Please Help: want to shoot raw but can't!

[ChrisC]

To make a long story short:
As long as I don't find any presets that in general producing nice results
I have to live with JPGs because RAW would cost me to much time without any real benefit.

_______________
long story...

Thanks for all your suggestions.
The last days I played around with the image and now I want to draw a conclusion...

First let me state that I am a person with a technical background so (I think) I understand
the benefits of RAW. For every 'important' photo I use RAW as a "safety net".

I do have pictures where the RAW can deliver superior results
but only after extensive tweaking and only in 1 out of 100 pictures.

To tell the truth I feel a little bit like an airhead because I mostly prefer the JPGs.

I was hoping for someone to share default settings for NEF which result in
images I could at least like as much as I like the JPGs produced from camera.

I don't care too much about the color of the shirt not beeing near reality. An orange shirt makes the image not necessarily a bad one.
The WB can also be easily corrected in the JPG.
But I care for the colors of the skin and the grass where we can easily spot unnatural color shifts.

RAW never wowed me!

If I so much prefer the JPGs, why bother with RAW?
Because I know there is some potential that I miss.

At the end of the day I keep shooting JPG for all my simple family memories
and if I shoot something which could be "of general interest" I will use RAW.
(And feel a little half-assed every time I read somewhere that shooting RAW is the only way to go.)

[Pho]

Chris, you are just on the learning curve, if you are serious with photography you should not drop RAW. Let me tell you my evolution. I started DSLR with JPG, like most people. I was amazed by quality. I was just taking the picture like they were, no edits. Then I learned, and the more I learned about photography the more I could see where my pictures could improve, both in the shoot and post-processing.
Then I moved to RAW+JPG. In the first week, my JPG were better then my RAW. I had "the eye" at this point to say what is right and what is wrong but I didn't know the technique behind it, which knob to turn. I played a lot with ASP, and then I knew the effect of each knob. I dropped the "+JPG".
Now, I get a preset that enables me to get 90% of my shots right. There is always some shots that need edit (fill light, highlight, WB, exposure, contrast, noise). Just the simple development. Thanks to ASP it doesn't take me any longer then reviewing my pictures. By the time I review my picture I get it corrected, in seconds (sometime just 1 second to click on my custom "denoise" preset, or "add contrast preset" or move HL to "5" or Fill light to "0.5").

All that to say that you should give time to RAW, because it works. If it doesn't work for you, then you need to learn more (train your eye, learn the knobs). Doing so will not only improve your post processing but it will change your shooting skills. JPG and Nikon's D-lighting just keep fooling your brain (you don't see the effect of what you do). RAW is just what you do.

[ferdinand-paris]

I agree with Pho - once you have enough skill with a given RAW converter - any converter, not just ASP - you should be able to use it produce an image that matches the out-of-camera JPG or a rendition from another converter. I often look at difficult images in more than one converter not to be trapped into a default rendition, esp colour balance, as they're all different. If you have a LOT of skill, you don't need the second opinion, you can see what needs to be done. So learning any converter takes time, because you need to understand its default rendering, and how to change it, and how to get what you want. IMHO this also makes converter comparisons hard, as most reviewers don't take the time to do what I just described.

RAW gives you options - JPG doesn't. RAW + JPG gives you the best of both worlds. And for a lot of cameras you can shoot just RAW and extract the (large) thumb as the in-camera rendition. Certainly on my Nikon dSLRs the thumb can be extracted by various s/w as a useful 1Mb image if I set the camera to store a large thumb.

That said, if you like what the camera produces and never edit the images, you may as well shoot JPG. But personally, I find that most images need at least a little something, and that's where RAW is needed.

F_P

[ChrisC]

Thanks for still providing ideas - I am still interested in your opinion.
I think Pho spotted my problem by mentioning the D-Lightning.

My problem seems to be that I can't find a setting to reproduce what D-Lightning does.
In my example I like how D-Lightning treated the grass without loosing detail/contrast.
And even if I could find a similar satisfying setting I doubt that it would work as good for many pictures.

I want to take advantage of the bigger dynamic range of raw
but can't find a way to beat Nikons 'clever' D-Lightning.

[afx]

My problem seems to be that I can't find a setting to reproduce what D-Lightning does.

D-Lighting is a simple game.
The camera underexposes to protect the higlights and the JPG engine pulls up the shadows to recover lost details.
Switch that silliness off, take care in your exposures not to blow the highlights (if you do have an RGB histogram or if your model can be set to blink on a given channel overexposure, then use this. Most of the time the red channel is the relevant one.), and then use fill light to pull up the shadows (you might need to adjust the fill light threshold to your needs)

I want to take advantage of the bigger dynamic range of raw
but can't find a way to beat Nikons 'clever' D-Lightning.

Learn ow how to use proper exposure and how to pull up the shadows and your results will run rings around the D-light stuff.

cheers
afx

[ormdig]

D-Lighting is a simple game.
Learn ow how to use proper exposure and how to pull up the shadows and your results will run rings around the D-light stuff.

cheers
afx

+1

[ChrisC]

Learn ow how to use proper exposure and how to pull up the shadows and your results will run rings around the D-light stuff.

Thanks for keeping it going. Yes, yes, yes +1 too ... BUT
This is exactely the reason why I started this thread - I want to learn how to do it.

@afx: I know it may be asked too much because it's your time I steel
but maybe you could take may sample RAW and show me how to do it?

I think my sample fulfills all of your requirements:
- I shot manual so D-Lightning should have no effect on the RAW result
- I slightly underexposed the image, so there should be no relevant blown out highlights

This shot is not a masterpiece but I invested quite some thoughts before I pulled the trigger:
1) I wanted to freeze the action so I
--> used a higher ISO (not more than ISO400 on the D3100 to keep noise reasonable)
--> 1/400 sec to reduce motion blur
2) and f/6.3 to get a useful DoF on this lens and crop camera.

The kids were running around the place and lightning did change quite a bit - so I think I got a good compromise.

My problem - as stated earlier in this thread - is, that whenever I use fill light to pull up the shadows
I lose contrast which makes the grass look ugly (without any 'detail').

So maybe I would have to use the fill light and then use some other 'trick' to get back the details/contrast in the grass
(maybe some clever wavelet sharpening - I don't know).

I REALLY would love to see my sample RAW be developed in a way you would state it beats the JPG-sample in this regard.

thanks
chris

[afx]

Try the attached XMP...
In this case, I did not even lift the shadows, just used the little white triangle on the curves to stretch the exposure in general.

Also, when you try to lighten up the shadows with fill light, make sure the threshold is not sett too high, that kills contrast easily. Instead of fill light, I often find myself using the curves, pulling up a point on the lower quarter, that seems to keep contrast a bit better.

cheers
afx

[ChrisC]

Great, thanks
Will try that in the evening.

[ormdig]

Chris, the +1 was meant as an encouragement to not give up. I don't know if this is what you want but here is my step by step for your raw file. I would do as afx and give you an xmp but this method will let you see it on your monitor as it unfolds. I calibrate my monitors every two weeks but still, they are my monitors and may give different results than yours.
In Basic: First, turn off ASP sharpen, turn on Raw noise. Bring back the white triangle to just touch the highlights in the histogram. I ran the blacks slider up to 6.0 to bring the shadows down to the left edge of the histogram.
In Bez: Set opacity at 70, set sig middle at 62 and low mids ( in the 5 tone narrow curves ) at 48.
This set my exposure to my satisfaction so I went to White Balance and clicked white on one of the white stripes on the Oklahoma boy's shoe. This set the WB at 5970 with a tint of +17.
In Wavelet sharpen I enabled wavelet 1 and lowered the amount to 30. I left the radius as is but if you find artifacts at high zoom you can lower that too.
In Detail I enabled Noise Ninja and lowered the strength to 6.00. I left the Smooth slider as is.
I didn't find it necessary to add contrast or saturation. I find this leaves me with a bright, crisp image and pleasing skin tones with realistic grass with good detail. I didn't worry about the red flush on the face of the Espana boy as it looks natural to me with these settings. You already have the CA figured out to your satisfaction. I like the WB at 5970, it takes care of what I perceive as too blue a cast on the skin tones in your raw and jpeg files and also brings the cinder on the court to a more realistic color.
Bez is a great tool for bringing up shadow detail without losing contrast as long as you stay away from too much "shadows" slider use. It also works well in taming highlights (if not blown) in portrait situations.
This is a 2-3 minute process at most once you get used to it and with all of the plugins available in ASP you can do almost anything you want with an image with what I feel are much superior results to what in camera jpeg settings can produce. The problem with in camera settings for a finished image is that we don't shoot (unless studio work) in situations where there is "standard" lighting, color or dynamic range. Therefore almost all images require their own unique processing for best results.
I hope this in someway helps, Pete.

[FalCT60]

Hello,

Here is what I could get in just a couple of clicks :
https://plus.google.com/photos/10035726 ... 5TUtKv8qAE

Would you say it's OK ?

Regards,

J.-Luc

[ChrisC]

Would you say it's OK ?

I like your version - what settings did you use?

[ChrisC]

Ok, thanks to both of you (afx, ormdig) I think I got an idea of what you where talking about.
The key seems to be not to pick out one thing that you like about the jpg and try to mimic that behaviour
(like the detail/contrast of the grass after adding fill light and denoise)
but to start with the RAW from scratch and try to develop a general pleasing result.

So I have 3 questions left:
- What are the points where you would find that the developed sample RAW is superior over the JPG?
- What in general are the critical things to keep an eye on when judging a JPG (where is it inferior)?
- From all those possible settings - which one do you apply to all of your RAWs as a general starting point (sharpen, denoise,...)?

[ormdig]

(quote) So I have 3 questions left:
- What are the points where you would find that the developed sample RAW is superior over the JPG?
The jpg is noisy, underexposed ( you stated that) and lacks detail. Also the color, judging from the cinder colored court, the skin tones and the white(?) accents on the Oklahoma boy's clothes seem too far toward the blue spectrum.
- What in general are the critical things to keep an eye on when judging a JPG (where is it inferior)?
A jpeg may not be "inferior" but it lacks the information available in the raw file. The biggest drawback, to me, is the fact that I can adjust the raw file without loss of data. You can't do that with jpgs. You've already lost information from the camera's development and any you do will result in more lost information that has to be interpolated when rendered. Also you can't really correct WB with a jpg.
- From all those possible settings - which one do you apply to all of your RAWs as a general starting point (sharpen, denoise,...)?[/quote]
For myself, I have all ASP default settings as neutral as possible, I turn off ASP sharpening (Wavelet Sharpening is miles ahead for my purposes) and enable raw noise. As I stated above, I don't shoot enough controlled lighting situation to bother with presets. I develop a file in a folder to my liking and copy and paste to similarly lit files in that folder and can then make minor adjustments if needed.
I don't have any images online so am attempting to upload my jpg from your raw file but it may be to small to be examined satisfactorily.
Again, I hope this is of some help, Pete.

[afx]

The key seems to be not to pick out one thing that you like about the jpg and try to mimic that behaviour
(like the detail/contrast of the grass after adding fill light and denoise)
but to start with the RAW from scratch and try to develop a general pleasing result.

Exactly,
sorry, should have stated that explicitly first.
If you are used to the JPG rendition of the cam and trying to mimic that you are actually limiting yourself.
Just develop the raw file as you see fit and then compare to the JPG....

- What are the points where you would find that the developed sample RAW is superior over the JPG?

Detail, WB and exposure / highlight and shadow detail.
For example when I first looked at the two files without applying any change, the significant higher amount of detail was immediately apparent.
I personally find all NR in the camera JPG engines too much of a detail killer. I prefer to use only slight noise reduction (often only color noise in Wavelet Denoise) as it keeps a lot more details visible and most modern sensors have visually acceptable Luma noise if kept low.
On this image I did not use any NR at all.

And ormdig is right on the money with the raw file containing much more information to work with than JPGs. In the end a mixed workflow would be more labor intensive for than a raw only workflow, so I never use in camera JPGs unless I have a new cam that is not supported by the converter yet.

- What in general are the critical things to keep an eye on when judging a JPG (where is it inferior)?

See above.

- From all those possible settings - which one do you apply to all of your RAWs as a general starting point (sharpen, denoise,...)?

After setting the WB with a click white on the ball to get the greens in check (If you don't like the grass rendition, in 90% of the cases it is the WB that needs tuning), I used autocontrast and then dialed back the white triangle a bit.
Then I used WS (usually use a preset for WS that also includes a bit of USM at the end of a session).

My standard defaults have increased standard sharpening and lower clipping values for autocontrast as well as different defaults for NN, crop fill light, but the tools are not active by default and I usually apply presets for wavelet sharpen and a few BW/toning setups as a starting point and then there are of course presets for Metadata.

cheers
afx