for the sliders and can also load the settings from your previous conversion.

OPEN...
In Elements all you need to do to bring your image into the RAW converter is open it up as you would any other image. This can be done by rst importing them into the Organizer, or by opening them directly, which is what well look at here. Open Elements and go into the Editor by clicking on Edit and Enhance Photos from the Welcome screen. Now all you need to do is go to the File menu at the top of the screen and click Open. Browse through to nd your RAW les, as normal, and double click on the picture you want to open once youve located it. In Windows XP, you may be able to see a preview of the selected image at the bottom of the window, which will help you determine whether or not youve got the right picture.

EDIT...
Working on your RAW les in Elements is very simple as all of the controls are pretty much on the one screen. Down the righthand side youll see the main controls, which adjust the appearance of your image. Before changing anything, however, wed always recommend that you uncheck the Auto boxes as these seldom give good results.

3 At the top right is the Zoom

tool, which allows you to view the ne detail. Double-click it to view the image at 100% so every image pixel is visible. Hold Alt and click on the image to zoom out.

1 These controls affect your

images white balance. The white balance eyedropper is located in the top-left corner of the window.

4 When zoomed in, use the Hand

tool to pan around the image to inspect other areas.

5 The Shadows and Highlights

3 4

6 1

Click the Detail tab to reveal a few more sliders, which handle the ne detail in the image. Before you move any of these ensure youre viewing your image at 100%.

If youre saving your shots as JPEGs, select the maximum quality setting.

18 | Shooting RAW on your D-SLR

19

RAW CONVERSION

nvert CoDIGITAL ing your rst RAW IN PHOTO PROFESSIONAL

A good quality RAW converter need not cost the world. Heres an introduction to Canons Digital Photo Professional, which comes free with its D-SLRs.

OPEN...
When you load Digital Photo Professional (DPP) your screen should be separated into two windows. On the left is the directory tree (click the folders icon if you cant see it) and on the right is a list of thumbnail images displaying all of the RAW and JPEG les located in the selected folder. First, use the directory tree to nd the folder containing your RAW images and, once the thumbnails have loaded up, double-click one to open it into a separate editor window.

Click the RGB image adjustment tab to view more controls to enhance the converted RAW. Here you gain access to a great curves tool and also the option to add more colour saturation to your image the other options here are generally best ignored.

SAVE...
When youre done editing, click the cross at the top-right of the image to close the window dont worry, your changes have already been saved. Back in DPPs browser, select the image or images you want to process and click the Batch process icon at the top right of the screen. Youll now see a new window that lets you decide the batch settings. From the top, click Browse to choose a save location for the images. For the File format select either TIFF or JPEG and tick Embed ICC prole to ensure colour accuracy. Now you have the option of giving your batched images a new name by ticking New le name. When youre ready, click Execute to save your image, which may take a few minutes.

RAWTIP
To reset the RAW sliders and settings if youve make a mistake, go to Adjustment>Revert to shot settings.

EDIT...
DPP is not the most intuitive package but its all there if you know where to look. If you cant see the tools and options at rst glance, then go to the main menu and select View>Toolbar to bring them up. Its also helpful to remember that you can either have a oating palette or a docked one, as we have here to achieve this go to Tools>Preferences, click the Tools palette tab and select Docking display. always work though, so use your own judgement. Try the landscape setting if theres lots of blue sky in your shot.

5 1

3 Below the histogram, next to where it

says Linier, you can set the contrast of the image. At the bottom of the dialogue box are options to change the tone, colour saturation and sharpness.

1 At the top of the Tools palette is a

Brightness adjustment slider to change the exposure of the image and below this are options for setting the white balance. You can either use the dropdown menu of presets or click where it says Click to directly select a neutral tone in the image.

4 There is no zoom tool, so to zoom in on

your image use the options found under the View menu or use these shortcuts Ctrl+1 to zoom 50%, Ctrl+2 to zoom 100%, Ctrl+3 to zoom 200% and Ctrl+4 to t the image to the window.

5 Under the Tools menu are options to

trim (crop) your image or to use the Stamp tool, which helps remove marks and blemishes from your RAWs. However, this is not as effective as the Healing Brush Tool and Clone Stamp Tool in Photoshop Elements.

2 The Picture Style menu changes the

look and colours in the image to optimise it for different situations such as landscapes and portraits they dont
20 | Shooting RAW on your D-SLR

Select your images and then click Batch Process to save your edited RAWS as TIFFs or JPEGs.
21

RAW CONVERSION

nvert ONE PRO CoCAPTUREing your rst RAW IN

Learn the basics of Capture One Pro, one of the most powerful RAW packages available, and enjoy unparalleled control and headache-free workow.

OPEN...
Capture One contains its own le browser, which makes the workow amazingly efcient. First click on the yellow folder icon found at the top right above the thumbnail images. This will bring up the directory tree shown on the left-hand side of the screen (see below). Navigate through the folders and highlight the one that contains your RAW images. Capture One will then look through it and bring up a list of preview thumbnails. Simply click on a thumbnail image to start working on it.

EDIT...
The majority of Capture Ones image editing tools are found under the tabs located at the right of the screen. Click onto these to see a whole bunch of additional options and sliders in the grey pane on the far right of the screen. Here weve clicked on the Exposure tab...

1 Click the White Balance tab

to view a comprehensive set of controls for ne-tuning and removing colour casts. With this option selected you can use the eyedropper icon, found just above the image, to select a neutral tone for a quick white balance correction.

The Focus tab is used for sharpening the ne detail. At the top you can see a close-up preview of an area of your image with the sharpness effect applied. Click on your image to change the preview area. The Amount slider is used to change the intensity of the sharpening, and Threshold is used to reduce sharpening on smoother areas to reduce visible noise.
2 The Exposure tab contains the
all-important contrast and colour saturation controls, including Curve and Levels. The three sliders seen at the top are for exposure compensation (EC), contrast (CC) and colour saturation (CS or Sat).

SAVE...
To save your image, you must rst click the Process tab. Enter a title for the image and then select either TIFF of JPEG from the File format menu. Now click on the icon, which looks like an open folder its the second icon from the left under the Batch Editor heading. This will bring up a dialogue box that allows you to choose where you want to save your images. Either click on the Select folder and browse to choose your own save location, or just click Inside active collection, which will create a Develops folder in the same location as your original RAW les. Click OK to go back and click the icon on the left, which looks like a red cross hovering above a rectangle. Your image will begin processing and will be saved into the chosen folder.

3 1 2

3 Above the main image preview you have controls for rotating your image, zooming in and out of your image, and cropping them down. The majority of the other icons here are used for toggling various preview modes on and off so are not as important hover over these to reveal a brief insight into what they do.

Before you can process your pics make sure you choose a folder to save them in. Click on the green folder icon to do this.
22 | Shooting RAW on your D-SLR 23

IMAGE ENHANCEMENT

Dull. Drab. Lifeless. But its nothing a few tweaks on a RAW conversion software package cant solve. A little saturation enhancement here, a quick exposure tweak there and, hey presto, a brand new shot.

To maximise the potential of every image youll need to familiarise yourself with the white balance, exposure and contrast, saturation and sharpening controls. Heres how...

Image enhancement

SHOOTING RAW ON YOUR D-SLR

IMAGE ENHANCEMENT

White balance
The ability to ne-tune the colour of your images is one of the main advantages of shooting RAW. This gives you the option of either getting a result that accurately matches the colour of the original scene or, just like using warm-up and cooling-down lters, to create a particular mood or feel to your image. Almost all RAW processing software gives you three main ways of adjusting the white balance. As with your camera, you can select from a range of preset options such as daylight or cloudy, but unless you forget to set it on your camera when you take the shot, these dont offer many advantages over shooting JPEG. The two other options are to select a colour temperature and tint using sliders, or using an

AUTO WB

eyedropper to take a measurement from a neutral area of your image. There are pros and cons for all three options, but the great thing about this is that you can always use a combination of options to get the result you want. The presets are the simplest to use, but offer few of the creative or subtle adjustments of the individual sliders. Using the color temperature sliders offers full control and creativity, but relies on your judgment (and an accurate monitor) to get the right results. And to make use of the eyedropper you need a neutral tone in your image to take a reading from. Lets take a look at the best way to use white balance to produce both neutral and more creative results

Neutral or correct white balance

Matching the white balance to the light source is the key to getting neutral results. Using the pre-set options will usually get you close to the right colours, although youll nd that netuning the colour temperature and tint sliders will allow you to further ne-tune the results. This does rely on your judgement and an accurate screen though. A better option, assuming theres a neutral grey or white area in your image, is to use the eyedropper tool. This is more accurate and controllable than using a basic automatic function, as you can choose the area that the software samples from. You simply click the eyedropper on a neutral area in the image and the software does the rest. This technique relies on selecting the right area to take a reading from, and even areas that look neutral can contain different coloured pixels, so you will often nd it easier if you zoom in on the neutral area to make sure that you click on the right tone. It wont always get it right rst time, so dont be afraid to click on the area a few times.

Auto white balance can work with some subjects, but in this case the large area of blue has caused the colour of the image to be too warm.

DAYLIGHT WB

RAWTIP
When using light or dark neutral areas with the eyedropper make sure that the tones are within the exposure limits of the image. You cant take readings from burnt-out highlights or shadows without any detail. Youll get the best results from grey subjects, or white ones that still contain some detail.

When using the white balance eyedropper make sure that you choose an area that you want to appear neutral in your image.
26 | Shooting RAW on your D-SLR

Similar to setting the white balance on your camera, RAW converters offer preset options but you can adjust them to suit your image.
27

IMAGE ENHANCEMENT

White balance
Creative white balance
Film photographers have been manipulating colour by their choice of lm and lters for years. So while neutral images are technically correct, they arent always right for the subject or result that you want. Adjusting the white balance of your RAW les gives you the option of warming up or cooling down the colour of your images without having to worry about using lters. The simplest way to achieve this is to use the preset white balance settings. So for a sunset or sunrise choose the cloudy preset to add a little extra warmth or shade for a more pronounced effect. While these presets offer a good starting point, you can get even greater control by using the colour temperature and tint sliders to precisely adjust the colour of your images. With the colour temperature slider, increasing the colour temperature will produce warmer results, and reducing it will give cooler looking images. The tint slider is used to adjust the amount of green or magenta in the image moving it to the right adds magenta that can be useful for some sunrise or sunset images, while moving it to the left adds green.

AUTO WB

EYEDROPPER

DAYLIGHT WB

WARMER

COOLER

Mixed light sources

One of the most difcult situations to deal with is when you are shooting under lighting with different colour temperatures. The automatic setting can often give acceptable results, but taking a sample from a neutral or white area using the eyedropper tool gives you more control and more convincing results. Choose an area that is lit by all or as many light sources as possible and click the eyedropper to nd the most convincing colour possible.

RAWTIP
Choosing the correct preset white balance for a neutral result doesnt always give the best result.
28 | Shooting RAW on your D-SLR

Using a higher colour temperature has a similar effect to adding an 81B warm-up lter.

For a cooler look select a lower colour temperature setting to give your image a blue tone.

After adjusting the white balance make sure that you check the exposure, as it can affect the distribution of tones in your image. This can mean highlights that still retained detail at one white balance setting can be pushed into overexposure when you change the colour temperature.

Red shows the burnt-out highlights, while blue shows the shadow areas lacking detail.
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IMAGE ENHANCEMENT

Exposure

ENHANCED EXPOSURE

The exposure controls available in your RAW converter are really a means of ne-tuning your images, rather than a replacement for getting it right in-camera. This is because there are limits to the range of adjustments that you can apply to the exposure before you start to affect the quality of the image. Also, although you can retrieve more shadow and highlight detail than you can from a JPEG image, its still limited, especially in the highlights. So although you still need to get the exposure as close as possible when shooting, heres what you can achieve with most RAW converters. The rst and most obvious control for adjusting the

exposure is usually an exposure compensation (or just exposure) slider. This works in a similar way to changing the exposure in-camera slide the marker to the right to make the image brighter or to the left to make it darker. Many are also marked in stops just like the exposure compensation on your camera. The other controls available vary between software packages, but are mainly there to control your images shadow detail, contrast and overall tonal distribution. These controls will either take the form of sliders for most adjustments, or curves for adjusting the contrast and tones.

BASIC EXPOSURE ADJUSTMENT

The RAW converter in Adobe Photoshop Elements 5 uses sliders for all adjustments, and works most effectively when used in the following order:

1 Exposure
Firstly, carefully adjust the Exposure slider to get the highlights correctly exposed. To do this move the slider to the left or right until you can just make out detail in the brightest areas of your image.

3 Brightness
Similar to the Exposure slider, the Brightness control lightens or darkens your image when moved to the left or right. The difference is that unlike the Exposure control it compresses either the highlights or shadows to retain as much detail in these as possible.

2 Shadows
Once the highlights are correct you can then move the Shadows slider to the right to darken the shadows if necessary. Again, its usually best to move this until you can just make out detail in the darkest areas of your image.

4 Contrast
This slider controls the contrast of your image by adjusting the midtone contrast. Moving it to the right increases contrast, while moving it to the left reduces it.

ORIGINAL EXPOSURE

SHADOW AND HIGHLIGHT CLIPPING

Although you can get an excellent idea of the exposure adjustments needed on the preview image, most RAW converters also feature warning facilities to ensure that you dont lose highlight or shadow detail. In Adobe Photoshop Elements 5 you can switch these on by using the tick boxes at the top of the screen. These then display lost highlights in red and shadows in blue. Rather than have these displays on all the time, you can also hold down the Alt key while adjusting the exposure or shadow sliders, and only the warnings will appear on the preview.
30 | Shooting RAW on your D-SLR | 31

IMAGE ENHANCEMENT

Contrast

UNPROCESSED RAW
UNPROCESSED RAW

Most correctly exposed shots wont need much adjustment in your RAW converter. The exposure controls come into their own when you want to make the most of high or low contrast scenes that are almost impossible to get right in-camera. Heres how to use the adjustments to deal with these types of shots

DEALING WITH LOW CONTRAST SCENES

Many average scenes can look a little at and low contrast when shooting in RAW. Youll nd that you can boost the contrast a little to give your shots more punch by adjusting them in your RAW converter. This is where the Exposure, Shadow and Contrast sliders really prove their worth. Follow these simple steps...

DEALING WITH HIGH CONTRAST SCENES

RAW les can contain much more highlight and shadow detail than JPEGs, so they can produce much better results when the brightness range of the scene exceeds the tonal range available from your digital camera. Follow these steps to enhance your images...

1 Highlights and shadows

With low contrast scenes youll nd that you need to boost both the highlights and the shadows to get results with more impact. Move the Exposure slider until the brightest highlights just retain some detail, then move the Shadow slider to the right until the darkest areas just start to lose detail.

2 Contrast
The Brightness slider generally doesnt need much adjustment with low contrast images, but you may want to give the image more punch by increasing the Contrast slider until you are happy with the image in the preview window. How far you go with these adjustments is very much down to personal preference, although watch out for noise if your original image was underexposed.

1 Highlights and shadows

The rst steps to making the most of high contrast subjects is to adjust the Exposure and Shadow sliders so that the maximum amount of detail is shown in the image. Youll usually nd that you have to reduce the Exposure slider, and this will often mean that the Shadow slider can be set to zero as the exposure adjustment will naturally give dark shadows.

PROCESSED RAW

PROCESSED RAW

2 Contrast
Once youve got the maximum highlight and shadow detail you can then use the Brightness and Contrast sliders to adjust the image. If most of the image is too dark you can increase the Brightness slider to compensate. You will also nd that reducing the Contrast slider will help you to get the maximum detail through the whole tonal range (reducing it too much can make your image look at).
32 | Shooting RAW on your D-SLR

RAWTIP
RAW les are much better at retaining shadow detail than highlights, so many people tend to underexpose their digital images to err on the safe side. This is generally a good idea, but be careful not to underexpose your shots too much, as the more you try to lighten the image the more noise will be visible in the image. This becomes even more visible if you boost the saturation and apply high amounts of sharpening to your results. So when exposing your RAW images try to shoot so that the highlights just retain detail rather than simply underexposing every shot.
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IMAGE ENHANCEMENT

Saturation
As the image is taken straight from the sensor without any in-camera processing, even the most perfectly exposed RAW image of a brightly coloured subject can look a little at and dull. Like most other aspects of RAW processing the solution is simple, and can produce higher quality results than trying to boost the saturation of JPEG images. A saturation slider is the most common control for this in RAW conversion software. The adjustments that you make to the saturation of your images are largely down to personal preference. You can move the slider to the right for punchy, highly saturated images, or you can move the slider to the left to remove saturation, and even produce mono results in most software packages. Be aware that there are some pitfalls to watch out for when increasing the saturation of your images. Similar to adjusting the exposure, increasing the saturation too much will mean youll start to lose detail in the brightest areas. Trying to boost the colour of a low saturation original too much can also cause noise in the nal image. These problems aside, its still a better quality option than boosting the saturation of a JPEG, so heres how to get the most out of the saturation controls in Adobe Photoshop Elements 5

FINAL IMAGE

START IMAGE

OVERSATURATED COLOURS
Take care not to go too far when increasing saturation in your RAW les. With brightly coloured subjects its easy for certain areas to go over the top and lose detail. In this example some of the red areas in particular have become unsightly blocks of colour.

Getting the saturation right in your RAW converter gives you better quality than later adjustments in Photoshop.

BOOSTING COLOUR

1 Adjust the exposure, contrast and white balance

If you adjust the saturation rst youll nd it difcult to get your colours right, so before you change the saturation make sure the contrast, exposure and white balance are correct. They dont have to be precisely right, but ensure that the image contains a full range of tones with no blown highlights or shadows.

2 Adjust the saturation

Once youve adjusted the exposure you can start adjusting the colour saturation. For most images youll nd a value of between +5 and +30 will be enough to give the colours a boost. Increasing the saturation can cause changes to the overall exposure, so its also useful to tick the highlight clipping warning box at the top of the screen which shows when the colours have gone too far.

Too much saturation can result in blocking.

RAWTIP
Remember that the appearance of the end result isnt just down to saturation. Its also a combination of using the exposure, contrast and saturation controls. Theres no point simply boosting the saturation without adjusting the other controls to get the most out of your image. So once youve made the initial saturation adjustments go back and check the exposure and contrast again.
34 | Shooting RAW on your D-SLR

35

IMAGE ENHANCEMENT

Sharpening

FINISHED IMAGE

Like many of the adjustments available with RAW, sharpening can be applied in image-editing software such as Photoshop. But applying it during the RAW conversion stage produces sharper-looking images and better quality results without increasing noise when compared to JPEG or TIFF les. Even so, its always best to apply the minimum amount of sharpening to your

images necessary to bring out detail, otherwise youll still end up with noisy, over-sharpened results. Most RAW conversion software packages offer a choice of sharpening settings that use either presets such as low, medium and high, or a slider control. Heres how to use the sharpening controls in Adobe Photoshop Elements 5

RAW images can look a little soft when you come to print them, but you need to get the settings right to avoid increased noise. The controls in Elements 5 use a simple slider to apply the amount of sharpening to your image. For most RAW images a value of between 20 and 40 will give your shots enough sharpening without introducing too much noise. The Luminance Smoothing and Color Noise Reduction sliders can normally be left on their default settings of 0 and 25 for most images shot at low ISO settings. You can increase these for images shot at higher ISO settings on your camera, but the Luminance Smoothing slider in particular tends to blur ne detail. This means that you have to apply more sharpening to try to overcome this, which introduces more noise, so they cancel each other out and youll still get less actual detail in your nal image.

APPLYING SHARPNESS

NO SHARPENING

WITH SHARPENING

TOO MUCH SHARPNESS

Using high values of sharpening can cause halos around the detail and increased noise, so dont overdo it. Its tempting to use these settings, but using values above 50 on the Sharpness slider in Elements 5 can lead to noise and image quality problems.

OVER-SHARPENING

36 | Shooting RAW on your D-SLR

37

EXTRA SETTINGS
SHOOTING RAW ON YOUR D-SLR

Extra settings
Its time to discover a few more advanced settings that will improve workow, help you extract a greater range of tones and nd even more detail in your RAW les...

Shooting into the light was always going to result in too much contrast. But we can use the more advanced RAW converter features to sort this.

EXTRA SETTINGS

Advanced contrast adjustments

One of the most exciting things about RAW is that you have access to extra highlight and shadow detail thats not available in the equivalent JPEG image. But thats not the end of the story because the knock-on affect of this is that there is a greater range of tones available in the midtones too. With all this extra picture information available to us it would be a shame not to make the most of it. So its time to bring out the big guns. When it comes to contrast, you may not be restricted to just moving a couple of simple sliders. Packages such as Canon Digital Photo Professional and Capture One Pro offer more advanced Levels and Curves controls that allow us to balance the contrast in even the most challenging scenes.

LEVELS
Probably the easier of the two tools to get to grips with, Levels is mainly used for setting the black and white points in the image. This means that were ensuring our darkest tones are black and the brightest tones are white, rather then varying tones of grey as they often are in low contrast scenes. The effect of this is one that youll never get tired of. The contrast will be lifted and youll have much more clarity and punch in your shots colours and shapes become much stronger as the difference between tones is exaggerated. To gauge where to set the black and white points we use the histogram, which is essentially just a fancy bar chart. Look for gaps between the body of the graph and edges of the bounding box, like the one shown here. If you spot any, then all you need to do is drag the sliders at the bottom corners of the histogram in to meet the edges of the mountain range. With some software there is also a third slider found in the middle, which sets the brightness of the midtones. Drag it to the left to make them lighter or to the right to darken them.

CURVES

ENHANCED RAW

Using Curves is more of an art than a science and mastering it takes a bit of practice, but once you have youll have access to one of the most powerful contrast tools available. Curves enables you to change the brightness of different tones in your image by changing the shape of the ORIGINAL RAW curve. This is done by simply clicking and dragging on the diagonal line to add in little anchor points. The best way to learn whats going on is to try it out for yourself, but to get you started here are a few of the most useful shapes to try out

ENHANCED RAW

Curve up/ down

A simple curve like this will brighten the midtones without affecting the very dark tones or highlights too much. Conversely, dragging the line down to create the opposite curve will darken the midtones and make them richer.

Align the sliders with the edges of the histogram for improved contrast.
ORIGINAL RAW

S curve
This is probably the most useful shape. A simple S will darken the dark tones and brighten the lighter tones, increasing the midtone contrast. The deeper the S the stronger the effect.

Inverse S curve
Great for contrasty shots. Pulling up the bottom of the graph brightens the shadows, while the top anchor point ensures the highlights are not affected. Make sure the curve doesnt atten out in the middle.

RAWTIP
If you have a landscape with a bright sky and dark foreground you can convert two versions of the same image, one exposed for the sky and the other for the foreground, and merge them in Photoshop using a large soft-edged Eraser.
41

40 | Shooting RAW on your D-SLR

EXTRA SETTINGS

Theres more...

Preserve your colours

Here are just a handful of the more advanced controls, options and features that the leading RAW converters offer. Master these and youll gain even more control over your images.

No matter what colour space you use, you need to make sure that Photoshop is looking at your prole so its displaying accurate colours. If you get a warning when opening a picture that says something along the lines of Embedded Prole Mismatch, select Use the embedded prole and click OK.

16-bit or 8-bit
Most converters give you the option of saving your images as 8-bit or 16-bit TIFFs, while Photoshop lets you choose the bit depth before opening. On direct comparison you probably wont notice any difference, but you just have to know what to look for. You may already know that standard colour images offer 256 levels of brightness for each channel Red, Green and Blue. This equates to 256 different shades of grey. This is ne for the majority of images because the difference between tones is so minimal that the pictures appear perfectly smooth to the naked eye. Problems arise, however, if you want to make radical contrast adjustments in Photoshop. The difference between the grey tones is exaggerated and the
42 | Shooting RAW on your D-SLR

smooth gradated areas turn into obvious blocks of discrete colour this is known as banding. 16-bit les cope with this much better. They contain double the amount of information and offer a whopping 65,536 shades of grey. With a tonality this smooth, youre much less likely to experience problems with banding. 16-bit is ideal for any images that you really want to push to the limits in Photoshop, or for black & white conversions where the tonal quality is much more important. There are drawbacks though. 16-bit les are twice the size of 8-bit les and theres a limit to what you can actually do to a 16-bit picture. You wont be able to access many of the lters in Photoshop until you convert back to 8-bit.

Choosing the right colour space

Colour space is a subject that will leave all but the most enthusiastic and technical photographers stone cold. However, it is important to know the basics because accurate and attractive colours hang in the balance. There are loads of different colour spaces to choose from (also known as proles) but there are only two you really need to know require this standard, as it contains a wider range of colours. Its also useful if you want to do a lot of editing to your images in Photoshop, as itll help to preserve colour accuracy.

TAG YOUR BEST IMAGES

Most browsers allow you to ag, tag or check your favourite images as youre looking through them. This allows you to quickly see which ones you want to work on and save. Theres usually an icon or menu item that will tag any pictures that you have selected. If you want to process the tagged images all at once, theres usually a menu option that will automatically select all tagged images so you can click to batch process them.
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sRGB IEC61966-2.1
Its not the most catchy name to remember, admittedly, but sRGB is the best option for the majority of us. Its particularly useful if the image is for web use or is ready to be printed.

Adobe 1998
This is mainly for the professionals among us. Most image libraries