# RAW Image Color Differences



## Juliett Sierra (Jan 28, 2010)

Okay so I'm not sure exactly what this has to do with (I'm pretty sure it's a white balance/RAW issue) but on my camera the pictures look very vibrant but when I'm looking at the RAW images in Lightroom they are muted. Sometimes just to view images I use Picasa Photo Viewer and as it loads an image it has it's original vibrance. Wait a few seconds and it returns to the Lightroom muted colors. Any reason for this or is there any way I can return the color? In Lightroom under White Balance I select 'As Shot' yet none of the color returns. Very frustrating.  Do I have to re-adjust the pictures to try and match the color that was shown on my camera and in Picasa?


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## Josh66 (Jan 28, 2010)

The in-camera preview (and I guess the Picasa preview) is a processed RAW - it has things like contrast, saturation, and sharpness applied to it.

The RAW doesn't have any of that.  You have to do it all in LR.

You can set Lightroom up to apply presets upon import if you want.


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## DennyCrane (Jan 28, 2010)

You cannot directly "view" a RAW file. Everything you see is a conversion of some kind to a viewable form. Whether in camera or in some other program, it's had some basic processing done to turn into a viewable form. 

All the information is there, it's just a matter of doing your own post-processing to get it where you want it. Color temperature is a huge part, but so is setting the saturation levels, the contrast, and not least, the sharpening. A jpg has sharpening done in camera, RAW has none.


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## Juliett Sierra (Jan 28, 2010)

Alrighty, well thank y'all so much.  And from what I'm hearing I assume that I have to apply the settings afterward.  Perhaps I should have just shot in RAW+Jpeg?  I just wish that you could use the settings used on the camera and apply them back to the RAW image.  Not a big deal I suppose.  Thanks again.  Sorry if this topic has been discussed before.


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## DennyCrane (Jan 28, 2010)

I shoot RAW+jpg myself and simply for having a basic jpg to use for preview purposes. If it's bad, it's erased, if it's good, I'll post-process it's RAW counterpart.


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## Juliett Sierra (Jan 28, 2010)

Yeah, hence forth I think I shall use both.  I actually did for awhile but I am able to take more with just RAW so that attracted me to it.  I need to get a bigger memory card sometime anyway.


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## Dwig (Jan 28, 2010)

Juliett Sierra said:


> ...I just wish that you could use the settings used on the camera and apply them back to the RAW image. ...



You can, and sometimes it can be done automatically.

The camera settings are used by the camera to generate a viewable bitmap for preview. With some cameras, those settings are also used to generate a small JPEG thumbnail that is embedded into the RAW file. In your case that is happening and Picasa Photo Viewer is displaying this thumbnail briefly while it is processing the RAW image in the background. When the RAW is processed using the viewer's default settings it replaced the low rez thumbnail.

To "fix" the problem you need to use a RAW converter that allows you to save your own custom defaults. You then can open a test file, make manual adjustments to create an image that looks like the camera's preview and save these settings as new defaults. They will then be used as the default starting point with other images.

The other "fix" works only with some camera brands. This fix is to use the RAW converter supplied by the camera manufacturer that is set up to read the camera settings (they are saved in almost all RAW flavors as header data) and apply them using matching RAW conversion algorithms. Nikon is one manufacturer that has an excellent RAW converter, Capture NX2, that matches the in-camera converter well and, instead of using its own default settings, it reads the camera's settings in the file and uses those as the starting point. With properly adjusted displays, both the camera's and the computer's, the displayed images will be very similar.


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## Garbz (Jan 29, 2010)

Juliett Sierra said:


> I just wish that you could use the settings used on the camera and apply them back to the RAW image.



Your camera manufacturer's raw converter will do all that. However that means not using Lightroom / Photoshop which for me is a clear loser. One of the reasons I moved to Lightroom is because of my dis-satisfaction with how the camera renders colours.

The real key here is your camera is set up with many pre-set defaults. A decent RAW converter like Lightroom has defaults of its own, but the whole point of RAW is that the power is now in your hands. Play with the sliders and when you find something you like set it as a preset. Or if you like something generic you like then set it as an import default. You're out shooting landscapes, then when you get home just select all your landscape images and click the landscape preset you made.


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## Big Mike (Jan 29, 2010)

Shooting RAW+JPEG is a waste of space IMO.  You can create JPEG files from RAW files at any time.

As mentioned, you can set up presets in LR.  So if you want the previews to look more like the processes JPEG images, you can set that up.  You can apply a preset to individual images, to a batch of images or you can even apply them at the same time you import them into LR.  

Personally, I think the best thing to do, is learn to see the potential of an image, when looking at the RAW previews.  No preset will be perfect for every image...and being able to make those individual adjustments is the high level of control that most of us want.


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## Vautrin (Jan 30, 2010)

You just really need to learn how to work with the lightroom workflow.

Prior to Lightroom I might take a shot twice -- once in color then once with the black & white setting on my camera

Lightroom completely removes any in camera changes from the raw files.  So things like whether an image is black and white or saturated need to be done after the fact.

So now I just take one image of everything, then when I see somethign I think would look cool in B&W, I set up a virtual copy of the image, and make one B&W.  Now I have one file + 2 images


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## Josh66 (Jan 30, 2010)

Vautrin said:


> [...] I set up a virtual copy of the image, and make one B&W.  Now I have one file + 2 images



I love the virtual copies...  

I use them a lot for B&W, different processing, different crops, etc...


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## kkamin (Feb 1, 2010)

Garbz said:


> Juliett Sierra said:
> 
> 
> > I just wish that you could use the settings used on the camera and apply them back to the RAW image.
> ...



I haven't used Lightroom yet, but I use Adobe Camera Raw.  When I bring a file into ACR, I can set the picture mode (i think its called) to a Canon preset, like Canon Faithful.  Isn't that what she wants, to call up her camera's preset?  Doesn't LR have presets for her camera type or aren't they downloadable?


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## kkamin (Feb 1, 2010)

edit: accidental double response


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## inTempus (Feb 1, 2010)

You can set Lightroom to default to your camera settings.  Most major brands already have default settings available in Lightroom that come pretty close to those settings you see on camera. You just need to select them. If you don't have these profiles, I believe you can download them from Adobe.

By default, Lightroom chooses "Adobe Standard".  But if you look at the drop down (right side, scroll to the bottom) you'll see other options.  Here's mind for my Canons:







If you make changes to this setting, you can hold down the Alt/Option (Mac) key and you'll see the button change from "Reset" to "Set Default".  Clicking set default will change the settings and apply them to all future imports of RAW images.


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## itznfb (Feb 1, 2010)

This topic is killing me. Use your manufacturers software to get accurate color. Period.


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## inTempus (Feb 1, 2010)

itznfb said:


> This topic is killing me. Use your manufacturers software to get accurate color. Period.


Why?

You can get outstanding color, and it looks just like the manufacturers, if you know how to properly use the tool (like Lightroom).

I see no reason to limit yourself with the rather crappy OEM software.  Just learn how to use the 3rd party applications properly as they typically offer more robust tools.

By 3rd party I mean Lightroom, ACR, or even Capture One Pro.


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## itznfb (Feb 1, 2010)

inTempus said:


> itznfb said:
> 
> 
> > This topic is killing me. Use your manufacturers software to get accurate color. Period.
> ...



I've never used Canon's software but Nikon's Capture NX2 isn't crappy by any means. I've never seen anyone that could provide the right adjustments for Camera RAW including the preset ones you can download from various photogs and manufacturers that accurately render the image like Capture NX2 does out of the box. If I need to do more indepth editing with layers or something then I'll just export the tiff to Photoshop.

As I've said in other threads I spent years working with Photoshop just because I assumed it was better than Capture NX2. When I finally decided to make the jump it was the biggest single improvement to my end result.


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## inTempus (Feb 1, 2010)

Yeah, NX2 might be in a different league.  DPP is rather limited in functionality.  It's great for NR, but everything else is kind of clunky and not all that intuitive.  Nikon charges $200 for NX2 (a little less than Lightroom) which means I would expect more from it.

DPP is free and ships with every Canon.  I much prefer Lightroom as it's a great tool for not only importing RAWs but for building a library of images and doing other workflow management.


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## Vautrin (Feb 1, 2010)

itznfb said:


> This topic is killing me. Use your manufacturers software to get accurate color. Period.



You should see the skin tones my olympus evolt 510 creates under flourescent lights.  with default white balance people look yellow.  nice if you're photgraphing the simpsons, but not so nice otherwise


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## itznfb (Feb 1, 2010)

inTempus said:


> Yeah, NX2 might be in a different league.  DPP is rather limited in functionality.  It's great for NR, but everything else is kind of clunky and not all that intuitive.  Nikon charges $200 for NX2 (a little less than Lightroom) which means I would expect more from it.
> 
> DPP is free and ships with every Canon.  I much prefer Lightroom as it's a great tool for not only importing RAWs but for building a library of images and doing other workflow management.



You're right that it costs too much for what you get, no argument there. It's worth it for me though. I like the out of the box color accuracy. Obviously you can get good color from PS/LR if you know what you're doing with the color profiles. But I actually dislike the post process and want it as easy as possible.


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## Garbz (Feb 2, 2010)

itznfb said:


> This topic is killing me. Use your manufacturers software to get accurate color. Period.



It is widely known that Canons, Nikons, Leicas, Sonys, etc take very different pictures both in colour and tonality. If you think your camera manufacturer produces accurate colours then you should ask yourself what is accurate? After all my D200 allows me to take 5 different colour interpretations sRGB Mode I, sRGB Mode III, AdobeRGB Mode I, AdobeRGB Mode II, AdobeRGB Mode III. You take 5 images of the same colour checker chart you'll get 5 very different results (and on my camera every result will have a light blue that's way too purple!)



kkamin said:


> I haven't used Lightroom yet, but I use Adobe Camera Raw.  When I bring a file into ACR, I can set the picture mode (i think its called) to a Canon preset, like Canon Faithful.  Isn't that what she wants, to call up her camera's preset?  Doesn't LR have presets for her camera type or aren't they downloadable?



This is slightly different to what everyone is talking about I think. This will cause the colour profile to emulate the camera, but only from colour and tone. What I was referring to is the ability for the software to automatically realise your camera was set to Portrait mode and load the required settings, or realise that you had sharpness set to +2 and load that as the default when you import. Only the manufacturer's converter does it that I know of.

But by all means these tools are there to emulate base settings of your camera. Use them, set them as presets or defaults. Heck make your own profile, that's the whole point of all this RAW power (pun definitely intended) .


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