Raw workflow

Hi all, Have been reading the software book on raw. I just don't get it.
First Raw seems the way to go period. Now what is the imbeded jpeg for? Don't seem I need it. How do I get rid of it. Also if I want to set white ballance to a group of images how is that done?
What I need is to shoot a job, come home, download, the next part is a gray area, set my white ballance and some exposure adjustments, etc. and save to a file for photoshoping and then lab work.
thanks Bill

Bill,

I really can't address the RAW w/JPEG portion of your question because I use a D60 which does not embed JPEGs with RAW captures. As far as I heard you can't turn off the option though you can reduce the size of the JPEG. In any case, I would look at the JPEG as an add-on because if your shot is perfectly the way you like it why bother with the RAW portion of the image. The shot is good so print. . . but read on.

The first question most people will ask regarding using RAW is what program are you using to convert/adjust your RAW images? Photoshop CS (or PS7 with RAW conversion plugin), Canon's RAW app, Capture One, etc.

All of the following is a generalization because it depends on the program you are using.

Don't think you "have to" make white balance adjustments or any other adjustments for that matter (see above "add-on). This all depends on how you shot the picture in the first place. If the white balance, shadows, sharpness and other settings look good to YOU don't bother with adjusting anything. Otherwise look at the settings on the menus of the program and change to whatever is appealing to YOUR EYES on your monitor. I hope your monitor is calibrated too, but this is a whole other issue.

PS and C1 GENERAL PROCESS:
Look at the menus on the left and play with them until your photos are appealing to you. After you are finished messing around with everything in the RAW format with sharpening the very last step, save/convert the image as a TIFF, JPEG, or whatever you want or need to so the photo can be printed.

BreezeBrowzer General Process: Simply convert (save) the image to TIFF or JPEG. Use your photo-editing program such as Photoshop, Elements, Photo-Paint, other, to make adjustments. Save for printing.

Again, all of this depends on the program you have so you can do what you need to do. Share that bit of information and others can help you more specifcally.

In the current issue of Digital Photopro there is a great article on establishing your raw workflow. Can't link to but it is pretty good reading. Well worth the price of the magazine this time around.

raw workflow again

I'm using fileviewer, I was just wondering, lets say I shoot raw, pick an image, select white ballance etc., send to photoshop for sizing ans save as a tiff to disk to take to my lab for printing. What happened to the imbebed jpeg?
Bill

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And as a further clarification to evilenglishman's post, the embedded JPEG is not embedded into your converted TIFF file, if that's what you were wondering.

I think that the small jpeg is to just let you see the image more quickly in the review screen. There's a pretty good chance that you CAN'T see the RAW file in the camera at all while it's still RAW. These jpegs are about 11k so the size isn't a significant problem and you can get rid of them when you download the card to the computer, or just delete them later.

When you bring the RAW files into photoshop CS you get a chance to play with the white balance and so forth. You do all of the white balance, exposure settings and so forth and then you save the image as a tiff, jpeg, or in my case a Photoshop .psd file.

When you go on to the next image Photoshop CS will offer you a chance to use the settings that you just made for the first image, under SETTINGS, PREVIOUS CONVERSION. Assuming that the images are similar it's an easy way to semi-batch process them. Of course you realize that white balance is done with RAW at the conversion stage, not in the camera like a jpeg.

If you don't have Photoshop CS, or some other really good third party RAW converter; you are just going to have to put RAW on the back burner until you do. The Canon RAW software is a disgrace.

The embedded JPEG is only needed so that you can quickly see the image in your RAW conversion software. It would be far too slow if the RAW data had to be interpreted before you could see the photo. If you're using a 10D or 300D, you can't get rid of it. On the 10D, you can set the size and quality of the embedded JPEG with Custom Function 8. Set it to Small / Normal (the default setting) to minimize the size of the embedded JPEG. Since the 300D doesn't have custom functions, I don't know how you can change the settings on the 300D (or if it is even possible).

What RAW conversion software do you use? Canon File Viewer Utility? There are better alternatives, such as CaptureOne DSLR. I'm using C1 DSLR LE and you can just select a number of images and press the "apply settings to selected images" button. C1 DSLR is much faster than Canon's software and you have more control over the conversion process. Have a look, you can download a trial version.

imbeded jpeg

Still a bit confused. To start, I use fileviewer to convert my raw images. Now am I looking at the small jpeg when I view and adjust (white balance) etc in fileviewer. I use PS7 after that. Back to my question. If I'm looking at small jpegs in file viewer and they look (at large setting) a bit weak is there a nicer image, larger file, waiting for me with the raw one once I convert? To sum it up, am I looking at the raw or small jpeg file in fileviewer? Can that be an influence?
Bill

When you have the thumbnails up ("Thumbnail display" is selected in FVU), you are actually looking at the files that have the .THM extension on them. These files are different from the RAW files which have the .CRW extension. When you select "JPG Preview", you are looking at the embedded JPEG data in the CRW (RAQ) file. And when you have "Preview" selected, FVU goes and decodes the actual RAW data and then displays it on the screen.

When you convert the RAW files, you can either convert the RAW data to TIFF or JPEG by selecting "File" | "Save file" | "Convert and save in..".

Or you can extract the embedded JPEG data from the RAW file by selecting "File" | "Save file" | "Extract Save JPEG...".