Photoshop CS6 Bridge/Adobe Camera Raw

Naicidrac · Dec 14, 2012

I am using Adobe Camera Raw 7.1 and Adobe Photoshop CS6 Bridge, but it has actually always done this on any Adobe Camera Raw or Bridge. I am using a Nikon D700 and MAC OSX. Any time after I upload images into Bridge and they are RAW NEF, Bridge starts de-saturating and changeing the color a little and makes the image brighter. Of course I can open the image and go in and work on it, but it drives me crazy because I can see each image turn lighter and more desaturated as it moves down all of the newly imported images. If I close down Bridge and then re open it, it starts right back up and goes down all of my images. Is there any way to turn this auto feature off or is it something in my camera?

Thanks,

curtyoungblood · Dec 14, 2012

It sounds like Bridge is displayed a processed .jpg file to begin with but displays the actual RAW file once it has time to process it and catch up.

The_Traveler · Dec 14, 2012

My guess is that Bridge is first looking at the embedded jpg in the raw file then rendering the raw.

Naicidrac · Dec 15, 2012

Thanks for the replies and it sounds like what you guys are talking about it what is happening. Is there a way to display the embedded jpg and turn this feature off? I want to see sharpened, auto corrected, saturated images rather than RAW NEF in Bridge.

KmH · Dec 15, 2012

Choose the Raw+JPEG option on your camera. How the raw file embedded JPEG Basic, and the +JPEG file get processed will be determined by your camera Picture Control settings.

When a JPEG is made in your camera it is not 'auto corrected', but sharpening, saturation, and contrast adjustments are done.

To make the Raw image data a photo, Camera Raw/Bridge apply gamma encoding, color interpolation, tone mapping, and some sharpening.

Vautrin · Dec 15, 2012

The picture you see in camera (if you're only shooting raw) is just a preview, and it's rendered using the cameras processing.

So if you select VIVID or MONOCHROME your camera will do something like bumping up contrast and saturation for vivid, or completely desaturating it for monochrome.

But if you open a raw file outside your camera or nikon's software you're not using your cameras processing so "vivid" doesn't really mean anything. Bridge / Photoshop / Lightroom or other software will render the photo in its own way.

This is a "feature" as RAW would not be very useful if you were stuck in a B&W image if you shot in B&W, or were stuck with an oversaturated image if you shot in vivid

But, I can understand maybe you want to shoot vivid all the time. You have three options.

1. Shoot in JPEG, or RAW+JPEG. This will allow you to use the cameras processing software to get the exact same results as the preview.
2. Use Nikon's software to first convert your raw files to TIFFs or another format. Nikons software (should) recognize a nikon camera profile
3. Apply a similar profile to your images so they're converted in a similar format. Note this won't be 100%! Not sure how you would do this in bridge, but in Lightroom you simply select all the images, and adjust the profile from Neutral to something else.