# Editing RAW files



## Philiwily (Oct 9, 2010)

Forgive me if I sound like an amateur, but I have a Nikon D5000, and when shooting in jpg, the camera automatically adjusts color and makes the images quite vibrant. However, when shooting in RAW, my images are quite dull. I have Photoshop and Lightroom, but I haven't been able to get the same degree of vibrancy by editing white balance and tone after shooting. Does anyone have any tips?


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## Robin Usagani (Oct 9, 2010)

There is an adjustment for vibrant and other adjustments on Lightroom. The sliders should be underneath the whitebalance adjustment. Make sure they are not minimized.


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## kundalini (Oct 9, 2010)

RAW files will never come out as vibrant as JPEG files, but has all the data for you to make adjustments.  When shooting in the same lighting conditions, you make adjustments to one photo, then with Lightroom, select all and sync for quick batch editing.


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## KmH (Oct 9, 2010)

Philiwily said:


> Forgive me if I sound like an amateur, but I have a Nikon D5000, and when shooting in jpg, the camera automatically adjusts color and makes the images quite vibrant. However, when shooting in RAW, my images are quite dull. I have Photoshop and Lightroom, but I haven't been able to get the same degree of vibrancy by editing white balance and tone after shooting. Does anyone have any tips?


Which Photoshop (CSx - Elements x) and which Lightroom (1, 2, 3) are you using?

First, you can change the JPEG vibrancy in one of the D5000's menus. note that as it is now, by shooting JPEG, you have little control over how your images get post processed. JPEG is a lossy, 8-bit depth, ready to print image file format. Up tp 80% of the color data the RAW file contains is discarded in the conversion to JPEG.

Consequently, the RAW file has had little post processing applied to it. That's up to you.

Photoshop and Lightroom both use Adobe Camera RAW (ACR) to convert and edit RAW data files. The only caveat is the ACR version in Photoshop Elements has been dramatically de-featured compaired to the ACR in CSx and Lightroom x.

White balance and tone are the wrong sliders to be using to boost vibrancy.

Look to using the Vibrance and Saturation sliders instead.

Take into consideration that Lightroom and ACR have the sliders in the order they should be used, with Exposure being the first one and Vibrance and Saturation being the last 2.


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## Philiwily (Oct 9, 2010)

I'm using Photoshop CS4 and Lightroom 2. \

I'm pretty familiar with the advantages/disadvantages of RAW vs. jpg, and I am aware that pn the D5000, you can change jpg vibrancy.

Thanks for the tips on the sliders though. I do use them in Lightroom, but I was just saying I'm having a hard time getting the same kind of color contrast and vibrancy with the sliders, than if I were to preset the jpg vibrancy and just shoot in jpg instead of RAW.


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## Garbz (Oct 9, 2010)

There's so much more to play with than just saturation sliders, look down the bottom there' the saturation primaries of the colour profile. Still not good enough? You can even customise the profile for your camera using Adobe's DNG profile editor. Though that is quite an advanced topic.


What specifically can't you match? If you slide photoshop's sliders the right you get a photo that looks more saturated and colourful than unicorn poo. I'm sure your Nikon would take more bland and normal looking pictures than that. Post an example.


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## Philiwily (Oct 19, 2010)

Thanks for the responses guys, and sorry for the late response. When I was editing stuff in Lightroom, I was only using Quick Develop, and I noticed the plethora of other options when using regular Develop mode. However, I also found that using Nikon's CNX editor, though maybe not as nice as Lightroom, it does properly import my color profiles from my camera, giving me my desired look.


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