Unsharp RAW in Photoshop

[mix_andersson]

Hi! I have a Nikon D40 and have taken a bunch of photos that i now whould like

to play around with in my digital darkroom. The files are in Nikon's NEF file

format and i have Nikon Picture Project and Photoshop CS3 but when i open the

files in Photoshop's CameraRaw they ar not so sharp and good looking as they are

in Picture Project. My first thought was that Picture Project in some way

improves the photos automaticly when i open them, but i just can't manually make

them look so good in photoshop. So do anyone here know what Picture Project does

to the photos or have any other thougt please answer.:)

 

//Mix

[digitaldog]

Raw files undergo no direct sharpening so if you see a difference (at 100% or greater zoom),

its attributed to the converter settings or how the Raw is undergoing demosicing.

 

Andrew Rodney

Author "Color Management for Photographers"

[robert_martin5]

Nikon software reads the in camera settings (sharpening, saturation, tone curves, white balance, etc) and conversion of the RAW will look very close to what you get from the camera JPG. All other RAW converters (Adobe Camera RAW and others) only read the white balance and all other parameters are set to the default values for that RAW converter, which results in a low contrast flat image for ACR. You need to determine what setting for ACR give you the results you want and save a new default for your camera. You can also save multiple presets that you can load to the image when you have it selected in ACR.

 

If you want the initial RAW conversion to be the same as your camera JPG you will have to use Nikon software - Capture Nx or other Nikon software.

[rene gm]

You need to learn to use ACR. Most probably the default settings are not to your liking. You can, however, save new ones. It is, by the way, probably better to sharpen in PS itself using the unsharp mask or the new sharpener tool.

[tony_wellington]

All the above are true and useful. If you want to read a longer discussion on the subject, go to www.nikonians.org/dcforum?DCForumID36/19210.html#3

 

Basically, if, like me, you need/want to use CS3 which is far superior to Nikon's CaptureNX, then in-camera settings to tweak your images are useless. Shoot everything on Normal settings, import into CS3 via ACR - Adobe camera raw converter (which should come with your CS3) - and make your adjustments there, then fine tune it all once opened in CS3.

 

I also like Picture Project for sorting, but not anything else. I don't actually "Export" from PP (because the TIFF files for example are limited in size), but rather select photos on the screen and drag them onto my desktop or hard drive or CDRom for storage. They remain as RAW NEF files for storage. Remember that in CS3 Bridge you are viewing JPEG versions of the Raw files. When they open in ACR you can make individual adjustments or else save a preset adjustment.

 

If you open an image in PP, and leave it on the screen, then import the same image into ACR, you can tweak the ACR controls to match what you're getting in PP by having the two images side-by-side on the screen. Save those settings as a preset and you're away!

 

Good luck.

[mix_andersson]

Ok, thanks for your help. Now I can be sure that it's PP that does some things and not ACR that have lossy quality. I will tweak further in ACR and se what i can come up with.

 

Thanks again

// Mix