Help with the Canon S90 Raw processing

flektogon wrote:

The problem is, that I have got the Pentax K-x and its Raw displaying is completely different. But, yes, you are right. That nice "Raw" image is some JPEG clone created by the camera. I am then just surprised how good job the S90 JPEG engine is doing. I am slowly finding the setting, which can turn the Raw image into the JPEG looking similarly to what the camera delivers. But this is still really very strange, as the Pentax K-x Raw image almost matches the camera JPEG and with the default (colour hue, tone, etc.) settings.

Thanks for the encouragement. I'll try to shoot Raw again.

Peter

Yeah, different manufacturers have their RAW files differently implemented, and many RAW processing applications don`t support all of them equally. Now, if everyone would accept DNG format as a RAW standard, it might be different, but that doesn`t seem to be happening anytime soon...

I totally understand your surprise with the "raw" RAW file (it sounds funny, but I mean no usually needed corrections being automatically applied), as that is exactly what I felt when I first saw it, too We usually don`t think much about the process needed to make the final JPEG image, but once you see the uncorrected RAW file from which the JPEG became, it does feel a bit magical, indeed

You`re welcome, I do strongly encourage you to try shooting RAW (JPEG+RAW, maybe even better), as the difference it can make can be quite surprising, and usually the harder the shooting conditions, the more improvement you can make in RAW post-processing - applying the desired level of sharpening, finely tuning exposure and modifying highlights/shadows are just some of them.

Again, I propose using at least Canon`s "Digital Photo Professional" (if not Adobe`s "Lightroom" or "Photoshop"), because it literally starts-off with the RAW file looking the same way your JPEG looks like, automatically applying all the corrections needed (and having the JPEG-alike colors). From there, it`s much easier to tweak a few things (moving sliders to the left or right) and get an improved picture, than to waste your time trying to make it look normal first (in "ACDSee").

Some examples, as already mentioned, are given in this post, showing how RAW shooting can save what seemed to be a completely ruined photo.