Comments on: RAW and Aperture – Anyone Care To Help Me Out Here?

By: PT

PT — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 20:12:07 +0000

Hi,

Sorry wandered in and saw this one and thought I would throw in some comments, perhaps on the mark, perhaps way off.

As I understand it, and I am a rank novice with RAW, RAW is nothing more than the raw data from the image sensor in the camera. In addition, I assume most cameras also save metadata along with that sensor data that stores the camera settings that were used at the time the photo was taken.

Now if you take that raw file and use the camera manufacturer’s supplied software, it will read in the RAW file and most likely the setting that were in the camera at the time and will display the photo at you using those settings. For my Olympus and the Olympus Master software, this is referred to as the “as shot” settings. Basically this is how the photo would look had you let the camera do those settings to the raw data and generated a JPG.

So, at least with Oly, you can see your shots and if you are very happy with the “as shot” appearance, you can simply “develop” out a JPG if needed which should look identical to how the camera would have done it (assuming camera manufacturer uses the same processing in software as in the camera). However if you find that something in one of your settings wasn’t right, you can now either tweak that setting (e.g. change WB from Daylight to Cloudy) or scrap all the “as shots” completely and start tweaking all the settings.

To the best of my knowledge, you can not edit a RAW file and then save it as a RAW file. RAW files are only generated from the camera. It would seem that at best you might be able to change the metadata in the RAW file to store different settings and tweaks, but the RAW file would remain as it was.

Moving to another application, the question then becomes does this other application read in that metadata and use it or does it simply read in the raw and displays a neutral image ready for you to tweak?

To the original poster, who claimed to save a new RAW version, they either didn’t save anything (RAW file unchanged) or the only thing that was saved was some metadata of the type of changes that were made and Aperture simply doesn’t use or recognize that metadata or the types of changes listed in that metadata.

Cheers,
Patrick

By: Michael

Michael — Sat, 23 May 2009 01:41:17 +0000

Did any of this ever answer our friend’s original question?

By: Michael

Michael — Sun, 17 May 2009 16:46:20 +0000

I’ve always assumed that if you shoot raw and convert and or edit in external software, that it’s best to take the most “neutral” raw file that your camera provides, and set up your converter to your liking.
Conversely if you shoot JPGs it’s best to set up your camera for your preferred look, and do as little post processing as possible.
Is this not true?
Now, if I were to bump up in camera sharpening & saturation, are you saying that Aperture, Lightroom, etc are able to ignore that, indicating that “in camera” adjustments are not part of the RAW file that Aperture/Lightroom read? And that proprietary programs like NX and DPP ARE able to read those tweaks?
That makes sense as I think about it (they’re Proprietary) but also implies that the in camera tweaks are not part of the RAW file that Ap/LR read.
I guess what I’m not clear about is weather or not these in camera tweaks actually change the RAW file that comes out of the camera, or are they some kind of side car file that only proprietary programs read.
And is the answer to the above, the explanation of what’s going on in the original question?

By: Michael

Michael — Sun, 17 May 2009 03:04:19 +0000

RB,
When you say” Aperture doesn’t give a hoot about your in camera settings” Are you referring to “Picture styles” (canon speak) I’m not sure what nikon calls them??
Don’t they only apply to JPGs?

By: Michael

Michael — Sun, 17 May 2009 02:45:55 +0000

RB,
So, does this mean I DON’T win a prize for being helpful???
…next thing you’ll tell me is I have to be right too.
Bummer.

Was this a test?

By: Mark Taber

Mark Taber — Sun, 17 May 2009 02:33:25 +0000

You know that is exactly what is happening; of course the adjustments are baked into the tiffs and jpegs. And the same complaint can be heard in the Lightroom forums (although less frequently now that Adobe has provided camera presets and a way to roll your own).

By: RB

RB — Sat, 16 May 2009 23:20:09 +0000

Michael,

Personally I think the issue that he is trying to describe happens to be the same old same old same old = Aperture does not give a hoot about your in camera settings ONLY NX or view will care. Additionally, any non-destructive adjustments saved as an NEF (designed in from the beginning) will never be interpreted by other software. Well maybe not never but I really do not think that someone will find it profitable to do this for free.

Jesus forking Christmas I need another cooling rod.

Okay you asked for it – here comes the Aperture 3 post.

By: Michael

Michael — Sat, 16 May 2009 23:10:14 +0000

It sounds a little like raw files are getting edited twice, because the Tiffs & JPGs are ok.
I assume you are doing this because you like the Look of your raw files from Capture NX.
Have you tried taking say, a dozen raw files directly from the cards into Aperture? If not try that,use the same ones for which you already have a tiff, edit in Aperture, attempt to duplicate your Tiff and evaluate the result. If you like it you’ve saved a step. If not, then you need to check exactly what kind of file Capture NX is exporting after you edit.
I read of a similar issue between Capture 1 and lightroom, where even though C1 can export DNG’s and lightroom can import DNG’s it doesn’t work because C1 exports DNG’s without edit information, so the workaround was to have C1 export Tiffs & Jpegs.
If I am not mistaken, RB has some conversion tweaks for Aperture that help approximate the NX look.
I’m not sure what it would be beyond that, Good Luck
Michael