I have a question about RAW.

[Matrixgravity]

When I shoot pictures with my camera, I shoot in RAW. Afterwards, I transfer the RAW files onto my computer, and import them into a program called "Samsung Raw Converter." Then from there, I have to convert the RAW files into JPG's. THEN, I put them into Adobe Photoshop. Now, my question is, by converting them into JPG's, am I losing any quality? And another question. Is there a way to just open RAW files in Photoshop so I don't have to convert everytime?

 

[tirediron]

Yes, no, sort-of. .jpg is a "lossy" format; each time you open a .jpg, edit it and then save it again, you will lose some data. To get the maximum benefit from shooting RAW you should use a program such as Adobe Lightroom which is specifically meant to edit RAW files. If that's not an option, than rather than converting to .jpg, convert to either .tif or .dng (Adobe Digital Negative) which are non-lossy formats.

Adobe Photoshop ships with a module called "Adobe Camera Raw" or "ACR" which offers limited RAW file editing, however depending on your camera (I'm assuming a Samsung?) it may not support all RAW file formats.

 

[Matrixgravity]

Yes, no, sort-of. .jpg is a "lossy" format; each time you open a .jpg, edit it and then save it again, you will lose some data. To get the maximum benefit from shooting RAW you should use a program such as Adobe Lightroom which is specifically meant to edit RAW files. If that's not an option, than rather than converting to .jpg, convert to either .tif or .dng (Adobe Digital Negative) which are non-lossy formats.

Adobe Photoshop ships with a module called "Adobe Camera Raw" or "ACR" which offers limited RAW file editing, however depending on your camera (I'm assuming a Samsung?) it may not support all RAW file formats.

Ahh makes sense! So Lightroom is specifically designed for editing RAW files huh? Because typically I edit everything within Adobe Photoshop CS4. What exactly are the differences between Photoshop, and Lightroom? Lightroom is specifically for RAW? Do I have that right?

 

[tirediron]

Yes, you can think of Lightroom as "Photoshop for RAW". It doesn't have all of the advanced editing features of CS4, but it is a very powerful program.

 

[Matrixgravity]

Yes, you can think of Lightroom as "Photoshop for RAW". It doesn't have all of the advanced editing features of CS4, but it is a very powerful program.

Ahh I understand. So Lightroom is pretty much the standard for RAW editing these days huh?

 

[Big Mike]

Techincally speaking, Lightroom uses 'Adobe Camera RAW' to process RAW files as well....so in that sense, it's no better or worse than Photoshop.

The thing with Lightroom, is that was designed to give you a streamlined workflow...giving you most of the tools that a photographer would use and taking out most of the extraneous stuff that is in Photoshop.

To your question, yes...you are loosing some quality if you process your images into JPEGs to further edit in Photoshop. On one hand, you are still getting the benefits of using the RAW format, because you can make adjustments with your software. But then part of the problem is that JPEG is a lossy format, as mentioned. Also, JPEG files are only 8bit, while RAW files are usually 16bit (actually 12 or 14 I think). A higher quality option would be to process the RAWs into TIFFs, then open those in Photoshop. But TIFF files are huge.

To be realistic, it's rather unlikely that you or anyone else would be able to pinpoint any of this loss of quality. So if you aren't going to be opening and saving the files, over and over again, you are probably OK to process your RAWs into JPEGs.

But yes, you can open them directly in Photoshop....via the sub program, Adobe Camera RAW. If you try that, and it won't work, it's probably because you need an updated version of ACR. It needs to be aware of your specific camera model, so Adobe puts out upgrades a couple times a year, including all the new camera models.

 

[KmH]

Photoshop CS4 Camera Raw, and Lightroom 2, both use ACR 5. Photoshop CS5 Camera Raw, and Lightroom 3, both use ACR 6.

Adobe CS4's Bridge, and Camera Raw can do many of the same workflow tasks Lightroom can.
The difference is that CS4's Bridge is a browser designed to work with most of Adobe's software, while Lightroom is a database mangement application pretty much dedicated to managing photos.
Lightroom was designed for photographers that routinely produce a lot of photos.

Adobe has been around a lot longer than Lightroom has. Adobe understood it would be helpful if they added ACR to Lightroom back when they were designing Lightroom 1. Lightroom's main function is not editing, it's digital image database management.

You will find a list of cameras supported by ACR, and at what release level they were first supported here - Camera Raw plug-in | Supported cameras

Look for your camera make amd model.