# RAW images are looking blurry..what am I doing wrong?



## chris182 (Apr 18, 2010)

Iv started shooting in RAW on my d90 and when I open them in photoshop elements 8 to edit and make jpeg they look blurry but look great when they are on the camera...something im missing here or....??


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## chris182 (Apr 18, 2010)

*correction, they are looking very grainy, not blurry. sorry


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## mrpink (Apr 18, 2010)

post an example along with your EXIF data.





p!nK


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## KmH (Apr 18, 2010)

The image shown on your camera LCD is *NOT* the RAW data file. It is a post processed JPEG Basic that is imbedded in the RAW data file.

By the same token, the histogram shown on your camera is *NOT* from the RAW data file but from the same post processed JPEG Basic image.

At any rate a noisy image is usually the result of using a high ISO setting, or underexposing and then increasing the exposure in post processing.

Additionally, RAW data files are captured in a 12-bit color depth by the D90 and converted to the 16-bit color depth as an image.

The Elements workspace is limited to an 8-bit color depth which is one of the reasons Elements is far less expensive than the full-featured Photoshop CS.

However, you can view and edit RAW data files in the 16-bit color depth in Adobe Camera RAW (ACR) by selecting "16-bits per channel" at the bottom of the ACR screen.


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## Dwig (Apr 18, 2010)

chris182 said:


> Iv started shooting in RAW on my d90 and when I open them in photoshop elements 8 to edit and make jpeg they look blurry but look great when they are on the camera...something im missing here or....??



The image you see in your camera is produced from the RAW image by the camera's internal RAW converter. The sharpening and noise reduction that it applies are derived from the settings in the camera's setup menu. 

When you use a RAW converter on your PC that is not Nikon's own Capture NX, the camera's settings are not used as the initial default conversion settings. Instead, the converter, in your case Adobe's Camera RAW (ACR) plugin in PS Elements, uses its own defaults. 

What you are seeing is the result of ACR's default noise reduction settings being set for less noise reduction than those in your camera. From my experience, most in-camera conversion methods automatically increase the noise reduction when you use higher ISOs. Adobe's plugin doesn't do this; it uses that same default noise reduction regardless of ISO. You can easily increase the noise reduction in ACR when doing your RAW conversions.

BTW, this is also true of all of the other settings with the exception of ISO and White Balance and it true of other non-camera brand RAW converters. You'll often see differences in sharpening, color saturation, & contrast, at least with the initial unadjusted defaults in the RAW converter. Converting your RAW images to JPEG or TIFF on your computer instead of having the camera do it for you gives you much more control. Its just that unless you use the camera manufacturer's own software the camera's settings for its converter won't be used as the initial defaults when doing a conversion on your PC.


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