SHOOTING

RAW

FREE WITH
Practical

Photography

on your D-SLR

From this...

...to this

in 60 seconds!

HOW TO

Get the best quality

& ultimate control
RAW converter help Workow advice Sharpness tips
White balance answers Easy exposure Contrast skills

CONTENTS
By shooting RAW, Andrew was able to
give the original blue-tinted scene a much
warmer appearance by adjusting the
white balance and boosting saturation.

RAW BASICS
What is RAW?

Camera settings

Whats possible with RAW

10

RAW CONVERSION
Choosing a RAW converter

14

Adobe Photoshop Elements 5

18

Canon Digital Photo Professional

20

Capture One Pro

22

IMAGE ENHANCEMENT
White balance

26

Exposure

30

Contrast

32

Saturation

34

Sharpening

36

EXTRA SETTINGS

Welcome from Practical Photography editor Andrew James

OWNING A DIGITAL SLR and never
shooting RAW les is, I believe, a bit
like never taking the camera off auto.
Youre simply allowing an inanimate
object to control your creativity. Im
not suggesting that you should only
ever shoot RAW, but I do believe that
when a new technology comes along
its up to us to make the most of it. In
the days when it was all lm, unless
2 | Shooting RAW on your D-SLR

you had the facility to develop and

print your own pictures, you handed
control of that process over to a third
party. But now the opportunity to
control the whole image-making
process, from capture to print, is
easily available to all. When you start
shooting RAW you do add in an extra
layer of work. Instead of allowing the
camera to make many of those

processing decisions for you and

presenting you with a JPEG, you can
take the RAW le and enhance it to
your hearts content. Why wouldnt
you want to? If anyone feels that
changing white balance, enhancing
contrast or boosting colours is
cheating, then in evidence I submit
lters, darkroom techniques, and
even the choice of lms like Fuji
Velvia. Anyway, enjoy this booklet
and have fun with your photography.

Advanced contrast adjustments

40

Theres more...

42

THIS GUIDE IS
BROUGHT TO YOU BY...
Shooting RAW on your D-SLR is brought to you by
Practical Photography and is published by EMAP Active
Limited. No part of this booklet can be reproduced
without the publishers permission. For more about PP,
visit: www.practicalphotography.co.uk
Field guide editor: Ben Hawkins
Field guide art editor: Chris Rigby
Additional words/photography: Andrew James,
Chris Rutter, Ben Turner & Bob Martin
Additional production: Shane Collins
Additional design: Rob Holmes

RAW BASICS

SHOOTING RAW ON YOUR D-SLR

RAW basics

RAW les are your gateway to ultimate image quality and

maximum control. Lets start by weighing up the pros and
cons, and seeing exactly what can be achieved and how...

RAW BASICS

What is RAW?

ENHANCED RAW

What youre about to learn in this booklet could change your photography forever, as were
going to show you everything that you need to know in order to master RAW. But dont jump
into the deep end just yet. If youre not sure what all the fuss is about then you need to bring
your knowledge up to date. Heres our in a nutshell explanation of RAW and its key benets...

RAW ingredients
RAW is the name given to a whole group of image
le formats, including CRW, CR2 and NEF, which are
produced by digital cameras. Unlike normal image
formats, such as JPEG and TIFF, RAWs dont contain the
nished image ready for viewing. Instead they contain
the unprocessed data thats read directly from the
cameras image sensor. At this stage its not really an
image, much like a beef sirloin joint isnt roast beef,
but the nest quality raw ingredients are there waiting
to be turned into the nished article for all to enjoy. To
cook our RAWs we use a RAW converter software
package and this gives us loads of creative exibility
for changing the appearance of our photos.

The benets

ORIGINAL RAW

This original scene looks okay, but its atter than we remember it and
a bit blue. All of the ingredients are here though, so a quick tweak in
the RAW converter and you get the punchy image on the right.

The drawbacks

QUALITY

CONTROL

FILE SIZE

COMPATIBILITY

RAW is a lossless format, unlike JPEG, which means

that all image detail is preserved. Correctly
processed RAW images are sharper, more detailed,
and contain more accurate colours. RAWs are also
recorded in a higher bit depth, commonly 12-bit or
14-bit, rather than the usual 8-bit. This extra
information can hold brighter highlights and darker
shadow details, and the tonality is smoother.

Its not just the usual contrast and white balance

settings that we get to play with on the PC. Using a
decent RAW converter package (turn to page 14)
you have a massive amount of control, from
contrast adjustments with curves through to noise
smoothing. Also, some adjustments, such as
sharpening, are often far more sophisticated than
the methods employed by your camera so the
pictures look even better.

Probably the biggest problem with RAW is the

saved le size. They are roughly three to four times
larger then the equivalent JPEG, so less images will
t on a memory card. However, CompactFlash and
SD memory cards are becoming cheaper and
cheaper, so a couple of 1GB cards will cure this
problem for most people.

JPEGs are compatible with most software packages

because they have been around for years and are
strictly standardised. RAWs arent so accessible
however, because every model of camera produces
its own RAW le to a different specication.
Unfortunately, you need to install a compatible RAW
converter on your computer to view and enhance
the RAW images.

EASY ENHANCEMENTS

Large les take longer to write to the memory card,

which means that youll rely heavily on your
cameras buffer. The buffer is used to temporarily
store new shots as others are being saved.
However, the buffer is limited and can easily ll up
when taking loads of pictures in quick succession as
you would when shooting sports and wildlife. If it
does ll up, youll have to wait a few moments
before you can take another shot.

FLEXIBILITY
The RAW data is hardly touched by the cameras
image processors before it is saved to the memory
card, which allows our computer to perform a lot of
the cameras usual corrections post-capture. So if
we dont get the white balance, contrast or
sharpness settings right when we take the shot, we
can correct this on the PC (turn to page 10). Even
poor exposures can be sorted, to a point.
6 | Shooting RAW on your D-SLR

Making good-looking corrections and

enhancements to RAWs in a RAW converter is much
easier then the equivalent enhancement to a JPEG
using Photoshop or Elements. In just a couple of
minutes you can completely overhaul an image to
give it much more impact. Most corrections can be
made by dragging a few simple sliders.

WRITE TIMES

PROCESSING TIME
A RAW image generally needs to be converted into
a standard TIFF or JPEG before you can do much else
with it. This potentially adds an extra step to your
digital workow and could hold up a busy pro
shooting press pictures. However, if you do need to
make any corrections to your images, youll
probably save hours with RAW because most
enhancements are quicker to make.
7

RAW BASICS

Camera settings
Before you can start to explore the creative potential
of RAW les you need to set your camera to shoot the
right image format. Every digital SLR and even some
compact cameras give you the choice of RAW mode in

OLYMPUS

E-400

the le format menu. This isnt a complicated process,

but its still worth checking the options available on
your camera. Heres how to set the Canon EOS 400D,
Nikon D80 and Olympus E-400 to shoot RAW les

CANON

400D
Step 1: The easiest way to access the le formats on
the E-400 is to press the OK button while in any
shooting mode. This will activate the camera settings
on the rear LCD screen. Using the four-way navigation
buttons, highlight the le settings at the bottom of
the screen and then press OK again.

STEP 1: Before you can set the RAW format on the

EOS 400D you must be in one of the creative
exposure modes such as aperture-priority, shutterpriority, program or manual. It doesnt allow you to
use RAW in the automatic scene modes or the fully
automatic green mode.

Step 2: Once youve set the exposure mode, press

the Menu button on the back of the camera to bring
up the rst camera settings screen. Go to the Quality
menu and use the four navigation buttons to scroll
through to highlight the RAW option, and then press
the right-hand button to conrm the setting.

NIKON

D80

STEP 1: All Nikon cameras allow you to use RAW in

any of the exposure modes, but there are two ways
of setting the le format. The quickest way is to press
and hold the QUAL button on the bottom left of the
back of the camera.
8 | Shooting RAW on your D-SLR

STEP 2: While holding the QUAL button turn the rear

input dial to scroll through the format options on the
top LCD screen (shown in the bottom left corner)
until RAW is displayed, then release the QUAL button.

Step 2: This will open the le format options on the

rear LCD with the current format highlighted. To
change these you can scroll through the options
using the main input dial or the four-way navigation
buttons. Highlighting the RAW setting then pressing
the OK button will set the camera to RAW mode.

RAWTIP
You dont have to sacrice the convenience of shooting JPEG
images when you want to use RAW les. Most cameras allow
you to shoot both le formats simultaneously by setting
the appropriate option in the le format menu.
But why would you want to record duplicate
les of the same images? While there is no
doubt that RAW offers many more options
and potentially improved quality over JPEG,
you need the right software and extra
time to view and process RAW les. By
shooting JPEG images as well you can
quickly sort through your images, share
them with friends and family or even
get prints directly from your camera (or
memory card). Shooting two les for
each image does mean that youll need
more memory, but many cameras allow
you to choose a low quality JPEG option
to make these les as small as possible.
While these les wont give you the
best images they will still be okay for
small prints or screen use.
|9

RAW BASICS

Whats possible
with RAW

ENHANCED RAW

Shooting RAW opens up a huge range of exciting corrections and

enhancements that you can apply to your pictures post-capture. You can
salvage pictures with poor colours and bring at shots to life, but RAW
converters cant perform miracles. There are still many things that you
must get right while youre taking the shot to ensure your images are of
the highest quality. So what must you get right in-camera and what can
you get away with sorting back on the computer? Find out here

Get it right in-camera

Here are the major things that you
need to get right in-camera if you
forget to pay attention to any of this
then RAW wont help you at all.

ORIGINAL RAW

Aperture
You cant change depth-of-eld
once youve taken the shot. If you
want both close and distant objects
to be in sharp focus then youve no
option but to use a small aperture
(f/22). On the ip side, a wide
aperture (f/2.8) is needed if you
want just a thin band in your image
to be in sharp focus.

RAW les allow you to change

white balance post-capture
for improved colours.

Shutter speed

Exposure

Freezing quick subjects with a fast

shutter speed or blurring moving
subjects with a slow shutter speed
are other effects that are impossible
to accurately recreate using a RAW
conversion software package.

Get the exposure as close as

possible in-camera. If you
overexpose a stop or so then your
highlights may block-out to pure
white and the detail will be
obliterated not good! Drastically
underexposed shots will be too
noisy to be useful once brightened.

ISO
Using a fast ISO creates a grainy
effect known as noise. Although
many RAW converters have tools to
suppress the levels of noise, there
really is no substitute for using a
slow ISO (such as ISO 100) for really
smooth tones.
10 | Shooting RAW on your D-SLR

Focus
You cant make a soft image sharp.
Once the detail has been blurred, its
lost forever. If youve focused poorly
or have visible camera shake in your
shots, then forget it.

The
possibilities
of RAW
Although wed always
recommend that you get the
shot as close as possible incamera, you can actually control
quite a lot of settings back in the
RAW converter. Lets take a quick
look at your post-capture options.

White balance/tint
It doesnt matter what white
balance you have selected when
you take the shot, you can always
override it in the RAW converter.
White balance is a software effect,
so opting to change it wont
degrade the image at all.

Fine-tune exposure
Small adjustments to the exposure
wont degrade the quality much at
all so you can tweak the exposure

to get your shots just right.

Darkening a touch may even
reduce noise levels.

Contrast
Dont bother with any contrast
settings in your camera. Use the
contrast sliders, along with the
Levels and Curves tools, to get the
perfect contrast post-capture.

Sharpness
The sharpening controls offered in

RAW converters are far superior to

the options offered by your camera.
Just ignore your cameras settings
as the RAW converter can override
this without degrading the quality.

Colour saturation
Whether you want to tone down a
colourful scene or give a at shot
more impact, it makes sense to
make colour adjustments in the
RAW converter where you can
really see what youre doing.
11

RAW CONVERSION

SHOOTING RAW ON YOUR D-SLR

RAW conversion
For the best possible results youll need a RAW
converter that offers control and quality. Lets
take a look at the best options and the basic
features needed to convert your rst RAW le.

RAW CONVERSION

Choosing a RAW converter

When you nally switch to shooting RAW instead of
JPEG, you will need to adjust your workow slightly.
Unfortunately, this does mean adding one more step
early on but thankfully it will save you some time later
in the process and improve the end results too. To

BUNDLED
SOFTWARE

CANON
DIGITAL PHOTO
PROFESSIONAL
Canons standard software is one of the most
comprehensive packages supplied with any
D-SLR. Theres a complete
range of options available,
PROS AND CONS
the workow is easy to use
Very comprehensive
and there are some really
for free software.
nice touches. It offers you

Enables you to make

the option of selecting the
the best use of
PictureStyle, which can
PictureStyles.
produce some good results.
Not very intuitive
Overall, DPP is a pretty
editing views.
damn good package.

BUNDLED
SOFTWARE

RAWTIP
If you buy a new D-SLR soon
after its release, its likely that
your RAW converter wont
support it straight away. New

make this step easier you need to choose the right

piece of software. Here are the best bundled plus
one download-only software RAW converters, and
over the page what we consider to be the best RAW
converter software packages out there

SONY IMAGE
DATA CONVERTER
BUNDLED
SR
SOFT

While the name may sound less

than appealing, the software that
Sony bundles with the 100 is
one of the best you can get. All of
the options are accessible from the
Tools palette, so theres no hunting
around for options. Its not brilliant
for rst-time users but youd
struggle to think of any options
that are missing it even has a
Send to Photoshop command,
which speeds up workow.

WARE

PROS AND CONS

One click will send

the image to Photoshop.

Simple to navigate
layout, with plenty of
useful shortcuts.

Could be confusing
for new users.

NIKON
PICTURE PROJECT

BIBBLE LITE

Picture Project is supplied with all Nikon

D-SLRs (even the pro models) but it offers
little more than basic RAW adjustments. Its
useful for organising your images but RAW
conversions can be a
pain in the backside. The PROS AND CONS
main reason for this is
Comes free with
that Nikon wants you to
every Nikon D-SLR.
invest in Capture NX

Excellent for
(turn the page for
organising your les.
details), which is their
Converting RAWs is a
excellent commercially
bit of a struggle.
available software.

Only available as a download from www.

bibblelabs.com Bibble Lite has a lot to offer.
The main window may look a little on the
cluttered side but the
range of options is
PROS AND CONS
second to none. In fact,
it even puts some of the Amazing range of extra
features such as NoiseNinja.
more expensive
Has a set-up wizard to help
software to shame.
you customise the software for
Download the trial
your needs.
version and give it a go
The layout is quite cluttered
we were quite
with the multitude of options.
impressed by it.

14 | Shooting RAW on your D-SLR

cameras often have different

RAW les to other models, so
your software will need updating.
Check its website for updates or
click on the Search for updates
options in your softwares menu.

$69 (around 36)

DOWNLOAD
ONLY

15

RAW CONVERSION

nverter
Choosing a RAWsofco
tware packages
The best RAW converter

ADOBE PHOTOSHOP ELEMENTS 5 70

You can convert most
types of RAW le using
Elements and its
actually pretty
comprehensive. A
RAW converter pops
up when you try to
open a RAW le,
where you can make
your adjustments and
then open the image
straight into Photoshop.
The controls are
extremely
comprehensive and
are laid out in a very
simple and intuitive
manner.

Capture NX is
something of a
revolution as RAW
converters go. The
main reasons for this
are control points
we think they are the
next big thing where
RAW converters are
concerned. They offer
precise control over
any part of your
image and allow you
unequalled editing
capacity. If only it
could convert les
from non-Nikon
cameras...

You probably

already have
Elements installed.

Massive range of
RAW controls.

Not great for

converting batch loads
of RAWs.

PROS AND CONS

Control points have

to be seen to be fully
appreciated.

Offers just about

everything you could

want from a RAW
converter.

Only converts

Nikon RAW les.

16 | Shooting RAW on your D-SLR

The question with Aperture was can

Apple do for RAW workow what it
did for the MP3 player?. Well,
Aperture is certainly a good stab at it.
It is one of the most stylish, well
thought-out RAW converters on the
market right now but its doubtful that
many amateurs will benet from its
many awesome features. Its also
aimed primarily at Mac-using pro
photographers.

PROS AND CONS

Offers some clever

features, such as the
virtual loupe.

Latest version can

browse multiple
storage devices.

Workow is more
suited for professionals.

CAPTURE
ONE PRO 299

PROS AND CONS

NIKON CAPTURE NX

APPLE
APERTURE 215

119

Perhaps the most comprehensive

RAW converter available, Capture
One Pro offers just about
everything you could want. Theres
an excellent browser, and a whole
host of editing and adjustment
options that will really help you get
the best from your RAW les. Its
not the simplest package to use
but once you master it, youll be
loathed to use anything else.

PROS AND CONS

Offers excellent
workow for most
photographers.

One of the most

comprehensive RAW
converters available.

Can be very confusing

for new users.

ADOBE
PHOTOSHOP
CS2 500
If youre really into digital photography,
no doubt you will already have CS2 and
theres no surprise that its good for
converting RAW les. The layout and
options are pretty much the same as
those in Elements but there are a
couple of advanced extra options.
Whether or not youll use options such
as Lens Correction is a different matter.

PROS AND CONS

Plenty of

adjustment options.

Produces great

results with good levels

of sharpness.

Expensive but the

extra features make it

more than worthwhile.

| 17

RAW CONVERSION

ing your rst RAW

nvertPHOTOSHOP
CINoADOBE
ELEMENTS 5

2 The Exposure and Brightness

sliders are used for ne-tuning
the exposure of the photo. The
Shadows and Contrast sliders are
mainly used for getting the
contrast of your shot just right.
Saturation is used to adjust the
strength of the colours.

Heres your beginners guide to opening, editing and

saving your RAW les in Adobe Photoshop Elements 5.

OPEN...

EDIT...

In Elements all you need to do

to bring your image into the
RAW converter is open it up as
you would any other image. This
can be done by rst importing
them into the Organizer, or by
opening them directly, which is
what well look at here.
Open Elements and go into
the Editor by clicking on Edit and
Enhance Photos from the
Welcome screen. Now all you
need to do is go to the File
menu at the top of the screen
and click Open. Browse through
to nd your RAW les, as
normal, and double click on the
picture you want to open once
youve located it. In Windows
XP, you may be able to see a
preview of the selected image
at the bottom of the window,
which will help you determine
whether or not youve got the
right picture.

Working on your RAW les in

Elements is very simple as all of
the controls are pretty much on
the one screen. Down the righthand side youll see the main
controls, which adjust the
appearance of your image.
Before changing anything,
however, wed always

18 | Shooting RAW on your D-SLR

3 4

3 At the top right is the Zoom

recommend that you uncheck
the Auto boxes as these seldom
give good results.

tool, which allows you to view the

ne detail. Double-click it to view
the image at 100% so every
image pixel is visible. Hold Alt and
click on the image to zoom out.

1 These controls affect your

4 When zoomed in, use the Hand

images white balance. The

white balance eyedropper is
located in the top-left corner of
the window.

tool to pan around the image to

inspect other areas.

boxes show you areas of the

image that are so bright, dark or
overly saturated that detail is
being lost.

6 This can be used to change the

default positions for the sliders
and can also load the settings
from your previous conversion.

5 The Shadows and Highlights

6
1

Click the Detail tab to reveal

a few more sliders, which
handle the ne detail in the
image. Before you move any
of these ensure youre
viewing your image at 100%.

SAVE...
Once youve nished making
adjustments dont be
tempted to click the Save
button as all this will do is
save a copy of the image in
Adobes digital negative
format. Instead click OK to
open the converted RAW
straight into Photoshop this
is great if you want to do
some more work on the
image, which is usually the
case. When youre ready, save
the picture as you would any
other by going to File>Save
As. From the Format menu
select one of the following
TIFF for maximum quality, PSD
if youve used layers and
want to keep them intact, or
JPEG to compress the images
so it takes up less disk space.
If you do decide to use JPEG
ensure that you use the
maximum quality setting and
try to only use it for images
that are ready for print as
re-saving JPEGs as JPEGs can
degrade the quality.

If youre saving your

shots as JPEGs,
select the maximum
quality setting.

19

RAW CONVERSION

nverting your rst RAW

CINoDIGITAL
PHOTO PROFESSIONAL
A good quality RAW converter need not cost the world. Heres an introduction
to Canons Digital Photo Professional, which comes free with its D-SLRs.

OPEN...
When you load Digital Photo
Professional (DPP) your screen
should be separated into two
windows. On the left is the
directory tree (click the folders
icon if you cant see it) and on
the right is a list of thumbnail
images displaying all of the

RAW and JPEG les located in

the selected folder. First, use
the directory tree to nd the
folder containing your RAW
images and, once the
thumbnails have loaded up,
double-click one to open it into
a separate editor window.

EDIT...
DPP is not the most intuitive package but
its all there if you know where to look. If
you cant see the tools and options at rst
glance, then go to the main menu and
select View>Toolbar to bring them up. Its
also helpful to remember that you can
either have a oating palette or a docked
one, as we have here to achieve this go
to Tools>Preferences, click the Tools
palette tab and select Docking display.

always work though, so use your own

judgement. Try the landscape setting if
theres lots of blue sky in your shot.

1 At the top of the Tools palette is a

your image use the options found under

the View menu or use these shortcuts
Ctrl+1 to zoom 50%, Ctrl+2 to zoom
100%, Ctrl+3 to zoom 200% and Ctrl+4 to
t the image to the window.

Brightness adjustment slider to change

the exposure of the image and below
this are options for setting the white
balance. You can either use the dropdown menu of presets or click where it
says Click to directly select a neutral tone
in the image.

2 The Picture Style menu changes the

look and colours in the image to optimise
it for different situations such as
landscapes and portraits they dont
20 | Shooting RAW on your D-SLR

SAVE...

Click the RGB image

adjustment tab to view
more controls to enhance
the converted RAW. Here
you gain access to a great
curves tool and also the
option to add more colour
saturation to your image
the other options here are
generally best ignored.

When youre done editing,

click the cross at the top-right
of the image to close the
window dont worry, your
changes have already been
saved. Back in DPPs browser,
select the image or images
you want to process and click
the Batch process icon at the
top right of the screen. Youll
now see a new window that
lets you decide the batch
settings. From the top, click
Browse to choose a save
location for the images. For
the File format select either
TIFF or JPEG and tick Embed
ICC prole to ensure colour
accuracy. Now you have the
option of giving your batched
images a new name by
ticking New le name. When
youre ready, click Execute to
save your image, which may
take a few minutes.

RAWTIP
To reset the RAW sliders
and settings if youve
make a mistake, go to
Adjustment>Revert to
shot settings.

5
1

3 Below the histogram, next to where it

says Linier, you can set the contrast of the
image. At the bottom of the dialogue box
are options to change the tone, colour
saturation and sharpness.

4 There is no zoom tool, so to zoom in on

5 Under the Tools menu are options to

trim (crop) your image or to use the
Stamp tool, which helps remove marks
and blemishes from your RAWs. However,
this is not as effective as the Healing
Brush Tool and Clone Stamp Tool in
Photoshop Elements.

Select your images and

then click Batch Process to
save your edited RAWS as
TIFFs or JPEGs.
21

RAW CONVERSION

g your rst RAW

nvertinONE
CINoCAPTURE
PRO

The Focus tab is used for

sharpening the ne detail. At
the top you can see a close-up
preview of an area of your
image with the sharpness
effect applied. Click on your
image to change the preview
area. The Amount slider is used
to change the intensity of the
sharpening, and Threshold is
used to reduce sharpening on
smoother areas to reduce
visible noise.

Learn the basics of Capture One Pro, one of the most powerful RAW packages
available, and enjoy unparalleled control and headache-free workow.

OPEN...

EDIT...

Capture One contains its own le

browser, which makes the
workow amazingly efcient.
First click on the yellow folder
icon found at the top right
above the thumbnail images.
This will bring up the directory
tree shown on the left-hand side
of the screen (see below).
Navigate through the folders
and highlight the one that
contains your RAW images.
Capture One will then look
through it and bring up a list of
preview thumbnails. Simply click
on a thumbnail image to start
working on it.

The majority of Capture Ones

image editing tools are found
under the tabs located at the
right of the screen. Click onto
these to see a whole bunch of
additional options and sliders in
the grey pane on the far right
of the screen. Here weve
clicked on the Exposure tab...

1 Click the White Balance tab

to view a comprehensive set of
controls for ne-tuning and
removing colour casts. With this
option selected you can use the
eyedropper icon, found just
above the image, to select a
neutral tone for a quick white
balance correction.

2 The Exposure tab contains the

all-important contrast and colour
saturation controls, including
Curve and Levels. The three
sliders seen at the top are for
exposure compensation (EC),
contrast (CC) and colour
saturation (CS or Sat).

3
1
2

3 Above the main image

preview you have controls for
rotating your image, zooming in
and out of your image, and
cropping them down. The
majority of the other icons here
are used for toggling various
preview modes on and off so are
not as important hover over
these to reveal a brief insight into
what they do.

SAVE...
To save your image, you must
rst click the Process tab.
Enter a title for the image and
then select either TIFF of JPEG
from the File format menu.
Now click on the icon, which
looks like an open folder its
the second icon from the left
under the Batch Editor
heading. This will bring up a
dialogue box that allows you
to choose where you want to
save your images. Either click
on the Select folder and
browse to choose your own
save location, or just click
Inside active collection, which
will create a Develops folder
in the same location as your
original RAW les. Click OK to
go back and click the icon on
the left, which looks like a red
cross hovering above a
rectangle. Your image will
begin processing and will be
saved into the chosen folder.

Before you can process your

pics make sure you choose a
folder to save them in. Click on
the green folder icon to do this.
22 | Shooting RAW on your D-SLR

23

IMAGE ENHANCEMENT

Dull. Drab. Lifeless. But its

nothing a few tweaks on a RAW
conversion software package
cant solve. A little saturation
enhancement here, a quick
exposure tweak there and, hey
presto, a brand new shot.

SHOOTING RAW ON YOUR D-SLR

Image
enhancement

To maximise the potential of every image youll need to

familiarise yourself with the white balance, exposure and
contrast, saturation and sharpening controls. Heres how...

IMAGE ENHANCEMENT

White balance
The ability to ne-tune the colour of your images is
one of the main advantages of shooting RAW. This
gives you the option of either getting a result that
accurately matches the colour of the original scene or,
just like using warm-up and cooling-down lters, to
create a particular mood or feel to your image.
Almost all RAW processing software gives you three
main ways of adjusting the white balance. As with
your camera, you can select from a range of preset
options such as daylight or cloudy, but unless you
forget to set it on your camera when you take the
shot, these dont offer many advantages over shooting
JPEG. The two other options are to select a colour
temperature and tint using sliders, or using an

AUTO WB

eyedropper to take a measurement from a neutral

area of your image.
There are pros and cons for all three options, but the
great thing about this is that you can always use a
combination of options to get the result you want. The
presets are the simplest to use, but offer few of the
creative or subtle adjustments of the individual sliders.
Using the color temperature sliders offers full control
and creativity, but relies on your judgment (and an
accurate monitor) to get the right results. And to make
use of the eyedropper you need a neutral tone in your
image to take a reading from. Lets take a look at the
best way to use white balance to produce both neutral
and more creative results

Neutral or correct white balance

Matching the white balance to
the light source is the key to
getting neutral results. Using the
pre-set options will usually get
you close to the right colours,
although youll nd that netuning the colour temperature
and tint sliders will allow you to
further ne-tune the results. This
does rely on your judgement and
an accurate screen though.

A better option, assuming

theres a neutral grey or white
area in your image, is to use the
eyedropper tool. This is more
accurate and controllable than
using a basic automatic function,
as you can choose the area that
the software samples from. You
simply click the eyedropper on a
neutral area in the image and the
software does the rest.

This technique relies on

selecting the right area to take a
reading from, and even areas
that look neutral can contain
different coloured pixels, so you
will often nd it easier if you
zoom in on the neutral area to
make sure that you click on the
right tone. It wont always get it
right rst time, so dont be afraid
to click on the area a few times.

Auto white balance can work with

some subjects, but in this case the
large area of blue has caused the
colour of the image to be too warm.

DAYLIGHT WB

RAWTIP

When using the white balanct eyou

eyedropper make sure tha t to
choose an area that you wange.
appear neutral in your ima
26 | Shooting RAW on your D-SLR

When using light or dark

neutral areas with the
eyedropper make sure that
the tones are within the
exposure limits of the image.
You cant take readings from
burnt-out highlights or
shadows without any detail.
Youll get the best results from
grey subjects, or white ones
that still contain some detail.

Similar to setting the white balance

on your camera, RAW converters
offer preset options but you can
adjust them to suit your image.
27

IMAGE ENHANCEMENT

White balance

AUTO WB

EYEDROPPER

Creative white balance

Film photographers have been
manipulating colour by their
choice of lm and lters for
years. So while neutral images
are technically correct, they
arent always right for the
subject or result that you want.
Adjusting the white balance of
your RAW les gives you the
option of warming up or cooling
down the colour of your images
without having to worry about
using lters.

DAYLIGHT WB

The simplest way to achieve

this is to use the preset white
balance settings. So for a sunset
or sunrise choose the cloudy
preset to add a little extra
warmth or shade for a more
pronounced effect. While these
presets offer a good starting
point, you can get even greater
control by using the colour
temperature and tint sliders to
precisely adjust the colour of
your images.

WARMER

With the colour temperature

slider, increasing the colour
temperature will produce
warmer results, and reducing it
will give cooler looking images.
The tint slider is used to adjust
the amount of green or magenta
in the image moving it to the
right adds magenta that can be
useful for some sunrise or sunset
images, while moving it to the
left adds green.

COOLER

Mixed light
sources
One of the most difcult
situations to deal with is when
you are shooting under lighting
with different colour
temperatures. The automatic
setting can often give acceptable
results, but taking a sample from
a neutral or white area using the
eyedropper tool gives you more
control and more convincing
results. Choose an area that is lit
by all or as many light sources as
possible and click the
eyedropper to nd the most
convincing colour possible.

RAWTIP
Choosing the correct preset
white balance for a neutral
result doesnt always give
the best result.
28 | Shooting RAW on your D-SLR

Using a higher colour

temperature has a similar
effect to adding an 81B
warm-up lter.

For a cooler look select a

lower colour temperature
setting to give your image
a blue tone.

After adjusting the white balance make

sure that you check the exposure, as it can
affect the distribution of tones in your
image. This can mean highlights that still
retained detail at one white balance
setting can be pushed into overexposure
when you change the colour temperature.

Red shows
the burnt-out
highlights, while
blue shows the
shadow areas
lacking detail.
29

IMAGE ENHANCEMENT

Exposure

ENHANCED EXPOSURE

The exposure controls available in your RAW converter

are really a means of ne-tuning your images, rather
than a replacement for getting it right in-camera. This
is because there are limits to the range of adjustments
that you can apply to the exposure before you start to
affect the quality of the image. Also, although you can
retrieve more shadow and highlight detail than you
can from a JPEG image, its still limited, especially in
the highlights. So although you still need to get the
exposure as close as possible when shooting, heres
what you can achieve with most RAW converters.
The rst and most obvious control for adjusting the

exposure is usually an exposure compensation (or just

exposure) slider. This works in a similar way to
changing the exposure in-camera slide the marker to
the right to make the image brighter or to the left to
make it darker. Many are also marked in stops just like
the exposure compensation on your camera.
The other controls available vary between software
packages, but are mainly there to control your images
shadow detail, contrast and overall tonal distribution.
These controls will either take the form of sliders for
most adjustments, or curves for adjusting the contrast
and tones.

BASIC EXPOSURE ADJUSTMENT

The RAW converter in Adobe Photoshop Elements 5 uses sliders for all
adjustments, and works most effectively when used in the following order:

1 Exposure

3 Brightness

Firstly, carefully adjust the Exposure

slider to get the highlights correctly
exposed. To do this move the slider
to the left or right until you can just
make out detail in the brightest
areas of your image.

Similar to the Exposure slider, the

Brightness control lightens or
darkens your image when moved to
the left or right. The difference is
that unlike the Exposure control it
compresses either the highlights or
shadows to retain as much detail in
these as possible.

2 Shadows
Once the highlights are correct you
can then move the Shadows slider
to the right to darken the shadows
if necessary. Again, its usually best
to move this until you can just make
out detail in the darkest areas of
your image.

4 Contrast
This slider controls the contrast of
your image by adjusting the
midtone contrast. Moving it to the
right increases contrast, while
moving it to the left reduces it.

ORIGINAL EXPOSURE

SHADOW AND HIGHLIGHT CLIPPING

Although you can get an excellent idea of the exposure adjustments
needed on the preview image, most RAW converters also feature
warning facilities to ensure that you dont lose highlight or shadow
detail. In Adobe Photoshop Elements 5 you can switch these on by using
the tick boxes at the top of the screen. These then display lost highlights
in red and shadows in blue. Rather than have these displays on all the
time, you can also hold down the Alt key while adjusting the exposure
or shadow sliders, and only the warnings will appear on the preview.
30 | Shooting RAW on your D-SLR

| 31

IMAGE ENHANCEMENT

Contrast

UNPROCESSED RAW
UNPROCESSED RAW

Most correctly exposed shots wont need much

adjustment in your RAW converter. The exposure
controls come into their own when you want to make
the most of high or low contrast scenes that are almost
impossible to get right in-camera. Heres how to use
the adjustments to deal with these types of shots

Many average scenes can look a little at and low

contrast when shooting in RAW. Youll nd that you
can boost the contrast a little to give your shots more
punch by adjusting them in your RAW converter. This
is where the Exposure, Shadow and Contrast sliders
really prove their worth. Follow these simple steps...

DEALING WITH HIGH

CONTRAST SCENES
RAW les can contain much more highlight and
shadow detail than JPEGs, so they can produce much
better results when the brightness range of the scene
exceeds the tonal range available from your digital
camera. Follow these steps to enhance your images...

1 Highlights
and shadows
The rst steps to
making the most of
high contrast subjects
is to adjust the
Exposure and Shadow
sliders so that the
maximum amount of
detail is shown in the image. Youll usually nd that you
have to reduce the Exposure slider, and this will often
mean that the Shadow slider can be set to zero as the
exposure adjustment will naturally give dark shadows.

DEALING WITH LOW

CONTRAST SCENES

1 Highlights and shadows

2 Contrast

With low contrast scenes youll nd

that you need to boost both the
highlights and the shadows to get
results with more impact. Move the
Exposure slider until the brightest
highlights just retain some detail,
then move the Shadow slider to
the right until the darkest areas just
start to lose detail.

The Brightness slider generally

doesnt need much adjustment
with low contrast images, but you
may want to give the image
more punch by increasing the
Contrast slider until you are happy
with the image in the preview
window. How far you go with
these adjustments is very much
down to personal preference,
although watch out for noise if
your original image was
underexposed.

PROCESSED RAW

PROCESSED RAW

2 Contrast
Once youve got the maximum highlight and shadow
detail you can then use the Brightness and Contrast
sliders to adjust the image. If most of the image is too
dark you can increase the Brightness slider to
compensate. You will
also nd that reducing
the Contrast slider will
help you to get the
maximum detail
through the whole
tonal range (reducing
it too much can make
your image look at).
32 | Shooting RAW on your D-SLR

RAWTIP
RAW les are much better at retaining shadow
detail than highlights, so many people tend to
underexpose their digital images to err on the
safe side. This is generally a good idea, but be
careful not to underexpose your shots too much,
as the more you try to lighten the image the more

noise will be visible in the image. This becomes

even more visible if you boost the saturation and
apply high amounts of sharpening to your results.
So when exposing your RAW images try to shoot
so that the highlights just retain detail rather than
simply underexposing every shot.
33

IMAGE ENHANCEMENT

Saturation
As the image is taken straight from the
sensor without any in-camera processing,
even the most perfectly exposed RAW image
of a brightly coloured subject can look a little
at and dull. Like most other aspects of RAW
processing the solution is simple, and can
produce higher quality results than trying to
boost the saturation of JPEG images.
A saturation slider is the most common
control for this in RAW conversion software.
The adjustments that you make to the
saturation of your images are largely down to
personal preference. You can move the slider
to the right for punchy, highly saturated
images, or you can move the slider to the left
to remove saturation, and even produce
mono results in most software packages.
Be aware that there are some pitfalls to
watch out for when increasing the saturation
of your images. Similar to adjusting the
exposure, increasing the saturation too much
will mean youll start to lose detail in the
brightest areas. Trying to boost the colour of a
low saturation original too much can also
cause noise in the nal image.
These problems aside, its still a better
quality option than boosting the saturation of
a JPEG, so heres how to get the most out of
the saturation controls in Adobe Photoshop
Elements 5

RAWTIP
Remember that the appearance of the
end result isnt just down to saturation.
Its also a combination of using the
exposure, contrast and saturation
controls. Theres no point simply
boosting the saturation without
adjusting the other controls to get the
most out of your image. So once youve
made the initial saturation adjustments
go back and check the exposure and
contrast again.
34 | Shooting RAW on your D-SLR

FINAL IMAGE

OVERSATURATED
COLOURS

START IMAGE

Take care not to go too far

when increasing saturation in
your RAW les. With brightly
coloured subjects its easy for
certain areas to go over the top
and lose detail. In this example
some of the red areas in
particular have become
unsightly blocks of colour.

BOOSTING COLOUR

Getting the saturation right in your RAW converter gives

you better quality than later adjustments in Photoshop.

1 Adjust the
exposure,
contrast and
white balance
If you adjust the
saturation rst youll
nd it difcult to get
your colours right, so
before you change the
saturation make sure
the contrast, exposure
and white balance are
correct. They dont
have to be precisely
right, but ensure that
the image contains a
full range of tones
with no blown
highlights or shadows.

2 Adjust the saturation

Once youve adjusted the
exposure you can start adjusting
the colour saturation. For most
images youll nd a value of
between +5 and +30 will be
enough to give the colours a
boost. Increasing the saturation
can cause changes to the overall
exposure, so its also useful to
tick the highlight clipping
warning box at the top of the
screen which shows when the
colours have gone too far.

Too much saturation

can result in blocking.

35

IMAGE ENHANCEMENT

Sharpening

Like many of the adjustments available with RAW,

sharpening can be applied in image-editing software
such as Photoshop. But applying it during the RAW
conversion stage produces sharper-looking images and
better quality results without increasing noise when
compared to JPEG or TIFF les. Even so, its always best
to apply the minimum amount of sharpening to your

FINISHED IMAGE

images necessary to bring out detail, otherwise youll

still end up with noisy, over-sharpened results. Most
RAW conversion software packages offer a choice of
sharpening settings that use either presets such as
low, medium and high, or a slider control. Heres how
to use the sharpening controls in Adobe Photoshop
Elements 5

APPLYING SHARPNESS

RAW images can look a little soft when you come to print them,
but you need to get the settings right to avoid increased noise.
The controls in Elements 5 use a
simple slider to apply the
amount of sharpening to your
image. For most RAW images a
value of between 20 and 40
will give your shots enough
sharpening without introducing
too much noise.
The Luminance Smoothing
and Color Noise Reduction
sliders can normally be left on
their default settings of 0 and
25 for most images shot at low
ISO settings. You can increase
these for images shot at higher
ISO settings on your camera,
but the Luminance Smoothing
slider in particular tends to blur
ne detail. This means that you
have to apply more sharpening
to try to overcome this, which
introduces more noise, so they
cancel each other out and youll
still get less actual detail in your
nal image.

36 | Shooting RAW on your D-SLR

NO SHARPENING

WITH SHARPENING

TOO MUCH SHARPNESS

Using high values of
sharpening can
cause halos around
the detail and
increased noise, so
dont overdo it. Its
tempting to use
these settings, but
using values above
50 on the Sharpness
slider in Elements 5
can lead to noise
and image quality
problems.

OVER-SHARPENING

37

EXTRA SETTINGS
SHOOTING RAW ON YOUR D-SLR

Extra settings
Its time to discover a few more advanced settings that
will improve workow, help you extract a greater range
of tones and nd even more detail in your RAW les...

Shooting into the light was always

going to result in too much contrast.
But we can use the more advanced
RAW converter features to sort this.

EXTRA SETTINGS

Advanced
contrast
adjustments
One of the most exciting things about RAW is that you
have access to extra highlight and shadow detail
thats not available in the equivalent JPEG image. But
thats not the end of the story because the knock-on
affect of this is that there is a greater range of tones
available in the midtones too. With all this extra
picture information available to us it would be a
shame not to make the most of it. So its time to bring
out the big guns. When it comes to contrast, you may
not be restricted to just moving a couple of simple
sliders. Packages such as Canon Digital Photo
Professional and Capture One Pro offer more advanced
Levels and Curves controls that allow us to balance the
contrast in even the most challenging scenes.

LEVELS
Probably the easier of the two tools to get to grips
with, Levels is mainly used for setting the black
and white points in the image. This means that
were ensuring our darkest tones are black and
the brightest tones are white, rather then varying
tones of grey as they often are in low contrast
scenes. The effect of this is one that youll never
get tired of. The contrast will be lifted and youll
have much more clarity and punch in your shots
colours and shapes become much stronger as the
difference between tones is exaggerated.
To gauge where to set the black and white
points we use the histogram, which is essentially
just a fancy bar chart. Look for gaps between the
body of the graph and edges of the bounding
box, like the one shown here. If you spot any,
then all you need to do is drag the sliders at the
bottom corners of the histogram in to meet the
edges of the mountain range. With some
software there is also a third slider found in the
middle, which sets the brightness of the midtones. Drag it to the left to make them lighter or
to the right to darken them.

ENHANCED RAW

Align the sliders

with the edges of
the histogram for
improved contrast.
ORIGINAL RAW

40 | Shooting RAW on your D-SLR

CURVES

ENHANCED RAW

Using Curves is more of an art

than a science and mastering it
takes a bit of practice, but once
you have youll have access to
one of the most powerful contrast
tools available. Curves enables
you to change the brightness of
different tones in your image by
changing the shape of the
ORIGINAL RAW
curve. This is done by
simply clicking and
dragging on the diagonal
line to add in little
anchor points. The best
way to learn whats
going on is to try it out
for yourself, but to get
you started here are a
few of the most useful
shapes to try out

Curve
up/
down
A simple
curve like
this will
brighten
the midtones without affecting
the very dark tones or highlights
too much. Conversely, dragging
the line down to create the
opposite curve will darken the
midtones and make them richer.

S curve
This is
probably
the most
useful
shape. A
simple S
will darken the dark tones and
brighten the lighter tones,
increasing the midtone contrast.
The deeper the S the stronger
the effect.

Inverse
S curve
Great for
contrasty
shots.
Pulling up
the bottom
of the graph brightens the
shadows, while the top anchor
point ensures the highlights are
not affected. Make sure the curve
doesnt atten out in the middle.

RAWTIP
If you have a landscape with a
bright sky and dark foreground
you can convert two versions
of the same image, one
exposed for the sky and the
other for the foreground, and
merge them in Photoshop
using a large soft-edged Eraser.
41

EXTRA SETTINGS

Theres more...

Here are just a handful of the more advanced controls, options and
features that the leading RAW converters offer. Master these and youll
gain even more control over your images.

Preserve your
colours

No matter what colour space

you use, you need to make sure
that Photoshop is looking at
your prole so its displaying
accurate colours. If you get a
warning when opening a picture
that says something along the
lines of Embedded Prole
Mismatch, select Use the
embedded prole and click OK.

16-bit or 8-bit
Most converters give you the
option of saving your images as
8-bit or 16-bit TIFFs, while
Photoshop lets you choose the bit
depth before opening. On direct
comparison you probably wont
notice any difference, but you just
have to know what to look for.
You may already know that
standard colour images offer 256
levels of brightness for each
channel Red, Green and Blue.
This equates to 256 different
shades of grey. This is ne for the
majority of images because the
difference between tones is so
minimal that the pictures appear
perfectly smooth to the naked
eye. Problems arise, however, if
you want to make radical contrast
adjustments in Photoshop. The
difference between the grey
tones is exaggerated and the
42 | Shooting RAW on your D-SLR

smooth gradated areas turn into

obvious blocks of discrete colour
this is known as banding.
16-bit les cope with this
much better. They contain double
the amount of information and
offer a whopping 65,536 shades
of grey. With a tonality this
smooth, youre much less likely to
experience problems with
banding. 16-bit is ideal for any
images that you really want to
push to the limits in Photoshop,
or for black & white conversions
where the tonal quality is much
more important. There are
drawbacks though. 16-bit les are
twice the size of 8-bit les and
theres a limit to what you can
actually do to a 16-bit picture.
You wont be able to access many
of the lters in Photoshop until
you convert back to 8-bit.

Choosing the
right colour space
Colour space is a subject that will
leave all but the most enthusiastic
and technical photographers stone
cold. However, it is important to
know the basics because accurate
and attractive colours hang in the
balance. There are loads of different
colour spaces to choose from (also
known as proles) but there are
only two you really need to know

Adobe 1998
This is mainly for the professionals
among us. Most image libraries

require this standard, as it contains

a wider range of colours. Its also
useful if you want to do a lot of
editing to your images in
Photoshop, as itll help to preserve
colour accuracy.

sRGB IEC61966-2.1
Its not the most catchy name to
remember, admittedly, but sRGB is
the best option for the majority of
us. Its particularly useful if the
image is for web use or is ready to
be printed.

TAG YOUR
BEST IMAGES
Most browsers allow you to
ag, tag or check your
favourite images as youre
looking through them. This
allows you to quickly see
which ones you want to work
on and save. Theres usually an
icon or menu item that will tag
any pictures that you have
selected. If you want to process
the tagged images all at once,
theres usually a menu option
that will automatically select
all tagged images so you can
click to batch process them.
43