Hey today I'm talking about Picture Styles
and RAW files and all the cool things you
can do with those files.
I'll be back right after the intro.
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Of course I am David Bergman here on Adorama TV -
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Today I've got a question from Richard B and
he asks. can you please explain the different
Canon profiles settings - natural, faithful,
etc - in terms of best options for shooting
and processing raw files?
RIchard well that's a really good question
about RAW files, what I'm going to do is explain
sort of what the RAW file is and then I will
get into how that applies to your question.
Now he's asking about Canon, but this
applies to most camera brands.
Most cameras will allow you to shoot in two
general formats,
there are a couple of other exceptions but
for the most part you can either shoot
and save the RAW file,
which for each system - it's a little bit
different, for Canon it might be a CR2 or
a CR3 file, when you export to your computer.
With Nikon it's a NEF file, a N E F file,
each system has its own different proprietary format.
And then if you chose to you can also save
to a JPeg, directly from the camera instead
of the RAW file.
Let me explain the difference.
When you shoot JPeg there are a bunch of settings
that you set inside the camera whether you
know it or not, you are making these selections
inside the camera, not I am not talking about
ah... exposure settings like ISO, Aperture,
shutter speed, those are beside ISO, Aperture
and shutter speed are actually things that
change, the size of the opening and the amount
of light that hits the sensor.
You can't change that after the fact, that's
just a data, that's just the amount of data,
the amount of light that hits the sensor.
But there are a lot of things that are applied
inside the camera, inside the computer that's
in there, that are applied to that image to
make it look better basically, we are talking
about things like white balance, color space,
you can procude different color spaces, picture
styles as you mentioned Richard, there are
things each camera system has different proprietary
things, like Canon has auto lighting optimizer,
highlight tone priority, and a lot of those
things are applied after the light is collected
on to the sensor.
Now when you save a jpeg file, your basically
all those settings are set inside the camera
and then you're saving out a file that's pretty
much flattened and compressed, so that data
is baked into the file. How it will look when
it comes out of that, when you are looking
at the JPeg, is pretty much how it's going
to be right! You can make some minor changes
after the fact but you are really limited
as that data is baked in there. Now conversely
when you save a RAW file, youre actually saving
the RAW data like the numbers basically, the
bits and bites that are captured by that sensor
in as RAW a format as the camera will allow
you to do, so it's really before all of those
other things have been applied, so that allows
you to actually in the computer work on that
RAW file in a way hat since its before that
information has been applied it allows you
to make changes after the fact that are lossless.
so there is no loss in quality when you make
those changes, if you do it with a JPeg your
really gonna lose some of that quality, because
you're just working on an image that's already
flattened and a good way to think about it
maybe is of your old enough to have ever made
prints, am, if you want to reprint an old
image, if you had the original negative, you
had a lot more latitude, because you could
go in to the dark room or take it to a lab
and have them re print it, the could print
it lighter, darker, they could make it warmer,
or colder, if you only had a print, if you
made a print of that image and then wanted
to make it lighter or darker or warmer or
colder, you would have to shoot a copy of
that print and then try to make changes from
that and you are really going to be limited.
So that's kind of how I think of a JPeg, a
JPeg is your print and a RAW file is your
original negative,
I'm going to give you and example here and
show you what I am talking about, so lets
go in here to Digital Photo Pro. Now this
is Canon's proprietary software to open RAW
files, so let me explain, these RAW files
are proprietary, so each camera company has
it's own sort of recipe of how these images
are made and they don't release that information,
when you open an image in a third party software
like Lightroom or Capture One, those companies
actually have to when they, when a new camera
comes out, they have to get the camera and
then shoot images in the lab or how ever they
do it and reverse engineer the file as best
they can to try to get the best quality out
of it. Now they do a really good job for the
most part, but the camera manufacturer software
is gonna do the best out of the box, RAW conversions
because the camera manufacturers know which
exactly what that file is made of, that RAW
file, like I said it's proprietary, so nobody
really has that information. So I will say,
software wise, I, I you know, the camera manufacturers
programs do the best RAW conversions, however
those other 3rd party software am ... companies,
those, they are really good, and for the most
part ah.. most people are going to use programs
like Lightroom and Capture One, I will go
and Into Digital Photo Pro, Canon software
when I have an image that's giving me trouble,
it's got a tough light, maybe weird lighting
cast or something that I can't get rid of,
I'll come and do Digital Photo Pro, and work
on it there and really have no problem. So
lest take a look a Digital Photo Pro and I'll
give you an example of what I am talking about.
Am this image of Marissa, right here that
I shot a few weeks ago - I've got it open,
and this the CR3 file from the EOS R, I believe
I shot it with, and it's actually a little
bit over exposed. Lets do this the other way,
lets go into Photoshop first. Now here's the
image, this is the JPeg, it came right out
of the camera, now you can see her face is
a little bright, this isn't actually one of
the frames, not it might have been one of
the frames I used to show it over exposed,
but to me her face is a little over exposed.
Let's zoom in here and take a good look.
Now if I want to darken her face, in Photoshop
what I have to do, lets see, I go to levels,
and maybe bring down my mid tones and it looks
ok but...if you really look in closely it
starts to get a little crunchy, right it really
starts to fall apart a little bit as i go
down especially if I want to go down a lot.
If I go down that far, lets say that's about
2 stops under now. It really .. the color
starts to change, and the contrast gets a
little nasty and I can work on it a little
bit, but it's just - it's gonna be tough and
the quality just isn't really there. Now at
the same time if I go into Digital Photo Pro
and take that same image, this is RAW, straight
opened out of the camera and lets zoom all
the way in one-to-one, same image, same exposure,
ad if go up to my brightness adjuster in here
and I bring this down, even lets see a stop,
a stop and a half, look at that, this is now,
lets go 2 stops under, that's two stops down,
and obviously it's under exposed but look
at the quality there, it really looks like
if I had shot it basically at that exposure.
You have so much more latitude in exposure
when you work on the RAW file as opposed..
look at the difference here, that's the JPeg,
that I just brought down the levels, and that
is the RAW file. So there is a huge difference
there, and no Robert, so excuse me Richard,
you asked about, am.. those Pro File settings
and what those are, those picture style settings,
right here, when you open in Digital Photo
Pro, it saves whatever the default is, whatever
you shot it at, it will come up as the default,
so you can make those changes here, there
is portrait, landscape, fine detail, but these
are all things that you can apply after the
fact, all they are, are different presets
of various settings that you can look at inside
the camera, if you open up, and in the camera
menu, you'll see, you have things like, Sharpness,
Contrast, Saturation and Color Tone, and thats
all that the picture style is. Its different
presents of that and if you're shooting directly
to JPeg, then you want to set that carefully,
because that will change, the color of your
image, the contrast of your image and all
of those kinds of things. But if you are shooting
RAW, honestly it really doesn't matter, you
can set it a certain way, so that it will
look that way on your screen and if you showing
the model or you are showing the client,m
then they might want to see it looking you
know a little more refined, but when you open
it in your RAW conversion, whether it's Lightroom,
Capture One, Photoshop, whatever you are using
to do that RAW conversion, fron the RAW file,
you can then make those changes after the
fact without any loss in quality, so that's
why you work on a RAW file. It really gives
you so much more latitude to work on your
images, now, you know you could argue that
if I shoot it perfectly in camera then I never
have to deal with RAW files but I think it's
really a waste, it's like getting a really
expensive small car and putting a crappy engine
in it. You are never driving it fast right?
It's..if your gonna shoot these really great
quality cameras, you might as well save that
RAW file, if you only need JPegs maybe for
the time being fine, shoot RAW plus JPeg together,
youc an export those JPegs and then use those
for whatever you need but just having that
RAW file, if you have that image that's a
once in lifetime picture, you're going to
want the highest quality possible, negative
to work from. So highly suggest doing that,
hey thanks for asking that question, I really
appreciate it. Hope that helps. Don't forget,
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