Question about RAW editing with Adobe Plug-in

[eric-holmes]

I recently decided I would like to shoot and try to edit in RAW. I have Photoshop Elements 8. I downloaded a plug-in from Adobe. I am not quite sure if it is working as it should. When I go into my folder for my memory card the thumbnail looks like this...

and then when I open it using Photoshop elements it looks like this. Is that where I will do all of my editing?

 

[ann]

yep, just use the righthand side "tree"

 

[eric-holmes]

So you can't edit in layers in raw?

 

[SpeedTrap]

No, The raw Pludin allows you to make changes to the RAW file, once you click open it should bring it in to Photoshop or Elements and that is where you edit layers.

 

[Big Mike]

You need to think about RAW files differently. There really aren't even images...although they do have an embedded image so that you can preview/see them.

It's basically just the 'Raw' data from the camera. There are certainly adjustments you can make; white balance, tone, brightness etc. But since it's not really an image file yet, you can't take it directly into Photoshop/Elements and edit it like you're used to doing.
So after you make your adjustments, you click OK (or whatever) and it then processes (cooks) the RAW file...using the settings/adjustments you made. When it's done, you then have an image file that you can work on in Photoshop. When you go to save your work, you will have to choose an image file type like TIFF, PSD, JPEG etc.

 

[eric-holmes]

Ok. So forgive me for being so inferior on this. I can open it in raw with the screen I have shown. From there I can adjust colors, temperature, contrast, and ect. Then I can click open and it will bring it into elements and further edit the pic using clone or healing or what have you.

 

[NateWagner]

yes, that's pretty much it.

 

[eric-holmes]

Sorry Mike, I didn't see your post until after I posted. I understand what you're saying. So after I am totally done with the image, will it be good to save it as a .jpg or what is the best?

 

[mdtusz]

RAW files are the ingredients for your cookies, you can make the cookies end up different ways by mixing the batter with different ratios of the ingredients. Once you've made the batter, you can cut the cookies into any shape you want and either undercook them or burn them.

 

[anm90]

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but this is how I understand it...

You'll likely want to save it before you're totally done so that you can keep your progress, in which case it's best to save in tiff or psd or some other lossless format. As I understand, JPEG files get compressed and flattened every time you save them, so you will lose a lot of quality in the end if you continuously save jpg. Your best bet is to use PSD while you're doing the work and once you are ok with the final image, save it as jpeg so that the image only takes that one hit from the jpeg compression.

 

[Big Mike]

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but this is how I understand it...

You'll likely want to save it before you're totally done so that you can keep your progress, in which case it's best to save in tiff or psd or some other lossless format. As I understand, JPEG files get compressed and flattened every time you save them, so you will lose a lot of quality in the end if you continuously save jpg. Your best bet is to use PSD while you're doing the work and once you are ok with the final image, save it as jpeg so that the image only takes that one hit from the jpeg compression.

That's right. If you want to save your progress on an image...and come back to it later, then use PSD or TIFF. That way you can save all your layers etc. (the files can get huge though).
JPEG format is meant for shrinking file size, so you can't save layers and the image gets compressed (data). You can get away with opening/saving a JPEG several times, but it's not good practice.
Think of JPEG as a final output. As in, when you are done editing an image, save a JPEG copy for web view, another one (or more) for printing etc.

 

[KmH]

The so called plug-in you down loaded was already there. I suspect you only updated it to a level that could display your camera RAW data files.

Each camera model has a unique Camera RAW file definition and Adobe has to continually be updating ACR to accomodate new models.

You RAW image opened in ACR (Adobe Camera RAW).

There are 3 Adjustment areas with their associated icons top right right under:

R
G
B

• "Basic" Which has the array of sliders you first see on the right
• "Detail" Which has basic Sharpening and Noise Reduction sliders.
• and "Camera Calibration" which can be used when you have multiple camea body models

Then across the top of the workspace itself are the available tools (left to right)

• zoom
• move
• white balance tool
• crop
• straighten
• Red Eye removal tool
• Preferences
• and image rotation tools (clockwise/counterclock wise

At the bottom center of the work space is a box labeled "Depth" where you can select the bpp (bits per pixel) also known as 'color depth'.

In your screen shot the bpp was set to 8-bits/channel. There are 3 channels: Red, Green, and Blue (RGB)

8-bits/channel means ACR is showing 256 colors per channel. When changed to 16-bits/Channel ACR will show 65536 colors per channel.

Unfortunately, one of the reasons Elements is so much less expensive than CS4 is it is limited to editing in the 8-bit color depth in the Elements workspace and cannot edit images in a 16-bit color depth, hence the value of learning to do as much editing in ACR as you can possibly accomplish.

CS4's version of ACR has more tools and has 9 adjustment options compared to the 3 mentioned above in Elements

It may be helpful to know that Adobe Lightroom, which is all the rage, has a somewhat expanded version of CS4's ACR photographers can use for layerless and textless image editing.

I highly recommend getting a book that has information on how to use ACR. Scott Kelby's books for Elements contain information on ACR. His Elements 6 book has 40 pages of information on how to use the Elements version of ACR, as an example.