Fred Berg
Been spending a lot of time on here!
- Joined
- May 17, 2011
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- Can others edit my Photos
- Photos NOT OK to edit
Basically it`s whether you want to have negatives=raw or are just happy with an Instamatic=jpeg
It`s raw all the way for me, or raw and jpeg if i know i need people to see photo`s straight away, I use the free "instant jpeg from raw" app that extracts the embedded jpeg from a raw file and can do hundreds in seconds it`s that fast and if you have a Nikon the embedded jpeg is full resolution, other brands can have smaller embedded jpegs.
John.
For me, the common idea that raw files are like negatives is misleading. Raw files are more like an undeveloped film, in my view, which have a latent image. Decisions about processing need to be taken in order to produce a format which can be printed, if that is the ultimate goal, or which can be displayed electronically: there are no raw files on display in this forum, for instance. This process is comparable to the decisions made on how best to develop film to produce negatives for printing/scanning.
So a better way of looking at this might be JPEG = photo lab / raw = home development.
I post raw files on the internet and this forum all the time so people can see what they look like. Normally because of size I post a JPEG of the unprocessed raw file like this:
View attachment 96500
But it's possible to make the full-res uncompressed image available like this: unprocessed_raw.png
You can download that file and zoom in to verify that the Bayer array is still in place and the file has not been demosaiced.
Raw converters will not typically show you a raw file in this form but there are a couple of ways to extract only the image data without processing it and then save it in a raster as a TIFF file for viewing -- basically just extracing it from it's proprietary format. DCraw for example has an option that will do this.
With the Bayer array in place the image is very dark and because there are two green filters for each red/blue pair the image is very green, but you can see the image content.
Joe
Yes, but a PNG or GIF is a compressed format, albeit without loss of info, it isn't the raw data as captured. I may be wrong and stand corrected if so, but this is splitting hairs, surely. The image you have here is latent and processing would be required before you could print or display it in an electronic frame, etc.
PNG compression is lossless but the format is 8 bit. I can upload a 16 bit TIFF for you if you like which really would be the raw data without any processing. It would appear the same as the PNG -- point is we can look at it so I wouldn't call it latent. I don't see demosaicing the CFA as quite analogous to film development. You can't see a latent image but you can see a raw image albeit it is pretty useless (but instructive).
I could print it as is though and probably make some kind of post-Dada art project out of it!
Joe
You wouldn't believe it but in my original post on this I was going to add except for those horribly dark green things you sometimes see uploaded purely for instructional/technical purposes.
Always cover the pedantic angle....always!
Standing in the corner, corrected and having learned something.
However, Peter Parker ain't till he changes into his JWEB cossie...