Raw Color Problems....HELP!?

[tzimmerman]

Hey everyone, frequent visitor and reader but I don't post too often, got something thats stumping me so far.

Ok, so recently the wife and I have gotten into shooting RAW+JPEG for everything, because raw has allowed us to save some under/over exposed stuff. However, I am really beginning to be frustrated by the colors coming from raw.

Here is an example, same shoot, same day, same picture, the first was edited from raw, 2nd from JPEG. I adjusted saturation a bit already as it was even more flat then. This I didn't go in and adjust each individual color channel, I can make it look decent by reducing green, and increasing red saturation, but it is still nowhere near as good as one of the edited JPEG shots with no saturation adjustment whatsoever, at least in my opinion. Saturation is turned up in the camera for JPEG shots.

My workflow is we edit everything from JPEG unless I need to adjust exposure from raw, if I need to do that I open the raw with camera raw in photoshop, adjust thing around, open into photoshop, and save out as jpeg with the others.

My question is two fold, 1...what settings can I adjust from within camera raw or photoshop to give me color that matches what i get from a straight JPEG shot, and 2, is there a preset or something you can set up for your camera to easily apply those settings to pictures when you open them from raw into photoshop.

If I need to email anyone a raw file to work with I can, can anyone help me? Has anyone seen the same problems?

[BCampbell]

This looks fairly basic.

I'm guessing you're set to auto white balance. Your RAW editor saves the color temperature your camera used, but does not apply it to the image. In JPG, the camera applies WB (and any other parameters) and saves the image.

So, you should be adjusting WB in your RAW editing software. I use UFRaw & GIMP for editing, so I don't know exactly what options you have, but I have a simple color temperature balance slider. For this I would start with the "camera WB" and go to the left a bit to cool it down.

You'll also find that RAW doesn't have the sharpness, contrast, noise reduction, or saturation adjustments that most cameras are set to from the factory. You'll need to adjust these in post if you really want to macth the camera's JPG output.

Basically the issue here is that the RAW file really is raw; you need to make the changes that the camera otherwise makes for you.

[tzimmerman]

BCampbell

First of all thanks for your reply.

No, this is not auto white balanced, its custom based off of the snow.

I checked, when I open in adobe camera raw.....it tells me the white balance on the picture is "As Shot" so its applied as shot in camera. I can change it all I want, but the color on her hair especially is just way different than what comes from the camera in JPEG, and I have yet to find a way I can make it the same no matter what I adjust, and its driving me crazy! LOL

I realize the RAW file is raw out of the camera, and I know I am new at adjusting it, if there is any tips someone can give me to even get them close, I am all ears, but just adjusting WB I can't get the two close, unless I am doing something wrong. I can do contrast and noise no problem, its the color thats getting me.



Here is the link to the raw file, if anyone can help me out. I forgot to add the jpeg picture has been post processed, changed his head out for a better smile taken just after, and slight skin smoothing.

[dave_lines]

the link does'nt work for me,, shows as a quick time page. DAve

[tzimmerman]

I don't have quicktime, but mine it just downloads. I use Firefox.

If you are having a quick time problem, try this link...its zipped here.

[BCampbell]

Can't look at the RAW right now but maybe at a later date I'll see what I can see.

It really looks like a white balance difference, especially looking at the skin. This what it it looks like when WB is just a few hundred K too warm.

Off the top of my head, a few other possibilities; you are either saving your camera JPGs as aRGB and your processed JPGs as sRGB, or the other way around; it is some other parameter in-camera (saturation, contrast), try clearing those all to 0.

If you can't get it just right with WB adjust in RAW, I'm guessing it's a combination of WB and other color settings. But really, this is exactly what a picture looks like that's slightly too warm, even in the blurred background I can see the color temp difference. The difference in the hair is likely contrast/saturation, check to see what settings those are on in-camera (most cameras ship with them cranked up slightly). Maybe I'm wrong, but that's what it glaringly looks like to me.

Dave-you should be able to just right click and save the link target.

[teaking]

It is notoriously hard to edit a RAW file to look the same as the JPEG its best to decide if you want the JPEG and edit that or bin the JPEG and go to the RAW and edit that.

But as one poster mentioned check to see what colour space your raw is editing in, and check what colour space your JPEGs are assigned in camera.

[Digidave]

Just a thought here. Your main issue seems to be that your software is not reading the camera settings. If it were, the RAW file's preview & the jpg file would look exactly the same.

Have you tried initial editing in Canon's Photo Professional? The free software that comes with Canon cameras. If further editing is needed, you can save as a Tiff file & continue editing in Photoshop. I don't know about Canon software but with Nikon's Capture NX all the camera settings are read properly within the software. In other words, if I opened up the RAW file & just clicked on "Save As" & saved as a jpg, it would be identical to the jpg that the camera saved.

[tzimmerman]

So looks like there is no easy way to do it to get them to match, you just have to make it look good in its own right, which is no big deal, it just botherd me that when I was flipping through the final products, I could tell which ones were edited from raw, and I didn't like them as well.

I will try the canon program, maybe that will be the key.

Any other suggestions are welcome, also I would love to see if someone could take that raw file and get close to the result of the jpeg using adobe camera raw or lightroom and telling me how they did it.

[Samanax]

I don't have a quick answer for you for this particular issue, but I do understand the frustration you're going through. As you've learned, post processing your images really isn't that simple, especially if you're trying to get the colors just right.

I haven't been using Photoshop CS3 for very long but I was using Photoshop Elements 6 for the last year and a half and understanding the whole color management thing was a long confusing experience for me. I ran across a few web site that might help.

Ron Bigelow - Articles

Cambridge in Colour - Tutorials

Earthbound Light - PhotoTips

And I've found the Real World Adobe Photoshop books by Conrad Chavez and David Blatner to be very good.