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PS Camera Raw

Started by Mhayes, June 18, 2010, 11:53:48 PM

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Mhayes

Hi Everyone,

Please do no use PS Camera Raw to work on your restores. Despite what I may have said earlier in regards to the confusion we were having when volunteers would send back a photo with a resolution of 240 instead of the required 300 dpi. At the time I was addressing why this was happening and how to change the resolution in the pull down menu. Working in Raw will give you some options that you might not have otherwise, but the quality of your restore could suffer.

I use Raw all the time when I take pictures with my camera set to Raw and Adobe RGB color space. Because of that, I have to open all of my photos in PS Raw. It increases my file size and it also adds a little more work for processing. Working in Camera Raw is sort of like working with a camera's negative. You can change certain things and not hurt the quality because it is Raw coming out of the camera.

When we do a copy run, we do not use Camera Raw, because of large file size and it would increase our work load for processing. We use fine jpg at 300 dpi. When you request a photo and download; I would suggest that you save your photo as psd (Photoshop) or tiff (larger file size). By doing that you can do as many "save as" without the quality deteriorating. With a jpg, if you continue off the original and do a "save as," the quality will go downhill. When finished with your psd or tiff, you will then save your final as a jpg.

The problem with using Camera Raw to work on OPR restores is that it is creating headaches for us and also is hurting the quality of the original. When you take your restore and open in PS Raw, it's sort of like opening Pandora's Box. Here are a few of the problems:


  • 1. PhotoShop opens the file at 240 dpi and should you use the pull down and increase the size you make the photo worse.
  • 2  Unless turned off, PhotoShop will do an automatic sharpening of +25 which we do not want and it will make all of your mold spots really noticeable.
  • 3. If you use the pull down and do not use either the plus or minus, your size should stay consistent and the resolution at 300 dip. However, picking a different size/resolution will cause problems.

If your restores was straight out of the camera and in good shape, it would be different story. Also, while its nice to be able to do this with a jpg, this is better suited for files that are shot originally in the camera as RAW or your own photos. OPR photos are in bad shape to begin with, so please don't take them into Raw. What we need is for the photo to have color correction done with the methods shown in the OPR Handbook and in the forum. From there it becomes a matter of restoring.  ;)

Margie

"carpe diem"

Margie Hayes
OPR President
[email protected]

glennab

Margie, thank you for the information.  I was wondering about the camera raw issue.  There are so many more powerful initial corrections available in camera raw that I'd wondered if we'd be able to take an original into raw, adjust it, and then return it to Photoshop to do the actual restoring.  Now I have the answer.  It's a shame that we can't use camera raw's power, but now I'm aware that it doesn't help us at all.

I just not only purchased CS5 Design Premium, but went through an 11-hour tutorial on the wonderful things that can be done with the new Photoshop.  Even without camera raw, I think there's much potential in CS5 to lighten our load.  I have a restoration on order, so as soon as I get it and start "playing," I'll pass on anything that especially strikes me as advantageous.  I think that content aware will be an incredible help in some instances, but as with the other healing and patching tools, it'll have to be used carefully.  I'm looking forward to diving in!

Hugs!

GK
What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world remains and is immortal. ~Albert Pine

(Photoshop CS5 /Mac Pro)

Tori803

I never work in camera raw because my camera doesn't shoot in it, but I've had photos open up occasionally at 240 dpi. How does that happen?

I'm looking forward to hearing more about the new tools in CS5. However, by the time I get around to upgrading we will no doubt be learning about CS6!

Tori
Tori
"Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence." -Calvin Coolidge

Mhayes

Tori, I believe 240 dpi is the default resolution for the camera.

I know what you mean about upgrading and then having a new upgrade follow on its heels. I would love to upgrade to CS5, even though I haven't had CS4 all that long. I also have Lightroom and the upgrade I believe is $95 versus the $175 for PS CS4. If you belong to NAPP, then you can get a discount on both.

Margie
"carpe diem"

Margie Hayes
OPR President
[email protected]

glennab

Hi Tori

240 ppi is not only the default on digital cameras, but it's also the recommended ppi for high-end printed material (as on a press).  300 is the most commonly used, but it's actually overkill.  Something I learned in my tutorials.  Using 300 doesn't hurt anything, and it's easier to remember, so that's why it's so common.

My upgrade to CS5 was pretty pricey, because I was upgrading from CS2; but because I'm about to attempt to embark on a freelance career, I figured it would be best to have the latest & greatest.  I'm hoping it'll pay for itself in jobs.  There's a lot going on out there, but there's a trick to getting work.  One is not having 12 years of design work under copyright to a company I just quit under very uncomfortable circumstances.

I had to use the Biloxi Beacon and my Calculations tutorial for my writing examples, as all the promotional material I've written is all over the place.  I expected to retire from that job, so I didn't bother to save anything.  I'm retiring anyway, but I'm starting over.

But... onward and upward.  It'll be nice to be retired.

GK
What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world remains and is immortal. ~Albert Pine

(Photoshop CS5 /Mac Pro)

mad.liny

#5
Hi Everybody -

There are some benefits to starting with Camera Raw, if you are familiar with how it works.  If not familiar, the best advice is to stay away or practice with other pictures first!

If you are familiar with camera raw, using Photoshop CS5 it is a wondeful tool. You can open a JPEG in camera raw (which at first might seem backwards if you didn't capture the image in RAW format).  But there are lots of useful features there that you can use to prepare the photo for touch-up.

Most noteable is luminous noise reduction.
All cameras, including the ones used to photograph images of images, produce noise. 
In addition to that, many photos you'll retouch have noise in them (either from high ISO, poor optics, low light, damage, etc.).

For me, cloning and healing is easier if the image has less noise from the start.  It also tends to soften skin tones on photos taken with disposable cameras or high ISO film (that speckle look).
Camera Raw for CS5 does this beautifully.

The default settings for Camera Raw are a different resolution in ppi, but they shouldn't affect the image quality.  This is only the print resolution of the file.

If when you open camera raw you click on the hyperlink below your photo (pictured below)


...you can change the desired color space and resolution back to "Adobe RGB" and "300dpi"


once in Photoshop you can confirm this in Image > Image Size if you want to double check.



If you forgot to click the hyperlink in Camera Raw, in Photoshop you can just go to Image > Image Size, make sure "resample image" in unchecked, then replace "240" with "300" and the length and width will change back to the originals.

Save your result image and off you go!

Cheers,
Mike

Mhayes

Hi Mike,

It is great to have you as a volunteer on OPR. Love your tutorials on Facebook!

Thanks for posting about using Raw and I am so glad that you mentioned the dpi part, because that has created headaches for us in the past. We send our photos out with 300 dpi and volunteers using Camera Raw will forget the default is 240 and the photo comes back at the wrong resolution and the size has changed. So Please Everyone make sure you have changed the default!

I would say a majority of us save the original as a psd copy, because of using layers and also liking to be in that color mode, but then with our final copy we save as a sRGB. The reason for that is all prints are consistent and that is what the printer wants.

Great to have you and hope to see more of you on the forum. You just might want to come on a copy run if you have the chance. The next one will be in Joplin, MO around October 7-8.

Margie
"carpe diem"

Margie Hayes
OPR President
[email protected]

Mhayes

#7
This was a great topic and good posting. However, sometimes it gets really confusing when discussions start back up on old post as this one happened over a year ago. This one still makes sense, but some of the older post that get posts after a year or two don't. This is especially true when answering to a volunteer that has dropped out of sight. The best solution is to start a new post.

Margie
"carpe diem"

Margie Hayes
OPR President
[email protected]