# colour saturation and Raw v JPEG issues



## Hair Bear (Apr 25, 2007)

I normally shoot RAW and convert through bridge to P shop

Today I took some shots RAW + JPEG and was shocked at how vivid the JPEG image is next to the raw

Is this colour space? or a setting I have missed on the camera?

Or should I be boosting the colour in the conversion or in PS?

Update
								Playing with the file I can saturate the image at +15-20 but this seems yet another step in processing.


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## darich (Apr 25, 2007)

the reason the jpeg is more vivid is down to the camera processing the shot in accordance with the parameters selected. These may be user defined or automatic.

RAW images capture what the camera sees and have no processing applied to them. It's normal for RAW images to look flatter than the jpeg for the above reason.
Sure you can increase the colour in the RAW image - it'll give you something similar to the jpeg but it's a manual method. You can manually select how much or how little saturation to apply. The same applies to contrast, brightness sharpness etc. Jpeg reduces these options for you by making the adjustments when saving the image and deleting the info that's not required.

As for colour space - not sure about that. Perhaps someone more knowledgeable will give some answers to that one.


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## Hair Bear (Apr 25, 2007)

Makes sense, so I should be adding a saturation boost in PS in line with want I want from the image then


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## darich (Apr 25, 2007)

if that's what you need from your image then yes.
:thumbup:


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## skieur (May 15, 2007)

Hair Bear said:


> Makes sense, so I should be adding a saturation boost in PS in line with want I want from the image then


 
The problem is that adding saturation most often adds that irritating picture noise or grain, so it is best to use other approaches to improving colour such as the Channel Mixer, software filters or even changing the colour temperature.

skieur


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## EOS_JD (May 15, 2007)

Amend the colour in the RAW converter itself - not within Ps although can further add saturation there.

The RAW imnage should be edited to look its best within the raw converter.


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## SeriouslyC (May 15, 2007)

Adding saturation in a RAW converter shouldn't degrade the image. If it starts blocking pixels (making the pixels just solid colours) then the saturation being applied is too strong.


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## Riggaberto (May 15, 2007)

Hair Bear said:


> Makes sense, so I should be adding a saturation boost in PS in line with want I want from the image then


If that's what you want.  The beauty of photography is there isn't a single right answer for anything.  There are no rules, there's just convention.  I'm currently exploring photoshop too.


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## THORHAMMER (May 16, 2007)

the entire raw vs jpg concept is being missed here. 

If I had the time I would write about it... someone can provide a synoptis or a link ?


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## Don Simon (May 17, 2007)

THORHAMMER said:


> the entire raw vs jpg concept is being missed here.


 
Good  'Raw vs Jpeg' is a topic like 'Film vs Digital' or 'Which Brand'... go down that route and you'll get a thread of at least 5 pages, about 5 posts of which constitute an actual debate. Sorry if I sound a bit pessimistic


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## darich (May 17, 2007)

THORHAMMER said:


> the entire raw vs jpg concept is being missed here.
> 
> If I had the time I would write about it... someone can provide a synoptis or a link ?



The original post wasn't a raw v jpeg question - more a question about why a jpeg was more vivid than the raw image.


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## RVsForFun (May 17, 2007)

That *was* the original question. And the answer was that the poster was looking at a processed image vs. an unprocessed (or incorrectly processed) one. I suspect the OP didn't have his RAW parms set correctly as (even though I'm a 99% JPEG shooter) you should always be able to meet or exceed an in-camera JPEG iimage using a RAW one.



darich said:


> The original post wasn't a raw v jpeg question - more a question about why a jpeg was more vivid than the raw image.


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## Alex_B (May 17, 2007)

RAW = invisible.

you really never see RAW images, you always see the conversion from RAW data into something displayable. Even in the RAW-converter preview this is done (using some arbitrary parameters the software engineer thought nice).

play with the conversion settings so you like the outcome. 

best really do this in the RAW-JPG conversion process, and do not try to get that contrast or saturation or whatever you want by using an already dull and flat jpg for a start.

if you go from RAW to TIFF, this is less crucial since TIFF has a decent coulour depth (16 bit per RGB-channel), which JPG has not (8 bit per RGB channel).


Flat colours can also be due to colour management gone wrong (wrong profile (e.g. sRGB) assigned to an image with a larger colour space (e.g. AdobeRGB)).


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## RVsForFun (May 17, 2007)

Correct in all counts, Alex! You can't even display a 16-bit colorspace on your monitor; it's approximated.



Alex_B said:


> RAW = invisible.
> 
> you really never see RAW images, you always see the conversion from RAW data into something displayable. Even in the RAW-converter preview this is done (using some arbitrary parameters the software engineer thought nice).
> 
> ...


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## EOS_JD (May 17, 2007)

RVsForFun said:


> That *was* the original question. And the answer was that the poster was looking at a processed image vs. an unprocessed (or incorrectly processed) one. I suspect the OP didn't have his RAW parms set correctly as (even though I'm a 99% JPEG shooter) you should always be able to meet or exceed an in-camera JPEG iimage using a RAW one.


 
The OP asked regards two images direct from his camera.  A RAW and a jpg.  THe RAW unprocessed file looks flat and a little soft. The parameters in-camera mean nothing to a RAW file. THe RAW will look the same no matter the parameters that are used. You have to edit in the RAW converter to get the file to look good. The jpg image has already been edited with the camera's parameter settings.


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## skieur (May 17, 2007)

THORHAMMER said:


> the entire raw vs jpg concept is being missed here.
> 
> If I had the time I would write about it... someone can provide a synoptis or a link ?


 
Jpeg is an 8 bit, 256 colour, lossy, compressed file format.  In a compressed file format data is lost from the original and when it comes to photos data means picture quality.  Since reality has a lot more than 256 colours, it means for example that 20 shades between red and black with gradual transitions in a sunset are compressed to perhaps 8 with harsher transitions and banding.  Editing 8 bit images results in losing more colours as shown in the histogram, so you could end up down to 200 colours or less.  Artifacts such as halos and stray pixels also end up added by the editing process further degrading the image.

RAW is straight uncompressed data from the chip.  Nothing is lost.  It can also be edited in a raw program without any degradation as well. It can be saved as a 16 bit TIFF file with thousands of colours which can be edited withough noticeable colour loss.  Some plug-ins such as software filters for Photoshop or PaintShop Pro open up more sophisticated opportunities for editing in the higher quality 16 bit format.

skieur


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## Hair Bear (May 18, 2007)

Clearly the OP was not a JPEG v RAW question - shoot RAW by default and I'm not keen on JPEGs

Because of the course I was on and to speed up viewing between shoots I was requested to shoot JPEG. In case I wanted to do some processing I shot the two together and because of this had a chance to view the images together.

Now I have to start to question my work flow and processing style etc. This has moved on as my experience has, and is now spilling into further questions regarding WB and colour space that both effect the image and setting it up in RAW etc


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## EOS_JD (May 18, 2007)

skieur said:


> Jpeg is an 8 bit, 256 colour, lossy, compressed file format.


 
Not true. Each of three channels (RGB) have 256 colours (or shades) each so you can achieve over 16 million colours (256x256x256).



skieur said:


> Since reality has a lot more than 256 colours, it means for example that 20 shades between red and black with gradual transitions in a sunset are compressed to perhaps 8 with harsher transitions and banding. Editing 8 bit images results in losing more colours as shown in the histogram, so you could end up down to 200 colours or less. Artifacts such as halos and stray pixels also end up added by the editing process further degrading the image.


 
Not sure where you got this info but it's completely wrong. Sure compression deletes info from the image but your figures are way off the mark.



skieur said:


> RAW is straight uncompressed data from the chip. Nothing is lost.


 
RAW is still a COMPRESSED file but is a lossless compression (similar to tif in that respect). 



skieur said:


> It can be saved as a 16 bit TIFF file with thousands of colours......


 
It can indeed be saved as 8bit or 16bit tiff. An 8 bit tiff has the same number of colours as an 8 bit jpg (16 million) however a 16 bit tiff has many many more. 65536 per channel as compared to 256 in an 8 bit file. So a theoretical 65536^3 = 281,474,976,710,656 (281 trillion)!!

Although that doesn't matter too much as all printers print in 8 bit I believe so that 16 bit file is converted to 8 bit either by you or by the printers driver.



skieur said:


> .....which can be edited withough noticeable colour loss.


 
There is no "noticeable colour loss" because there is none when edited, because the tif files are also a lossless compression. If you edit the image you control the appearance and loss/addition of colour info.

Can you advise where you got your info as it seems flawed in every way.

JD


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