# still confused about editing RAW



## MACollum (Jan 15, 2007)

I've been reading a lot about this but I'm still confused. I think that I'm starting to understand it (just when I was ready to give up on RAW and go back to JPG). There's only so much you can do with levels so I understand that curves are the way to go. My pictures usually come out underexposed (too dark, I think underexposed is the word for too dark) so I've been keeping it on auto because I just can't seem to get the exposure right when I do it myself. I take pictures of basically everything, though in the summer I take lots of pictures of flowers and wildlife. Since it's winter I'm somewhat limited and practice on my kids, chickens and ducks. 4 of my chickens are white and one is black. I mention that because I have a lot of exposure problems when photographing them. 

Anyway, when you edit curves, the extreme dark is on the bottom left corner and the extreme light is on the top right corner. When you pull the point from the left side does it lighten the dark parts only or the whole thing? And the same for the light? How do you know whether to drag the point up or sideways? I'm trying not to blow out the white part but when I use levels it usually blows out or I have to leave the picture too dark in parts. I'd really like to get better but when I try to apply what I learn I'm usually disappointed. Not ready to give up though, there's always auto mode!


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## Peacemaker636 (Jan 15, 2007)

Are you using Photoshop?  If you are, you could try the shadows/highlights adjustment, to adjust the dark areas while keeping the white's from blowing out, and vice-versa.


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## ksmattfish (Jan 15, 2007)

What software are you using?

Having curves set up as you describe (lower left corner = black, upper right corner = white) pulling a point up lightens the tone, and down darkens.  Going left to right only changes the selected tone, or in the case of the very ends, black and white, can be used to compress or expand the tonal scale (move black to the right to compress, move white to the left to compress).

Try putting a bunch of anchor points spaced evenly along the line.  Then just move one at a time up or down.  Then remove the ones that will help make a smooth curve.


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## Big Mike (Jan 15, 2007)

It really helps if you get your exposure right in the first place.  

The thing you have to watch out for...or at least be aware of...is the latitude of tone that you can capture in one shot.  If you have both a black and a white chicken, for example...you will probably loose detail in one...because the right exposure for one...is way off for the other one.

Levels or curves won't fix a bad exposure.  I use levels to even out or spread out the exposure (as seen in the histogram).  I use curves to add mid-tone contrast.

Have you tried the shadow/highlight tool in PS?  I think it's only in the CS & CS2 versions.  This might be a better tool for what I think you are trying to do.  It does have it's limitations though.

All that applies to either RAW or JPEG images.  One advantage to using RAW, is that you have more leeway with adjusting the exposure when you make the conversion.  If you have too wide of a range of tones...you might want to try making two conversions (one for the shadows, one for the highlights) and then combining them in photoshop and blending with a mask.

If you haven't already, check out this site  http://www.luminous-landscape.com/  Lots of good 'how to' and 'understanding' type articles to do with Photoshop, Levels, Curves etc.


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## MACollum (Jan 15, 2007)

I sometimes use photoshop but prefer to use the software that came with the camera (Digital Photo Professional), the reason being that it's very tedious getting the pictures into photoshop. I have to do it one at a time and it takes about 2 minutes per picture. It's much easier to do the curves in the camera's software. I'll try shadows/highlights sometime I'm sure though  I usually have a LOT of pictures to fix.


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## Big Mike (Jan 15, 2007)

I've tried Digital Photo Pro...It's OK...but I preferred just to use the Photoshop RAW converter, Adobe Camera RAW.

Not too long ago, I downloaded Raw Shooter Essentials...it's much better than either.  I suggest you give it a try...it may really help your RAW workflow.


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## markc (Jan 15, 2007)

This might help: http://www.thegoldenmean.com/technique/curves1.html

An important thing to remember is that the line is what is affecting the tones, not the points you are dragging around. The points are effecting the line, but it doesn't matter where they started at all, only how they make the line look.


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## MACollum (Jan 15, 2007)

Big Mike said:


> The thing you have to watch out for...or at least be aware of...is the latitude of tone that you can capture in one shot. If you have both a black and a white chicken, for example...you will probably loose detail in one...because the right exposure for one...is way off for the other one.http://


 
I usually single out the birds because of focus issues. My problem is that the whole picture is too dark. It's trickier to edit pictures of the white chickens because I don't want the white to be blown out. I just can't seem to get the picture to look light enough when I don't use auto mode. 

As for the articles on Luminous Landscape, I've read them and sort of understand the concepts but am somewhat unclear on how to apply them to what I do. I guess what I'm trying to find is a starting point. I think I'm screwing up all over and if I had something good to start with, I could apply one thing at a time but my pictures are a train wreck to begin with. LOL


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## Big Mike (Jan 15, 2007)

Maybe you need to work on the initial exposure...rather than the post processing.  Shooting either a white or a black subject will trick the camera's meter and you may need to make adjustments to the exposure.


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## markc (Jan 15, 2007)

MACollum said:


> As for the articles on Luminous Landscape, I've read them and sort of understand the concepts but am somewhat unclear on how to apply them to what I do.


They are great articles, but I've found that it helps to read articles from a few different people if I'm having trouble grasping something. Sometimes a person will say something in a different way and it will just click. I usually link to the LL site too, but I thought the one above might trigger something for you. If not, keep playing with it. Try starting with a good image to see what it does to that when you move things around.


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## Big Mike (Jan 15, 2007)

Good point Mark.

Here is another site with plenty of good articles.


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## auer1816 (Jan 15, 2007)

When editing for exposure, it's usually best to use BOTH levels and curves.  Start with the levels adjustment and bring the arrows inward to hit the edges of the histogram.  This will effectively stretch out the histogram so that is spans from black to white.  THEN go in and edit the curves.  Since you adjusted the levels to stretch the histogram, you won't need to mess with the endpoints of the curves adjustment.  You can then pull the mid-section up or down in various places to get the mid-tones correct.

But as Big Mike said, these tools won't fix a really bad exposure.  Once your histogram is clipped at either end, you can't retrieve the information that should have been there.


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## MACollum (Jan 15, 2007)

Big Mike said:


> Maybe you need to work on the initial exposure...rather than the post processing. Shooting either a white or a black subject will trick the camera's meter and you may need to make adjustments to the exposure.


 
Are you talking about the shutter/aperture combination or exposure compensation? Does there ever come a point where you just instinctively know what the right exposure should be? I've seen charts and have thought about memorizing them but I thought that I'd figure it out with experience. It doesn't seem to be sinking in. There's something missing, I think, a piece from the puzzle that I'm not understanding. Maybe I'm just impatient in my learning :mrgreen:


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## fmw (Jan 15, 2007)

Macollum, my experience with digital is that it has less exposure latitude than film.  You really need to get the exposures right.  Luckily DLSR's have two useful tools for doing that.  The LCD screen lets you see what the image looks like right after it is saved to the memory card.  Also, you should have a histogram option that plots the luminosity of the image from dark to light.  There is no need to settle for a poor exposure.  Normally, if you see a poor exposure on the LCD screen, you can adjust and shoot again.


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## Big Mike (Jan 15, 2007)

> Are you talking about the shutter/aperture combination or exposure compensation?


Same thing.  When you change the EC, the camera just changes the shutter/aperture combination for you.  If you shoot in manual, then you don't need to use the EC function...you just have to watch the meter and set the 'needle' above or below the zero mark.



> Does there ever come a point where you just instinctively know what the right exposure should be?


Sure...it will come, eventually.  Some people can know the settings to use in any light...without the use of a meter at all.  
What you may need to concentrate on, is knowing when and how much compensation to apply to the camera's meter reading.  The camera's meter wants to make everything middle grey...so if there is a lot of white...you need to add exposure.  If there is a lot of dark, then you need to subtract exposure.

Seeing as you are using digital...do you watch the histogram when you shoot?  That will instantly tell you where your exposure is.


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## MACollum (Jan 15, 2007)

I don't trust the LCD, it's tricked me before. I've turned down the brightness but it's still unreliable so I only use the histogram to see how it was exposed. Maybe I should experiment with EC more. I don't use it much, although I got good results when I used it yesterday. I knew the ice would trick the camera but the light was gorgeous (it was slightly overcast but the ice acted as a huge reflector so I couldn't resist).


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## Big Mike (Jan 15, 2007)

> I don't trust the LCD, it's tricked me before. I've turned down the brightness but it's still unreliable so I only use the histogram to see how it was exposed.


:thumbup:



> Maybe I should experiment with EC more. I don't use it much, although I got good results when I used it yesterday


That's what I often do...shoot, check the histogram, adjust the exposure then shoot again.

When I'm just shooting casually...I mostly want to make sure that I'm not clipping the highlights...that way I know I can easily make tweaks with Photoshop.


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## MACollum (Jan 15, 2007)

Big Mike said:


> :thumbup:
> 
> 
> That's what I often do...shoot, check the histogram, adjust the exposure then shoot again.
> ...


 
Exactly what I try to do.


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## MACollum (Jan 15, 2007)

So if I take a picture using auto mode and then apply the same shutter speed, aperture, WB and ISO in manual mode, the picture will look the same as it did in auto? Unless of course, it was shot in RAW then there would be slight variations. I think auto mode only uses JPG and I've read that in auto the camera processes it and adds saturation, etc.


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## auer1816 (Jan 15, 2007)

Yes, you should get the same picture if you turn all your manual settings to those used in an auto-mode capture.  Shooting in RAW will typically save an image that may be otherwise over/under exposed slightly in JPEG.  The raw image (untouched) will look very bland with not a whole lot of contrast, but this is done on purpose to give you a bit more range.


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## MACollum (Jan 15, 2007)

I'm just now learning that the pictures have a bland look to them in RAW. I was disappointed when I first started using RAW and thought that it was my inferior photography skills that was causing that. Good to know it's not just me messing up, that it's that way on purpose.


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## Alex_B (Jan 15, 2007)

MACollum said:


> I'm just now learning that the pictures have a bland look to them in RAW. I was disappointed when I first started using RAW and thought that it was my inferior photography skills that was causing that. Good to know it's not just me messing up, that it's that way on purpose.



well, you even never ever see RAW images. what you see is always what the RAW converter translates on the fly from the RAW data into something you can look at and save as a jpeg. and the RAW to visual conversion depends on many parameters you have to set. if you do not set them, images might appear bland since standard settings are often very "neutral".


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