I'm shooting with RAW format(Nikon-NEF) and using CS2 for raw processing/editing. Can I print the photo(raw format) directly in PS instead of converting the raw to the JPG before printing? Pls advise....thks!
Can I print from Raw(NEF) without converting to jpeg?
- Thread starter highspeed
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No. You can print straight from by opening it with either ACR then printing immediately No need to save lor...highspeed said:
I've tried the following steps, the print out seems very nice and same as the one that displayed in monitor but not sure whether it's correct. Pls advise...
1) Open the photo(XXX.NEF) with Adobe CS2's Bridge and double click the selected photo for processing. Adobe's Camera Raw plug-in will be launched automatically if the it's raw format.
2) Do adjustments (e.g exposure, contrast....) using Adobe's Camera Raw plug-in.
3) After the adjustments, click "Open" button to launch the PS and print the photo in raw format(XXX.NEF) without converting to jpeg or Tiff.
For A4 or A3 size printing, Not sure if the quality will be better if I print in raw format instead of Jpeg or Tiff. Pls advise.....
1) Open the photo(XXX.NEF) with Adobe CS2's Bridge and double click the selected photo for processing. Adobe's Camera Raw plug-in will be launched automatically if the it's raw format.
2) Do adjustments (e.g exposure, contrast....) using Adobe's Camera Raw plug-in.
3) After the adjustments, click "Open" button to launch the PS and print the photo in raw format(XXX.NEF) without converting to jpeg or Tiff.
For A4 or A3 size printing, Not sure if the quality will be better if I print in raw format instead of Jpeg or Tiff. Pls advise.....
RAW must be processed.
A RAW image is literally raw data: namely a collection of numbers from each and every sensor in your sensor array measuring the light energy reaching it.
These numbers need to be interpreted - essentially as to what colour it is, ie colour balance, and how bright or how dark the number means, ie exposure - before it becomes a picture. This interpretation is what goes on in processing raw. And as such exposure and colour balance are the two critical steps in processing RAW.
So technically RAW format is not a picture, and to "print" RAW directly actually means to print out these numbers. But I do not think this is your intention.
But if your intention is to have no loss in you image, then you can save it - after processing - as TIFF file, which unlike JPEG do not do lossy compression on your picture.
But if your intention is not to "manipulate" the image at all, to be as pure as possible to the image as captured by the camera, then that is a meaningless thing.
For there must be processing to the raw energy levels in the sensor to make sense of it, ie to create a picture. And the exposure and colour balance are not the only thing that a camera does to make a picture. There are also contrast, saturation and sharpening that goes on in the camera, amongst other things, before the picture leaves your camera.
This notion of minimising any manipulation to an image as a measure of your photography skills is a false one.
For if you do nothing to the picture leaving the camera, all it means is that you left the all the processing decisions to the camera manufacturer. On the other hand in RAW imagery no processing whatsoever is performed in the camera. This is left entirely to you to decide.
The only thing that the camera does is aperture, shutter and sensor sensitivity (ISO), which controls how and how much light falls on the sensor. And all these are in your control.
(Of course if you want to print on paper your final results, and you send it to a printer to do it, then you lose further control to the printer which has to convert your RGB to CMYK which can be another tricky thing.)
Post imaging processing is equivalent to the darkroom in analogue (aka film) imaging. And as a film photographer shoots a picture with a clear idea and intent how he can make the picture later in the darkroom, so a digital photographer shoots with a mind as to what can be achieved on the PC later, or at least he should. For this processing - in the darkroom or the PC - is as much a part of imaging as the capturing the scene itself.
And this is a great advantage of digital photography: it puts more complete control in the photographer's hands. So for a digital photographer, using image processing S/W, either from the camera manufacturer or 3rd parties', like PS, is an essential part of imaging.
And unlike a film photographer where your considerations are the limitations and possibility of your film when you capture a scene, a digital photographer must think about a scene in terms of data, ie how to capture as much data of a scene - and that mainly by maximising your sensor data capture capacity - so that you have the greatest flexibility in the second part of the image creation, in the post imaging processing, be it in RAW or JPEG.
So sometimes it is OK if the image look washed out on your review monitor. For a good image is one which have maximise the data capture potential of your sensor, and not merely look good as the camera manufacturer has intended it. And a histogram is a more useful tool than a image preview to check if you have performed adequately for the first part of the imaging process. We need to think - and see - differently for digital photography.
And a good photographer - digital or analogue - is one who is most competent in both parts of the imaging processing, ie the data capture (on film or CCD), and in the processing of these data to arrive at an image that is most appropriate for the imaging purposes.
A RAW image is literally raw data: namely a collection of numbers from each and every sensor in your sensor array measuring the light energy reaching it.
These numbers need to be interpreted - essentially as to what colour it is, ie colour balance, and how bright or how dark the number means, ie exposure - before it becomes a picture. This interpretation is what goes on in processing raw. And as such exposure and colour balance are the two critical steps in processing RAW.
So technically RAW format is not a picture, and to "print" RAW directly actually means to print out these numbers. But I do not think this is your intention.
But if your intention is to have no loss in you image, then you can save it - after processing - as TIFF file, which unlike JPEG do not do lossy compression on your picture.
But if your intention is not to "manipulate" the image at all, to be as pure as possible to the image as captured by the camera, then that is a meaningless thing.
For there must be processing to the raw energy levels in the sensor to make sense of it, ie to create a picture. And the exposure and colour balance are not the only thing that a camera does to make a picture. There are also contrast, saturation and sharpening that goes on in the camera, amongst other things, before the picture leaves your camera.
This notion of minimising any manipulation to an image as a measure of your photography skills is a false one.
For if you do nothing to the picture leaving the camera, all it means is that you left the all the processing decisions to the camera manufacturer. On the other hand in RAW imagery no processing whatsoever is performed in the camera. This is left entirely to you to decide.
The only thing that the camera does is aperture, shutter and sensor sensitivity (ISO), which controls how and how much light falls on the sensor. And all these are in your control.
(Of course if you want to print on paper your final results, and you send it to a printer to do it, then you lose further control to the printer which has to convert your RGB to CMYK which can be another tricky thing.)
Post imaging processing is equivalent to the darkroom in analogue (aka film) imaging. And as a film photographer shoots a picture with a clear idea and intent how he can make the picture later in the darkroom, so a digital photographer shoots with a mind as to what can be achieved on the PC later, or at least he should. For this processing - in the darkroom or the PC - is as much a part of imaging as the capturing the scene itself.
And this is a great advantage of digital photography: it puts more complete control in the photographer's hands. So for a digital photographer, using image processing S/W, either from the camera manufacturer or 3rd parties', like PS, is an essential part of imaging.
And unlike a film photographer where your considerations are the limitations and possibility of your film when you capture a scene, a digital photographer must think about a scene in terms of data, ie how to capture as much data of a scene - and that mainly by maximising your sensor data capture capacity - so that you have the greatest flexibility in the second part of the image creation, in the post imaging processing, be it in RAW or JPEG.
So sometimes it is OK if the image look washed out on your review monitor. For a good image is one which have maximise the data capture potential of your sensor, and not merely look good as the camera manufacturer has intended it. And a histogram is a more useful tool than a image preview to check if you have performed adequately for the first part of the imaging process. We need to think - and see - differently for digital photography.
And a good photographer - digital or analogue - is one who is most competent in both parts of the imaging processing, ie the data capture (on film or CCD), and in the processing of these data to arrive at an image that is most appropriate for the imaging purposes.
As to printing, it depends on your image resolution, measured in pixels, and the print medium, measured in dpi (dots per inch).
For example for a photographic print, the usual acceptable quality is 300dpi. So if your image size is 3000 x 2000 pixels, then the maximum acceptable size you can print is 10 by 7 inches, roughly about A4 size.
If you go beyond this, then you will get pixelation, maybe JPEG sooner than a lossless format like TIFF. It also depends on the picture and the scaling algorithm used in enlarging the picture.
For example for a photographic print, the usual acceptable quality is 300dpi. So if your image size is 3000 x 2000 pixels, then the maximum acceptable size you can print is 10 by 7 inches, roughly about A4 size.
If you go beyond this, then you will get pixelation, maybe JPEG sooner than a lossless format like TIFF. It also depends on the picture and the scaling algorithm used in enlarging the picture.
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