Digital Light & Color

The raw converter in PWP, and most other raw converters, converts from raw, and in addition, allows adjustment for white balance, sharpening, application of a tone curve, and noise reduction. Are the additional transformations performed after the basic raw conversion, and therefore equivalent to a transformation performed on a tiff file produced by a raw converter, or are the additional transformations performed before or within the raw conversion, and (perhaps) of different effectiveness than if performed later? Another way to put it is "Is it better to get as close to the desired final image using all the capabilities of the raw converter or can one safely take pretty much any old raw conversion and produce as fine an image with subsequent transformations? (Because it takes longer to see the effects of adjustments made to the raw conversion, I prefer to make adjustments separately, after the raw conversion.)

Raw conversion white balance and highlight recovery (if needed) should be done in the raw dialog. Other corrections can be done either in the raw dialog or later. However some corrections, such as sharpening and the grayscale corrections may influence how you do color correction -- if you find that to be so, perform them in the raw dialog.

Kiril

Kiril ...
Are you describing all versions of the PW raw converter or just more recent iterations? Although I intend to upgrade to version 7.0 soon, I am still using version 5.0. When using it for raw conversion, I haven't been able to identify all the dialog options you describe.

Also, you seem to be telling the poster that it DOES make a difference whether some adjustments are made as part of the raw conversion or subsequently. Does that mean that my results from raw conversion will improve when I upgrade to 7.0. Perhaps I'll need to go back and re-process some of the images I converted with 5.0. lol

Doug

The comments I made apply to all versions since PWP 5.

However there have been some very important improvements in PWP 6 including the addition of gamma slope control for better blacks, improved shadow and highlight controls, improved saturation control and probe size options.

Of course later version also add support for new camera models.

Kiril

Would it be possible to explain a little bit why performing such operations as sharpening with the raw converter is better than performing the operation later? The recommendation that sharpening be done with the raw converter implies that with the converter used by PWP, sharpening is performed before the conversion operation. Is this, in fact the case in the converter used by PWP? It also suggests that raw conversion is not a linear operation. Is this also the case?

Actually I said sharpening can be done either in the raw converter or later. Whether or not you perform it within the raw dialog is a matter of individual choice. Performing it with the dialog is simpler (it's all done within the same transformation) and may make it easier to judge other adjustments. On the other hand, an advantage of doing it later is that you have more choice of sharpening method -- the raw converter only implements USM, the most common method.

Kiril

Kiril ...
I went back to read your earlier post and you did, indeed, say that sharpening effects are not compromised by doing them separate from the raw conversion process. And since I use a more sophisticated sharpening procedure suggested by Den that involves mid-tone sharpening and local contrast enhancement, I'll continue to defer the sharpening processes 'till later.

But it also looks like you are saying that it DOES make a definite difference when white balance and highlight recovery are included in the raw conversion process rather than deferred. Correct?

If so, I hope the white balance dialog within the raw converter is well described in the 7.0 electronic manual. That's because options within the transformation Color>Balance (which I use for white balance adjustment and which changed dramatically between version 4.0 and 5.0) continues to hold some mysteries for me in version 5.0. It sounds like skipping the upgrade to 6.0 will require some significant re-education when I get 7.0 shortly.

Doug

Doug

Yes, white balance should be performed in the raw dialog. Highlight recovery is only available in the raw dialog.

Kiril