Frustrating

[Jmurman]

I am having a very hard time with conversions with RAW. I have decided that the frustration level is too much right now, and will start shooting JPEG.

Are there any workshops that I can get hands on experience with PSE?

[Scottes]

I am having a very hard time with conversions with RAW. I have decided that the frustration level is too much right now, and will start shooting JPEG.

If you shoot "correctly", as you'd have to do with JPEG, then RAW conversion should just be a click or two and a wait while it's processed. You lose a lot of time, and don't gain much beyond the tiny difference caused by JPG's lossy compression. BUT if you screw up, or are in a tight spot where correct exposure is pretty much impossible, then RAW can save your image.

You don't HAVE to work like crazy to process RAW. Open it and just click the Process button and you'll have an image that would look almost like the JPG. But when you need to work like crazy you can do that.

And you'll never learn how to convert RAW unless you use it.


You might want to download Capture1's trial. It's got a learning curve to it, but you'll soon find that everything you need is right there. The nice thing about C1 is that the changes can be seen instantaneously because it uses a smaller preview image. It's not an exact representation, but for fiddling with color, saturation, and white balance, and levels... well, you'll see what you're going to get without having to wait for the processing to complete.

I never used the Canon software. BreezeBrowser drove me nuts because I had to guess at what was going to happen, and then I had to wait to see it. With Capture1 I see what I'm going to get immediately. It took me an hour to stumble through and process my first image in C1, but it took me barely a moment to know that it was the software for me.

[scottbergerphoto]

For the ability to change the White Balance alone, not to mention choosing your color space after the shot is taken, it's worth the effort to shoot Raw.
Regards,
Scott

[Riccardo]

RAW is 16 bit but JPG is 8 bit, the possibility to have more latitude is too important to miss it.

[Jmurman]

I know you guys are right.....rrrrrrgggghhhh

OK, deep breath and have another go at it.

Capture1, ok, I'll give that a shot.

I DO like the control that I have with RAW, so maybe I need to accept a little longer learning curve.

Thanks!

[Scottes]

C1 has a bit of a tutorial built into the help, if I remember correctly. Use it. It *will* frustrate you a bit. But give it an hour and you should be OK. It's more the settings of options that is frustrating, I think. At least they still give me problems.

A couple of tips... If you move a slider, double-clicking on it will set it back to default. For each screen (Exposure, etc) there's an X at the top. Clicking this will reset everything on that panel back to default. The Focus panel gives you a very detailed and accurate look at the final results, but for a small section.

If you add an image to be developed you have to start the development, but you can still keep working on other images while it develops. If the develop queue ever goes empty before you add another image you have to start the development again.

[Jmurman]

I purchased a couple of weeks ago Breezebrowser.

I guess that I am frustrated in that after I download images from Downloader Pro, I cant take them into PSE directly for editing. Its also frustrating to not to be able to see thumbnails of the RAW image when copying to cd....

[Scottes]

Its also frustrating to not to be able to see thumbnails of the RAW image when copying to cd....

The .THM files are thumbnails - tiny ones - they're just JPGs renamed to .THM. If possible tell your image viewer/browser to view .THMs - most programs will recognize it as a JPG and display it properly. Or make a copy of each THM as .JPG and you're good.