Filed under: iLife, OS, Software
Tiger's "half-baked" RAW handling
Paul Thurrot, writing for Connected Home, takes Mac OS X Tiger's touted support for RAW images to task, noting "Apple's support of Raw images is half-baked at best, but it's better than nothing. I advise photographers who use the Macintosh to skip iPhoto and instead use third-party tools such as Adobe PhotoShop or PhotoShop Elements to manage and edit Raw images." What's the beef, sir?
Well, iPhoto does something sneaky when you import RAW images into your iPhoto Library. It tucks away the original RAW file in a separate folder and makes a JPEG copy of the file that shows up in your Library. Why is this bad? Well, "when you edit a Raw image in iPhoto, you're actually just editing the JPEG version, not the original. Thus, each edit you make will likely impact the overall quality of the finished product." This is antithetical to the entire purpose of the RAW format, which is supposed to protect against image degradation. The only saving-grace of this method is that the original RAW image is still tucked away nicely, un-degraded, in case you need to retrieve it after doing one too many edits.
[via MacDailyNews]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Joshua Ochs said 4:30PM on 6-23-2005
I don't normally agree with Thurott, but that does seem rather asinine.
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Robert Ellis said 3:36PM on 6-23-2005
It's true that iPhoto doesn't actually let you edit your original RAW files, but Photoshop users who use iPhoto may also be surprised to notice that they are editing a JPEG even when they open an image from iPhoto in their external editor. To edit the original RAW image, drag the image from iPhoto onto your Photoshop or Photoshop Elements icon in your Dock. You'll find more information here: http://www.futurosity.com/index.php?id=117.
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Bruce McL said 4:32PM on 6-23-2005
Don't put all of the blame on Apple for this. The camera manufacturers have created a Tower of Babel with their individual, unique, often proprietary raw file formats. If the camera industry wanted to make it easy for applications to edit raw files it would happen in a week.
Next time you see a camera manufacturer, take out your leather gloves and give a mild slap in the face with them while calling the manufacturer an inconsiderate swine. It's the only thing they understand, really.
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JL984 said 7:16PM on 6-23-2005
Quoted from MDN:
"I'm a computer consultant. A real consultant, not like the Thurrot kind. In addition, I'm a photographer. I own high end Canon equipment. EOS 1D Mark II, and an EOS 1Ds Mark II.
You never, ever, ever edit the original RAW image. DUH! Think of RAW as a digital negative. A RAW file is a fundamentally a record of the raw sensor data from the camera along with additional metadata supplied by the camera (name of the photographer, date, shutter speed, aperture, white balance, etc.) You don't edit this file. You keep this file untouched.
RAW files are powerful because you can make adjustments based on the raw sensor data. If your shot was a little under exposed, you can adjust exposure. You can adjust white balance. You can adjust black levels, color temperature, etc. You can do all this, and afterwards your adjusted image is converted to something else and your RAW image REMAINS untouched.
Apple did not "go it's own way like Adobe," either. Camera manufactures REFUSE to settle on a single RAW format. Each time Canon or Nikon comes out with a new camera, there's another new RAW format. Then EVERYONE, not just Apple and Adobe has to scramble to update their software to deal with the new RAW format. Adobe is trying like crazy to create a single RAW format that everyone uses, but the Camera vendords have so far decided to thwart these efforts. NIKON has even created a new RAW format that can only be edited by NIKON's software. No one knows what Nikons goal is except to force people to have to buy their software.
Blaming Apple for this is nuts.
In fact as a photographer, I feel that Apple has done a splended job of building RAW support into the OS and making it almost invisible. I had no idea Tiger was going to natively support RAW images. It wasn't until after upgrading to Tiger that I noticed my RAW images had visible icons. I double-clicked on one and was blown away when Preview was able to open it, REALLY FAST, and let me see inside.
Now, when I dump a bunch of RAW images down from the camera into a folder on OS X, I can use Preview to browse them, before even going into Photoshop.
In fact THE FREAKING FINDER allows me to browse them!
As far as iPhoto, 99% of Photographers won't shoot in RAW anyway. Most low end digital cameras don't provide RAW image formats. Most digital photographers want to snap some pics, plug the camera in, and e-mail those pics to family and friends. Some want to put them on websites.
Even pros don't automatically generate prints from everything they shoot. I often e-mail a client selections back within hours of taking photographs and iPhoto handles this beautifully. iPhoto imports all of my RAW images and places them nice and safe in a folder. I like this. I can go in and back them up, which I do immediately. When I open one or more images in iPhoto I can have them sent to the client in e-mail right then and there. It takes minutes to do what used to take me an hour or more.
I'd have to open the Adobe Photoshop Browser. I'd have to select the RAW images I want, convert them down to JPEGs, reduce the image sizes, then e-mail them. A much slower process even when automated.
On this one, as usual Thurrott is way out of his league."
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MGo said 12:41AM on 6-24-2005
iPhoto's RAW capabilities fall even shorter. It's RAW capabilities are hardly universal. I have an older Canon Powershot S30 and iPhoto cannot read its RAW format. I think it is misleading for Apple to trumpet its unequivocal RAW support.
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