JPG vs Raw

I've had my D30 now for about one year and its great but i've been shooting and printing everything in the large JPG format.I have read all the articles on the raw format but its a hard format to handle.None of the software packages can handle it directly and it takes long to load it and convert it.

After shooting my photos i upload them using the sandisk card reader and place all the photos in a dir ,then using photoshop 6.0 or paint shop pro 7.1 i touch them up and print or burn to a cd.SHOULD I be using the raw format .CRW as I have noticed that any photo in the crw format that looks within spec on the histogram is a good phot as it can be touched up with the graphic packages .

Even after reading the pro's and con's i'm still into JPG's but will switch if others have positive experiences.
Also i would like to know what software you're using to handle the crw format .
I wish photoshop would pick them up directly.
Thanks a a lot for your help

rt [email protected]

Stan,

Like you, I've avoid raw formats for both my Canon and Nikon gear because of the awkward handling. And, like you, I have desired software that works seamlessly within Photoshop. Thankfully, Canon has recently released its 1D software, which also supports the D30, and addresses this need.

At the bottom of the page, look for EOS 1D Twain Driver for Card Reader 4.0.1.
http://www.powershot.com/powershot2/customer/driverdown.html

The driver (only about 2.4MB) opens as any other TWAIN driver. You are not limited to card readers, however, contrary to its name. In my workflow, I copy all of the CRW files from the CF card via a card reader to the harddrive in a dedicated folder (labeled 'Master Files'). In the driver, you have full control over parameters and even click white (although I only adjust white balance settings if the setting was incorrect in the camera to begin with). You then have the option of transferring the images directly into Photoshop, or saving converted images to the harddrive. Both linear and non-linear formats are supported.

I hope it works for you.

M

stan kern said:

I've had my D30 now for about one year and its great but i've been
shooting and printing everything in the large JPG format.I have
read all the articles on the raw format but its a hard format to
handle.None of the software packages can handle it directly and it
takes long to load it and convert it.
After shooting my photos i upload them using the sandisk card
reader and place all the photos in a dir ,then using photoshop 6.0
or paint shop pro 7.1 i touch them up and print or burn to a
cd.SHOULD I be using the raw format .CRW as I have noticed that
any photo in the crw format that looks within spec on the histogram
is a good phot as it can be touched up with the graphic packages .
Even after reading the pro's and con's i'm still into JPG's but
will switch if others have positive experiences.
Also i would like to know what software you're using to handle the
crw format .
I wish photoshop would pick them up directly.
Thanks a a lot for your help

rt [email protected]

Click to expand...

I suppose I've failed to mention that in light of using CRW format over the past month, I wish I had shot all of my images in that format originally. True, low ISO JPG images are pretty good, but CRW will help you if you need to correct exposure or WB problems. In addition, non-linear images bypass parameter settings, so you truly have the greatest control over sharpness, saturation, and contrast.

M

stan kern said:

I've had my D30 now for about one year and its great but i've been
shooting and printing everything in the large JPG format.I have
read all the articles on the raw format but its a hard format to
handle.None of the software packages can handle it directly and it
takes long to load it and convert it.
After shooting my photos i upload them using the sandisk card
reader and place all the photos in a dir ,then using photoshop 6.0
or paint shop pro 7.1 i touch them up and print or burn to a
cd.SHOULD I be using the raw format .CRW as I have noticed that
any photo in the crw format that looks within spec on the histogram
is a good phot as it can be touched up with the graphic packages .
Even after reading the pro's and con's i'm still into JPG's but
will switch if others have positive experiences.
Also i would like to know what software you're using to handle the
crw format .
I wish photoshop would pick them up directly.
Thanks a a lot for your help

rt [email protected]

Click to expand...

For about the first 6 months of owning my D30, I shot in JPG because I could not justify the hassle of shooting in RAW. As I got more serious, I started to experiment with RAW and I can now really see the difference. Some of the JPG artifacting really starts to show if you do a lot of PS processing, plus I found that some functions like sharpen after get a little weird.

I only shot in RAW now and like another poster, I have thousands of .JPG pictures that I wish were in RAW. Another advantage of RAW is being able to change the WB (and other) settings after you get the pictures on your PC. Less you worry about in the field. Being able to save as 16-bit .TIF can also be an advantage if your trying to get details out of shadows.

Here is my work flow for RAW.

1) Copy all the .CRW and .THM files from the CF to the hard drive using Windows. I name the folder with today's date, plus a description ("2001-12-26 (Flowers)" for example).

2) Select all these files, right click on them and change them to READ-ONLY. This will prevent them from being changed. These are my archives and will never be touched.
3) Start Scott Professional's Photo Studio for Canon (www.scottprofessional.com)

4) Quickly look for pictures I want to save and TAG them. I am not very picky here. I TAG about twice as many as I actually keep. I also set the WB, if needed.
5) Mass convert the TAGed pictures to TIF files.

6) Start PS and open all the .TIF files.

7) Now that I can quickly see my keepers, I go though another pass of discarding.

8) Do any adjustments and save the files as .PSD keeping all layers. I also keep a hidden layer of the background before any sharpening, so I can always go back.
9) Convert to .JPG for publishing on the web.

I hope this helps. I think if you start shooting RAW, you will become a believer.

--RZ http://www.romeozulu.com/photos

Stan,

I found that the iview MediaPro software (www.iview-multimedia.com) made it easier to work with CRW files. Although this software does not convert CRW files to TIFF, this catalogue software allows you to see a large preview of CRW files before deciding to convert to TIFF. (It apparently displays a jpg preview imbedded in the CRW file) This improvement in workflow has convinced me to use CRW more often. CRW conversion takes over 2 minutes per pic on my 150 Mhz machine!

There is a 30 day software tryout on that site, well worth it. (...no I don't work for them!)

Hope this helps.
Michel

stan kern said:

I've had my D30 now for about one year and its great but i've been
shooting and printing everything in the large JPG format.I have
read all the articles on the raw format but its a hard format to
handle.None of the software packages can handle it directly and it
takes long to load it and convert it.
After shooting my photos i upload them using the sandisk card
reader and place all the photos in a dir ,then using photoshop 6.0
or paint shop pro 7.1 i touch them up and print or burn to a
cd.SHOULD I be using the raw format .CRW as I have noticed that
any photo in the crw format that looks within spec on the histogram
is a good phot as it can be touched up with the graphic packages .
Even after reading the pro's and con's i'm still into JPG's but
will switch if others have positive experiences.
Also i would like to know what software you're using to handle the
crw format .
I wish photoshop would pick them up directly.
Thanks a a lot for your help

rt [email protected]

Click to expand...

Michael Thomas Mitchell said:

The driver (only about 2.4MB) opens as any other TWAIN driver. You
are not limited to card readers, however, contrary to its name. In
my workflow, I copy all of the CRW files from the CF card via a
card reader to the harddrive in a dedicated folder (labeled 'Master
Files'). In the driver, you have full control over parameters and
even click white (although I only adjust white balance settings if
the setting was incorrect in the camera to begin with). You then
have the option of transferring the images directly into Photoshop,
or saving converted images to the harddrive. Both linear and
non-linear formats are supported.

Click to expand...

I'm at a loss to see how that differs from Canon's RAW image converter. You can add as many images as you want and then convert them selecting WB, etc to a directory.

-Drew

Drew,

I double-checked the Raw Image Converter to answer your question. (Did you download the file I provided a link for?) The RIC differs from the Twain driver in at least a couple of very substantial ways:

1 - The TWAIN driver works within Photoshop, or any other TWAIN-compliant software. Unless I'm mistaken, the RIC is a standalone utility. (Not good or bad, necessarily, just a difference.) If you wish, there is no need to save to a file first. The driver will simply open the file into your software. (The option to save is also given.)

2 - The TWAIN driver provides a thumbnail preview gallery of all of the CRW files within a given directory. Highlight one, a few, or all of the images for either transfer to the software (Photoshop, for instance), or save the conversions to a folder. I was unable to see view any image thumbnails in RIC, making it somewhat awkward if I did not want to convert all of the images.

Hope this helps. The RIC might be more suitable for some, the TWAIN module for others. Personally, I'm glad that Canon, unlike Nikon, gave us a choice. I'm also glad that both of these drivers are very small. I now keep a copy of each on my CF cards, in the event I find myself working on a computer which does not have them.

M

Drew DiPietro said:

Michael Thomas Mitchell said:

The driver (only about 2.4MB) opens as any other TWAIN driver. You
are not limited to card readers, however, contrary to its name. In
my workflow, I copy all of the CRW files from the CF card via a
card reader to the harddrive in a dedicated folder (labeled 'Master
Files'). In the driver, you have full control over parameters and
even click white (although I only adjust white balance settings if
the setting was incorrect in the camera to begin with). You then
have the option of transferring the images directly into Photoshop,
or saving converted images to the harddrive. Both linear and
non-linear formats are supported.

Click to expand...

I'm at a loss to see how that differs from Canon's RAW image
converter. You can add as many images as you want and then convert
them selecting WB, etc to a directory.

-Drew

Click to expand...

Michael Thomas Mitchell said:

I'm also glad that both of these drivers are very
small. I now keep a copy of each on my CF cards, in the event I
find myself working on a computer which does not have them.

Click to expand...

Great idea! I was at a Christmas party in Atlanta this past weekend and I had wished that I had some software with me. I've got a bunch of 40 meg CF cards collecting dust. This would be a great use for 1 or 2 of them. They are small and with a USB reader I could then use just about any computer. I'm kind of embarrassed that I hadn't thought of that before.

Thanks

Both linear and non-linear formats are supported.

What do the terms linear and non-linear mean? I can't find them in any index or glossary.