RAW processing

Workshop Index

RAW Processing

This workshop covers the basic RAW processing. As I use Nikon gear I use the Nikon Capture v4.4 to process my images in PS. This methodology should hold good for other programmes.

When you open a RAW file in PS your chosen processing programme appears, this is how Nikon Capture v4.4 (NC4.4)looks on screen.

This image was shot on a D200 with the exposure permanently set to +1/3EV. ISO100 was used with Matrix metering

It was a day with strong contrasty lighting.

Check the 'Show workflow options' box and select the values to suit our workflow.

I have changed the Space to Adobe RGB (1998).

Depth is set at 8 bit (if you do a lot of manipulation or intend using the files to produce an HDR image set this to 16 bit)

Size is dependant up on your camera files I have selected the 10 MP as this does not entail any change in the file size to be made by NC4.4. Any size changes are better done in PS.

Resolution has be changed to 300ppi

Above these settings there is a drop down menu for the size of your working image, I tend to leave this at 23.3% as this shows the whole of the file.

For a quick and accurate colour correction in the panels under the histogram leave the settings as 'Camera RAW defaults' and make sure the adjust panel is on top. In this panel select White Balance 'As shot' and check the 4 Auto boxes.

We now need to look at the icons above the top left hand corner of our picture. These should be self explanatory and are from left to right.... Zoom tool, hand tool to move around the enlarged image, W/B selection tool, spot colour eyedropper, crop tool, straightening tool, rotate ACW and rotate CW tools.

Further along are the preview box which you should check so your mod's can be seen on screen as you do them, a shadow box and a highlight box followed by a RGB values readout.

Before doing anything else familiarize yourself with the position of these tools.

For the majority of images I find checking the shadows box and using the W/B eyedropper gives a good colour balance which, if your exposure was good, will not require much fine tuning. Simply click the eyedropper on an area approaching D Max, the value of the selected area is shown in the RGB readout; you need one with all '0's or as near as you can get; your image will automatically adjust to a W/B based on this reading. If this way out simply click on another area or if the image has a majority of light tones checking the highlight box and clicking on a highlight approaching D Min (255 values) should give you an acceptable W/B reading.

This is the screen after using the W/B eyedropper on the base of the chimney of the engine with the cream wheels. you can see the W/B eye dropper and the shadow box are active. The W/B readings have changed from a Kelvin value of 4950 to 5200 and the tint has moved from +3 to +2, exposure is now -1.40 instead of-1.35; brightness and contrast have not altered. This shows the original exposure was not far out and says a lot for Nikon's matrix metering in the D200.

You may wish to give this image a bit more punch, the easy way is to make the curve panel active as shown below and change the Tone Curve value to 'Strong Contrast' from the Medium value shown. You can also select 'Custom' or 'Linear' and adjust the curve manually as described here

The above works well for images well exposed under one light source, we'll now look at an image taken under mixed lighting. There was strong daylight filtering through the tent's canvas roof, some unfiltered daylight from the large openings in the tent sides and mixed tungsten spotlights with a heavy bias to red.

The highlight box was checked ant the eyedropper used on bright area of the players shirt above his left hand, this changed the image to this.

To correct colour balance you need to take a selection of spot readings which will show you the differences between the three colour channels. You can modify these by making the 'Calibrate' panel active as shown below. Only alter one or two colours, never all three.

The sampler eyedropper was now used to check the colour balance on the shirt and guitar. This showed there was too much red and not enough blue so the red saturation was altered to -65 and the blue to +45. This has almost balanced the histogram at the shadow end but , due to the excessive amount of red in the lighting, there is still some red in the high lights.

However we now have an acceptable image, there is still a slight red bias as shown above but I've left that as it reflects the actual conditions without dominating the image as in the original.

When you reached the stage were you are happy with your image, don't forget you can apply crop, straightening and rotation tools to the image before saving or you can save and apply these corrections in PS. I prefer to do as much as possible in the RAW conversion, it's personal choice.

You now have three options

Checking the Save box opens a new menu with several options, which you use depends upon your requirements. One I always use is the save as .DNG the Adobe Universal RAW negative file.

Checking Open will open the image in PS as a NEF file so your original NEF file is altered to the current settings; this is something I'd not recommend unless you have the originals saved to disc as detailed here

By pressing 'Alt' and checking 'Open' you'll change the option to 'Open Copy' which opens a copy of the current settings in PS without modifying the original NEF file. You can now save the image as a Tiff, Jpeg, PSD to suit your requirements, You can also now work on the image using the tools in PS. My final images are always archived as unsharpened Tiffs for the reasons detailed here

This action also changes the 'Cancel' box to 'Reset' which does exactly that, returns the active image in NC4.4 to the original 'as shot' settings.

If you use any other RAW processor the principles for processing will be the same though the methods may alter slightly.