Topic: Curvemeister takes a swipe at RAW

[curvemeister]

(article originally posted to the photoshop_elements group)
I'm being a bit of a rabble rouser here, I'll admit, but I hope you'll bear with me.

I am putting forth the contention that RAW is, for most people, is a fad.  I am only partly tongue in cheek with what I'm about to say here.

Here's an analogy that will help illustrate what I mean.  The composite inputs - and more recently the digital inputs - on the back of your TV are capable of a better image than the normal RCA or even S-Video inputs.  To use them, you get the appropriate equipment capable of producing the signal, hook it up, and bingo, you get a nicer image.  How much nicer?  The difference is subtle, frankly, and 99 percent of the public is happy with the RF input to their TV.

Contrast this with RAW, which is touted as being a great improvement in every way to picture quality.  To use it, you need a camera that is capable of producing a raw image.  Fair enough.  No additiional cable is needed becuase the same data path works for raw as for jpeg.  Now, here's the rub. 

Problem 1: selecting raw processing software.
Instead of sitting back and enjoying your better image (as was the case with composite or DVI video), you *must* process your raw image using special software.  There are a number of choices of which software to use, including from the manufacturer, or from Adobe.  In general, the manufacturer knows his camera, and is able to extract a nicely balanced, default image.  You'll often hear the complaint, in the Camera Raw forums, that Canon's or Nikon's raw processing software does a better job getting skin tones or foliage right.  The response from Adobe, quite rightly, is that they are not privy to specific camera specifications.  Ok, fine.  This leads to the next difficulty. Imagine, if you will, that using the composite inputs on your monitor required this kind of investment and decision making - most people would not do it, particularly if the results were not obviously better.

Problem 2: calibration.
You could easily spend most of your remaining photography career on this aspect alone.  A large percentage of the discussion of Camera Raw has to do with calibrating your particular camera to match the default behavior of the manufacturer's raw software.  There are various calibration scripts - notably by Thomas Fors - that take a Color Checker image and iterate to select the best settings for Camera Raw's calibration sliders.  This form of calibration is a will o the wisp because each image has a different set of colors, and different demands on color rendition.  At the moment, another calibration method, the DING profile editor, is being touted as a replacement for calibration scripts.  We'll see.

Problem 3:  the emperor's new clothes.
This is the key to my "fad" comment.  For a professional, you would think even a subtle improvement would be significant.  I know of several professionals who do not use raw, but instead take well-exposed tiff or jpeg images.  The results are completely extraordinary - large images with excellent color.  All done without raw.  To then turn around and claim that every amateur out there owes it to himself or herself to shoot in raw is simply not true.  If your exposures are good (and this is easy to verify with digital's instant feedback), odds are a raw image will not provide much, or indeed any, improvement in your final image.

BTW - I am still waiting for an example of a well exposed image that is demonstrably better than a high quality jpeg of the same subject.

Problem 4: it's a brand new workflow.
Buy a book, and read it.  Buy a colorimeter and calibrate your screen.  Potentially buy a new monitor, because your new calibrator says it can't calibrate your monitor.  All of these things take time to ramp up.  Again for what result?

Photoshop workflow, involving adjustment of highlight, shadow, neutral, color saturation, etc, has been well worked out over a period of a decade or more.  Excellent results are possible, and it is easy to learn how to do it by the numbers.  Camera Raw, like most raw processors, is a largely visual process, and it is hard to apply by-the-numbers procedures.

Problem 5: RAW accelerates the software treadmill.
In any rapidly evolving technology, the software and hardware treadmill speeds up, and equipment that was excellent a year ago, like the D200 for example, is now passe.  You need a D300.  Or, now, a D700.  Each time you step up, you run the risk of obsoleting your old software.  This means a new version of Elements so that you can get the latest version of Camera Raw, and *hope* that Adobe will support your new camera before it is too late.  BTW - you will probably find that that new Adobe Camera Raw book that you bought is for the Photoshop version of ACR, not the Elements one.  Surprised that they are even different?  That's the software treadmill for you.

Conclusion: the light at the end of the tunnel.
What's a poor photographer to do?  The answer is simple.  Ignore the silliness and take well composed, well exposed images and you will be one happy camper.  Stick with proven principles and you'll get the same excellent photographs that people were getting before the RAW fad kicked in.  Expose your images reasonably well, adjust the highlight, shadow, and neutral, and use the other excellent tools that are already in Elements.

Whew - done now.  Keep in mind that RAW does have some distinct advantages - my contention, though, is that the improvements are very subtle - more subtle than the various video inputs on the back of your TV - and, again IMHO,  it is foolish to jump into the complexities of RAW before you have mastered the other important elements of photography.

I welcome any comments, of course, and will respond to the ones that are in the spirit of discovery and fun.

Happy curving.

Mike Russell  - www.curvemeister.com

[focus_on _nature]

I shoot on both RAW and JPEG, depending on the situation.  I use RAW when I am shooting landscapes not only because I want to record the most detail the image, particularly in the shadows, but also because I want to take advantage of 16 bit images.  I use JPEG for most other situations because, like you said, it can record excellent images and I don't need to extract every bit of data for, say, family shots or pics of my grandson's birthday party.  Also, in my camera at least, RAW is slower to process in camera.  That's not a problem with landscapes, they don't move  , but  some situations, like sports, demand faster processing times, hence, JPEG is used.

It all comes down to choice and what you are comfortable with.  Both formats do a good job and what you have to do is stick to the one that gives you the results you like.

[RonBoyd]

Mike,

I agree with every point you make... particularly the one about becoming a good photographer before worrying about tweaking your images (or however you said it).

Nevertheless, I will still shoot in RAW in all cases. Primarily because, as you say, "each image has a different set of colors, and different demands on color rendition" that should not be left (eh... I can't leave) up to the camera's internal decision-making device. (I do capture both jpeg and RAW, just in case, but, invariably, throw away the jpeg when transferring the image to permanent storage.)

In any event, a very well written argument and I concur wholely.

Ron

[mdavis]

Mike's points are well argued, and it is a matter of personal preference, of course.  I shoot RAW for a couple of reasons:

1)  The LCD screen and miniature histogram on my Canon 20D (yeah, I know I should buy the new 40D with the big screen, but that's only marginally better) does not always give me an accurate account of the captured image.  First, if there are some subtle highlights or shadows on either end, often the tiny sliver of histogram is so small you don't see it.  Second, most of us (myself included) limit the LCD view to 2 seconds to conserve battery power when away from a charger on long excursions outside.  It is difficult to evaluate that image/histogram in the one second you have left after you take the camera from your eye.

2)  As Mike mentioned, the JPEG image in the LCD and saved in the CF card is already processed by the camera's on-board computer from the original RAW data.  Data is discarded -- admittedly most of it of no consequence, but discarded none the less, and the computer is making generic judgements about what is important in your image.  This is not so much an issue with shooting normal family-type images, but it can be significant for creative or interpretive work.

It has been argued by some of the Photoshop gurus (all of whom are on the payroll, of course) that the algorithms used in ACR are different (and the implication is therefore better) than similar features in Photoshop itself or Elements.  I'm not convinced that, IF there is a difference, that it is better.  But I do import all my images (RAW and JPEG) into ACR to look them over for exposure settings.  Often I can render two images from ACR, one for highlights and one for shadows and then blend them in Photoshop to extend the effective range of my image if there wasn't time or opportunity to bracket exposures.  Often I export the RAW image from ACR unchanged into Photoshop where it resides as a .PSD file until I save it.

Another thing I use ACR for is to tweak the CA.  I have a Canon 17-85mm lens that has some CA at the 17mm end that often needs some work.  I can adjust it a bit in ACR and then take another crack at it in Photoshop where the algorithm seems to be just enough different that it often gets the job done perfectly, where using Photoshop alone just doesn't quite get it.

So there are some tools in ACR that are useful and that I don't like to bypass.

BUT, this in no way affects my use of Curvemeister from within Photoshop.  The color accuracy of Canon vs. Nikon vs. Sony vs. Pentax etc. is a non-issue unless you totally bypass the editor and send your camera images directly to Costco, Snapfish or wherever.  I never rely on the camera's interpretation of my scenes.  I check color balance in Curvemeister by the numbers (just like Dan Margulis taught me), and handle saturation and contrast the same way.  My monitors aren't calibrated, but they are as accurate as my eyes, and my images come out looking the way I want them.  If I were printing color catalogs for high fashion, then absolute color accuracy may be an issue, but that's another world.

One of the reasons we may be seeing the increased emphasis on RAW is the new editors from Apple and Adobe - Aperture and Lightroom respectively.  These are essentially RAW editors that have some normal editing functions added.  Adobe reportedly is trying to get Lightroom on every computer that does digital imaging.  Unless they totally remove ACR from Photoshop, I'm not impressed enough with Lightroom to buy it.  But they could force me there IF they remove ACR from Photoshop, and then increase the upgrade pricing on Photoshop so high that it isn't an option to continue to support it.  But then they would have to make sufficient "value added" improvements that I couldn't resist, and I don't think that will happen.

So for me, ACR is just that -- a RAW editor.  It's a course adjustment tool that prepares an image for final tweaking in Photoshop/Curvemeister, and that allows me a little bit more latitude on both ends of the exposure spectrum than a clipped JPEG image.  It has nothing whatsoever to do with Curvemeister.  You could argue that ACR is a wasted step in my workflow.  Perhaps it is, much of the time.  But I don't crank out high volumes of photos commercially, I work for my own pleasure, and filtering images first through ACR lets me think I have more control.  The final polishing tool is Curvemeister which is in no way threatened by my use of RAW images.

[KlausNordby]

Wow, Mike, your piece sure packed a punch and will ruffle some feathers! Still, I have clearly demonstrated to my own irrefutable satisfaction that the raw NEFs from my D200 and D3 can be turned into much better photos technically, regarding shadows and highlights and dynamic range, than the JPGs my Nikons produce. The quality differences are not trivial. So for really demanding work, like my landscape photos, raw is the only way to go for me -- but for most people & animals photos JPGs rule. It can really be as simple as that: let each tool do the job it does best.

[derekfountain]

I have clearly demonstrated to my own irrefutable satisfaction that the raw NEFs from my D200 and D3 can be turned into much better photos technically, regarding shadows and highlights and dynamic range, than the JPGs my Nikons produce.

Same for my Canon. I wouldn't trust the camera's internal RAW->JPEG convertor to do the exact job I want. I pondered and researched the issue myself about 3 years ago, and I wrote up my findings here:

http://www.derekfountain.org/raw_vs_jpeg.php

I know a lot more about colour theory now than I did then, and maybe that article looks a bit simplistic for the Curvemeister crowd. But I still don't doubt the underlying finding: allowing the camera to decide what image data gets discarded in the JPEG creation process is not a good idea for those who actually care about their images.

Considering Mike is the guy who's pushing us all to preserve shadow and highlight detail to the maximum, I'm rather astonished at him holding the view he does.

[Greg Groess]

I know I'm going to regret this.....

When I learned, and taught Black and White Photography and process, everyone was mucking around with developer, time, temperature, agitation.  Then you hung the film out to dry and went to printing...again, Developer, Time, Temp, Dodge and Burn...Stand on your head and wiggle your toes...

None of it mattered a rat's butt end if you had a crappy exposure to begin with...Oh sure you could pull an odd image out of the dumpster on occasion, but the reality was that you needed good exposure.
Light meters and education, composition and control....you need CREATIVITY....

If you hold the belief that RAW = Negatives then shoot RAW.  You will always have the data in the file and you will always be able to convert it to whatever software package you you are using up to and including Adobe CS49XR.   Dropping RAW support would make as much sense as dropping GIF support, it is not going to happen in any time frame that matters to me right now.

The RAW problem today is the same as Black and White process 25 years ago...Time, Temp, and Agitation are now Exposure, Color Temp, and Gamma.  The same people who mucked around in the dark 25 years ago are still mucking around...just a new set of ways to do it.

Sometimes I fall into the same trap..new gadget = better image...NOT...I always end up going back to the basics...reality is that you needed good exposure.  Camera RAW, JPEG, TIFF; they are all containers for the data collected at the moment you make the decision and depress the shutter.  They are equal to film brands in my mind and are just as useful as choosing the right film for the job was 10 years ago.

Did you choose films based on the developer your processor was using...I doubt it...you choose the film based on the need to contain the exposure and your processors ability to extract the data from it. 

It's different today....Yeah...Right....

Greg

[derekfountain]

...reality is that you needed good exposure.

The argument that you make, and that Mike made, that you shouldn't shoot raw, you should shoot with the correct exposure, strikes me as a straw man argument. You can shoot with correct exposure in either raw or JPEG mode. I've never heard anyone make the argument that they shoot in raw mode because it alleviates the need to set correct exposure. Mind you, I never follow any of these discussions (except this one ), so maybe people do say that.

I looked into this at some depth and concluded that if I set the camera up correctly and take the shot, then I end up with a better image from a raw file than I do from a camera derived JPEG. The issue, AFAICS, isn't the theoretical amount of data in the images, it's what the camera does with it when it makes a JPEG out of it. The bottom line is that I can do a lot better job than the camera can.

[Greg Groess]

Anytime you let the camera decide you lose something that you could bring to the image.  I'm not against RAW <raw> or any format for that matter.  I just find it fascinating that the same "issues" of control keep cropping up even in the digital age.  I wish I had a nickel coin for each test strip and control plot I had to make...

To me RAW is a choice I make..A creative or disk space choice.  BTW I shoot RAW.  But only because it is my digital negative.  I always "save as" and keep the original as is.  You never know, someone MIGHT just come up with a better way to process the data.  I want to have the output of the camera for that day.

I pass no judgment on those who do or do not shoot raw.  My observations were aimed at reminding all that the problems of processing images digital or analog for that matter usually come down to proper exposure, composition and process, that many rely on the ability to manipulate post exposure as a compensation for pre-exposure metering and or composition.

I take Mike's discussion more as a "mild" indictment of the software industry... I'm pretty sure there are stronger voices being raised out there...and the more is better philosophy.  If you look at some of the best photography ever created it had little to do with the use of a new film or better camera or more gadgets.  It came down to the vision, passion and choices that the image maker made at all steps in the process.  To me process is a tool not a creator...

Derek you and I make the choices and use the best process we can to help us to realize the image we want to create.  There are many who shoot huge amounts of data that do not.

Greg