How to display RAW?

[Really]

How to display RAW?

In the software i got with the camera, PPB and PPL displays image but with (saturation, hue, contrast, sharpness) settings from camera. So I cant see the real RAW. Instead, I see image like the embeded JPEG or the same image if Im shooting RAW+. People are saying that if Im not sure about settings, shoot in RAW. RAW image opened in PPL and saved without any modifications looks exactly like the JPEG in RAW+ or embeded JPEG. If I try other programs, they display almost the same image.
Sorry about my bad English.
Thanks.
--

You are an idiot, an evil person, and you deserve all the bad things that will ever happen to you in life. That about sums it up; I expect to have nothing else to say.

 

[Ronald E. Chambers]

I'd like to know how also.

RON C

 

[Steve Hoskin]

I will try to reply even though i am certain that Really is not a lover of photography, but a really a troll with almost no interest in photography (based on his previous posts).

I feel compelled to reply because I so much enjoy raw picture shooting and processing myself, and I don't want others to get the wrong impression from this post. Anyway, here is my n00b opinion about capturing pictures in the raw format and it's advantages over JPG.

First off, I am by no means a pro/expert, but I still shoot in raw only. Yes, I agree it is true Really, that when you "develop" your picture that was taken in raw that you would by default get pretty much the same picture from the raw as you would get from the in camera processed JPG. That's because the raw software is using the camera supplied settings to develop the picture just as the camera did when it developed the JPG. The actual results (using the defaults) would vary by raw processing software, but my guess is they would all be pretty much the same.

In fact, if you are finding the output the same, then I suppose your camera is doing as good a job as your raw processing software of creating the final image. I think that some people find that different raw software and different cameras will provide marginal differences in output.

However, this the starting point (that' why it is the default), and after that is where it gets interesting. If the exposure, white balance, sharpness, recovery etc - all those tricky settings that you (or your camera) may not have gotten perfect need to be tweaked, then raw allows you to non-destructively adjust them - just as the camera would have done had the setting been that way in the first place. And you can adjust/readjust these and then save the picture as a JPG or whatever favorite publishing format you prefer.

Obviously there are limits to this, but it is pretty amazing how much range of adjustment can be squeezed out of raw with the end resulting picture still looking natural and without artifacts. From what I have seen you can't do the same when starting with JPG. For me, I never know when I will take that near perfect picture that just requires a little bit of "help", so shooting in raw boosts my ability to take that final step towards perfection.

 

[Paul Hunt]

It is true that when you view the preview of a raw image file, what you usually see is the embedded preview jpeg. The preview jpeg is processed in the camera using the camera's image settings.

PPL opens your raw image and (I think) by default uses the camera's image settings which are stored as part of the raw file. It may be possible to disable that behaviour of PPL so you start with a more neutral image.

As an alternative, you could use a different raw developer or browser which does not apply the camera image settings.

Be aware that a raw image will look quite flat, dull and a bit un-sharp after interpolation, but before any other treatment. That is normal and correct.

If you do want to look at plain raw images, google for dcraw

Paul

 

[LKeithR]

By definition you cannot actually see a RAW file since it is not created or stored in a displayable format. A RAW file consists of the digital data collected from the image sensor plus identifying and coding info (metadata) and often a thumbnail image. Opening the RAW file in PPL displays the file with the in-camera adjustments applied so naturally you see what is essentially the same as the in-camera JPEG. Opening the file in another program will display the basic RAW image without any adjustments but still in the form of a JPEG...
--
Look at the picture, not the pixels...
http://www.lkeithr.zenfolio.com

 

[KitTP]

For Free Software, Picasa 3 can read the Pentax RAW file (the real PEF RAW file, not the embedded JPEG).

Its awful to look at, mind you. Washed out colours, flat contrast, dull, totally not sharp. Portraits of people look a bit like zombies. Its a postive, but what comes to my mind is like looking at film negatives.

The RAW processing software really does need the embedded Jpeg data as a baseline to generate a usable photo. From that point onwards, working with RAW data allows you a loss-less method to massage the output.

 

[La Poder]

It's nice to see really's bashing turn into an important raw tutorial for some of us less technically minded users...

Thanks Really.

 

[Roland Mabo]

If you switch off the automatic processing in the Pentax PhotoLab, you will see the RAW-image. But do note that for the converter to be able to show the RAW image, it has to process it. So some processing is always involved!

So what you see is never the actual RAW-image, but an interpretation of it in the selected converter. This also means that different converters can show the RAW-image in a different way. It is mostly the colours that are differently interpreted, slightly.

(a RAW converter is like a developer in the film lab, and different developers gives different results...).

--
Take care
R
http://www.flickr.com/photos/raphaelmabo

 

[Gerry Winterbourne]

You may call yourself a n00b but this is an excellent explanation. The only thing I would add is somthing on bit depth.

RAW files are normally in 12-bit (a few higher-end bodies use 14-bit) but screens and other display devices are 8-bit, and JPG is an 8-bit format. This means (a) it is impossible ever to see a true version of a RAW file because the display has to choose which 8 bits out of 12 to show and (b) it explains why you can get so much more out of shooting RAW than JPG.

I'm overstating the case a bit because JPG engines usually squeeze a little more than just an 8-bit slice (by some electronic wizardry) but they rarely get beyond 9EV. This is why DR as measured by DPR on JPGs can go over 8EV, even though DR is limited theoretically to available bit depth.

--
Gerry


First camera 1953, first Pentax 1983, first DSLR 2006
http://www.pbase.com/gerrywinterbourne

 

[Bich]

This is again the eternal confusion between the file format and the display-editing. The file formats are RAW, jpeg, PSD, TIFF, etc...The display is an image in 8 or 16 bits, of x to y pixels and this is all. You edit it and you save it in the original format or in another one. So you can not "see" a RAW file, nor a jpeg either.

The defaut display of a RAW is the same as that of the jpeg which would be generated by the camera. But you can modify it.

The purpose is in fact to compare the RAW files of various camera's: you can do that with ACR: you choose a setting (no sharpening, no noise reduction, bars in central or zero position) and you can apply these settings to all image (instead of the choice "in camera raw defaults" use "previous conversion" or "custom settings).
Jacques Bijtebier

 

[ChrisRN]

If you want to see content of raw snapshot of sensor - use any hex editor.

Else - interpretation of RGGB values (10, 12, 14,16 bits/cell) made by any Raw converter. Which one - depends on you, parametrized by you.
Cheers.
---
Chris

 

[Bich]

A RAW is basically a 16 bits greyscale TIFF. With some skill you can see the amount of light retained by the photosites after traversing the R, G, or B filter. I had the recipe for my olympus E10. The picture was very dark as the last of the 16 bits were not used. But it was possible to transform it directly into a very good greyscale picture.
--
Jacques Bijtebier

 

[Ronald E. Chambers]

Is it possible to get the image as it came out of the sensor into a TIF file? It would look gray scale but the Bayer pattern should be very apparent.

Thanks,
RON C

 

[GordonBGood]

Is it possible to get the image as it came out of the sensor into a TIF file? It would look gray scale but the Bayer pattern should be very apparent.

Sure, it's possible, Ron:

My post to an interesting thread some time ago: http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/readflat.asp?forum=1036&message=28541148&q=gordonbgood+caer&qf=m

Excerpt: Here is a 100% zoom crop of a Colour Filter Array map, processed with completely flat natural tone response curves (a monitor type tone response curve and not linear or the image would be almost too dark to see) and the native colour matrix from the K10D camera produced DNG files but absolutely no Bayer demosiacing. I forgot that the images would still be a bit dark and dull due to losing about 1.5 stops of brightness as there is only one R, G, or B component for any given pixel site. Notice how sharp it is without any sharpness added at all (ie. sharpening is mostly required due to the interpolation process):



And another excerpt from a later post in the thread: In order to avoid the confusion caused by the colour tint and in order to better show how sharp the unsharpened non spacially interpolated raw image really is, I produced the following black and white version where the normally zeroed colour values in the Colour Filter Array (CFA) are set to the same value as the one colour value after colour correction and tone response curve scaling. Again, note how sharp this is. This is truly the maximum resolution that a Bayer sensor can output:



However, note that these images only look this good when viewed at 100% zooms, as they don't upsize and downsize well since the Bayer pattern is still buried in the textures. In this case, the Bayer demosiacing is being done by your eyes. To see this, use the Zoom In controls above the images to zoom up to 400%.

Regards, GordonBGood

 

[LKeithR]

This is again the eternal confusion between the file format and the display-editing. The file formats are RAW, jpeg, PSD, TIFF, etc...The display is an image in 8 or 16 bits, of x to y pixels and this is all. You edit it and you save it in the original format or in another one. So you can not "see" a RAW file, nor a jpeg either.

Technically you're correct but what we see is, in fact, a direct display of the file in question so I don't think it's much of a stretch to associate the displayed image with the file type..

--
Look at the picture, not the pixels...
http://www.lkeithr.zenfolio.com