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I am new to RAW. I have a Rebel XT and the jpg files are quieter than
the raw files. Is the noise reduction and sharpening that good in the
camera when shooting jpg? To make the RAW image look as sharp as the jpg
even adds more noise. This is a little confusing since I can see some
great advantages to shooting RAW.

Thanks

Archived from groups: rec.photo.digital (More info?)

"Rod Williams" <rodw@adelphia.net> wrote:
>I am new to RAW. I have a Rebel XT and the jpg files are quieter than the
>raw files. Is the noise reduction and sharpening that good in the camera
>when shooting jpg? To make the RAW image look as sharp as the jpg even adds
>more noise. This is a little confusing since I can see some great
>advantages to shooting RAW.

What ISO are you shooting at? Make sure you are comparing the same shot at
the same ISO.

If you sharpen in Photoshop, set the threshold to 1 or 2 or 3. This will
prevent the sharpening algorithm from aggravating the noise. You shouldn't
need to do this for ISO 100, though.

Have you tried RSE* (RawShooter Essentials)? It's free, and gives you very
fine control over exposure compensation, contrast, color, and sharpening
(although its sharpening default is way too strong). It even gives you
control over the Bayer demosaicing algorithm (the microcontrast vs.
artifacts tradeoff; they call it "detail extraction" ).

*: http://www.pixmantec.com/products/ [...] tials.html

It's worth downloading, reading the tutorial, and figuring out even if you
end up using some other RAW converter. Also, RSE has a fairly useful noise
reduction function. You can turn off sharpening in RSE, use its noise
reduction to take the worst of the noise out, and then sharpen in Photoshop.
Works a treat for ISO 800 shots from the 300D.

David J. Littleboy
Tokyo, Japan

Archived from groups: rec.photo.digital (More info?)

On 9/18/05 9:39 PM, in article _xpXe.3558$iu5.3161@trndny04, "Rod Williams"
<rodw@adelphia.net> wrote:

> I am new to RAW. I have a Rebel XT and the jpg files are quieter than
> the raw files. Is the noise reduction and sharpening that good in the
> camera when shooting jpg? To make the RAW image look as sharp as the jpg
> even adds more noise. This is a little confusing since I can see some
> great advantages to shooting RAW.
>
> Thanks

The in-camera processing in most, and perhaps all, dslr's is indeed very
good and will produce generally sharp jpegs. RAW is just that - RAW. The
image is basically unprocessed but at the same time contains a lot more of
the original image information. Unless you want your image to remain soft
most raw images benefit from some post processing sharpening. Raw
processing programs with which I am aware also have various noise reduction
techniques. However, in my experience I do not see the great differences in
noise that you say that you are seeing between raw and jpeg. What ISO's are
you using to take these images that are showing a lot of noise?
Chuck

Archived from groups: rec.photo.digital (More info?)

Rod Williams wrote:
> I am new to RAW. I have a Rebel XT and the jpg files are quieter than
> the raw files. Is the noise reduction and sharpening that good in the
> camera when shooting jpg? To make the RAW image look as sharp as the jpg
> even adds more noise. This is a little confusing since I can see some
> great advantages to shooting RAW.
>
> Thanks

I shot the test at iso 200. Would it be better to do no sharpening until
after converted and then sharpen in Photoshop? I figured some sharpening
before conversion would be better but maybe not.

Thanks for the responses so far.

Archived from groups: rec.photo.digital (More info?)

In article <qbqXe.5059$e_4.4386@trndny08>, Rod Williams
<rodw@adelphia.net> wrote:

> I shot the test at iso 200. Would it be better to do no sharpening until
> after converted and then sharpen in Photoshop? I figured some sharpening
> before conversion would be better but maybe not.

About all I have to do is bring up the shadows in PhotoShop's RAW
converter to about 30. The last step before saving the TIFF or whatever
is to sharpen.

Archived from groups: rec.photo.digital (More info?)

If you are seeing more noise in RAW images than jpeg images shot under the
same circumstances (same image/lens/exposure) then it is not clear what you
are calling noise.
It would be worth your while to work through some tutorials on what the
Adobe raw converter can accomplish before trying something like the
Pixmantec program. Fundamentally in order to appreciate what the raw
converters allow you to do you have to have a good grasp of basic
photography as well as some understanding of relatively sophisticated
digital issues. There are some very good tutorials on this site
http://www.russellbrown.com/ in Quicktime. If you understand RAW and basic
image processing in Photoshop you will realize why it is preferable to shoot
RAW rather than JPEG, although it requires more work overall.

Archived from groups: rec.photo.digital (More info?)

In article <qbqXe.5059$e_4.4386@trndny08>,
Rod Williams <rodw@adelphia.net> wrote:
>
>I shot the test at iso 200. Would it be better to do no sharpening until
>after converted and then sharpen in Photoshop? I figured some sharpening
>before conversion would be better but maybe not.

Turn sharpening in conversion off completely. Sharpening should usually be
the last thing you do to an image before printing/saving it. For your 350D,
if you want images to have an allround "pop", then the following might help:

In Photoshop, convert the image to LAB colour mode (can do it in RGB, but
this helpd a bit with noise).

Select the Luminance channel - the preview should now turn black and white.

Apply Unsharp Mask, radius 30, amount 30, threshold 0.
Apply Unsharp Mask, radius 0.6, amount 200, threshold 0.

You can now convert back to RGB, if you like.

If it's a bit noisy, consider turning up the threshold on the second
sharpening to 1-2. The first USM does an overall contrast boost. These
numbers are just a guideline - try varying the radii and amounts to see what
difference you get. Some pictures may benefit from a slightly higher radius,
or more sharpening on the second step, for example.