10d Raw File Viewer Problems - Bad Colors in JPG Conversions

[Radtech1]

I just got a 2 gig MD, so now I have enough room to shoot RAW. When I Extract and Save the JPG file, without any manipulation, then open it in PS, the colors are very flat. Almost like a colorized B&W shot. This is most evident in the greens of trees, but also appears throughout the image.

Is this normal? If I don't want to manipulate every shot, how can I get more normal colors?

Also, the jpgs save at 72dpi, where the jpgs out of the camera were 180 dpi. Is one better than the other? Is one a "native" resolution, and the other interpolated?

Any help would be appreciated.

Rad

Here is a full sized image showing the effect:

http://home.ripway.com/2004-2/78486/Canon/GreenColor00002_JFR.JPG

For the sake of bandwidth, here is a crop of the above image:

http://home.ripway.com/2004-2/78486/Canon/GreenColor00002_JFRc1.JPG

Also, for the sake of bandwidth, here is 1/4 scale of the fill image:

http://home.ripway.com/2004-2/78486/Canon/GreenColor00002_JFRs1.JPG

[PacAce]

When you say you "extract and save the jpeg file" are you saying that you convert the RAW to JPEG and then save it or are you saying that you literally extract the embedded JPEG file that in the RAW file and save that?

At any rate, you image looks perfectly "normal" to me. I have my camera parameters set to all "0" and that's about how my images come out of my camera, too.

If you are extracting the embedded jpg file or processing the raw file "as shot" and you haven't changed your camera parameters when you switched from JPEG to RAW shooting mode, then there shouldn't be a difference in the way your images look, I don't think.

Anyway, RAW kind of does imply that you have to do some post processing. If you don't want to do any post processing at all, then you should be shooting in JPEG with the parameters set appropriately.

Hope this helps.

[maderito]

Your image appears to be in Adobe RGB (1998) color space. It should look fine in Photoshop if you Adobe RGB is your working RGB color space (edit/color settings). Convert it to sRGB (image/mode/convert to profile) and it will look OK in PS and on your monitor.

The image looks fine on my monitor in PS using the Adobe RGB color space. It has vibrant greens.

When RAW processing, you have the option of creating your image in Adobe RGB or sRGB color space. Looks like you chose Adobe RGB. Your camera is probably set for sRGB which is why the JPEG look fine.

There are several threads (and a lot of debate) on the Forum about sRGB vs. Adobe RGB. Choose sides carefully. :)

[robertwgross]

There are some mysteries in compression, color space and color rendering.

A friend of mine has a Mac laptop, relatively new. He showed me a recent JPEG image that he had captured with a relatively new non-DSLR Canon camera. At full image view on the screen, it looked absolutely normal. My face was visible in the shot, and it looked normal (I know). Then he zoomed in until we were viewing just half of my face. There were patches that should have appeared as a fairly normal Caucasian flesh color. Somehow, either due to rendering problems or JPEG artifacts, there were big blotches of deep gray color. Now, I could understand if it got the flesh color misrendered as pink or as white, but these were deep gray. We can't explain that. No, they weren't wrinkles!

Unfortunately, he shoots only JPEG images. I think if he had gotten RAW images and converted to TIF, he might have gotten better results. With JPEG, you never quite know when compression is going to throw an artifact at you.

---Bob Gross---

[DaveG]

I just got a 2 gig MD, so now I have enough room to shoot RAW. When I Extract and Save the JPG file, without any manipulation, then open it in PS, the colors are very flat. Almost like a colorized B&W shot. This is most evident in the greens of trees, but also appears throughout the image.

Is this normal? If I don't want to manipulate every shot, how can I get more normal colors?

Also, the jpgs save at 72dpi, where the jpgs out of the camera were 180 dpi. Is one better than the other? Is one a "native" resolution, and the other interpolated?

Any help would be appreciated.

Rad

Here is a full sized image showing the effect:

http://home.ripway.com/2004-2/78486/Canon/GreenColor00002_JFR.JPG

For the sake of bandwidth, here is a crop of the above image:

http://home.ripway.com/2004-2/78486/Canon/GreenColor00002_JFRc1.JPG

Also, for the sake of bandwidth, here is 1/4 scale of the fill image:

http://home.ripway.com/2004-2/78486/Canon/GreenColor00002_JFRs1.JPG

I looked at your first shot and it looks fine under the circumstances. You've underexposed the foreground, but you had too, or you would have blown out the sky. This is going to make the colours of the foreground muted and dull.

To fix this problem I'd probably create a duplicate layer, fix the levels so that the bottom looked good, and which should pretty much ruin the sky. Then I'd "erase" the sky on the top layer to reveal the original sky.

By the way get used to the idea that you ARE going to "manipulate each shot" and especially if you use RAW. My understanding is that with RAW all of the 10D's shooting parameters are turned off. You need to adjust the colour in your software or it's just awful. And it's supposed to be awful.

But with Photoshop CS's Camera RAW (someone else will have to speak for C1) I adjust the first shot, tweak it the way I want and once I've clicked OK and moved it into the normal side of Photoshop, I use some Unsharp Mask. Most of the time my work is done.

Then the next shot is processed in Camera RAW by using the "Previous Conversion" tool. Of course as the exposure changes from shot to shot this has to be tweaked a bit as well, but I've come to wish for the same "Previous Conversion" capability when I have to work with camera produced jpegs. And it's something I miss.