Godfery wrote:
There's a distinction between "image manipulation" and "image processing". Manipulating images has a negative connotation of changing things. I do only a little image manipulation, like compositing or cleaning up an unwanted element, etc. I spend most of my time in image processing: processing images to render as I previsualized them. That's a skill that I had to learn and keep on learning. The more I know about the tools used to render my photographs, the more I can get what I wanted.
You're right, image processing is what I meant.
The 'rendering of images as previsualized' is the issue I'm mulling over in mind, and why I had the question regarding being able to create a .tif out of camera from the RAW, using the same algorithm the camera uses. I may not be making any sense, and I haven't worked with RAW long enough to ask the question intelligently (or maybe when I know more the question is mute). I'm usually fairly happy with the results the camera delivers as a .tif, and usually only make very minor adjustments. My question stems from the fact that I doubt my ability to 'revisualize' the scene as I saw it, days, weeks, months later. I was thinking that if I had a .tif to compare to the RAW file, I would have some kind of reference point.
I suspect you'll tell me that in both cases the camera/software will not necessarially see or render the scene as I saw it, so there is, in reality not a reference point at all. :) And that the only real difference is where I'm starting from. A .tif file that has pre-processing vs. a RAW with less pre-processing.
So two questions to the masses shooting RAW. Aside from using a RAW converter, do you find it that much more laborious to work with RAW as opposed to .tif (I almost never ever shoot .jpg BTW)? And how often do you find that the RAW capture is satisfactory on it's own, applying only minor adjustments and sharpening?
Tom C.
