Editing

Hi, I have my new setup and I am starting to get back into wildlife/bird photography. Now I have a few questions to ask, is it worth changing a Raw file into a Tiff file and then working on that to edit and is there another better but not necessarily expensive editing software than Photoshop. I prefer to keep my editing basic as opposed to some photographers whose images bares no resemblance to the original.
Thanks
Graham

Some of the guys on here use RAWTherapee (it is similar to Adobe's Camera Raw) but you can also get Adobe Lightroom for about £12 a month....

Personally I prefer Lightroom, I use it for all editing unless i am creating composite or astro images,

I also see no need to convert to Tiff, RAW has got it all. If you are wanting to print images, then it is worth saving them as Tiff's.

PS.... If you want some prints, check out DS Colour Labs!

I do convert from PEF to Tiff, the file sizes are exactly the same and Tiff is a more universal format, you could convert to DNG if you wanted to keep the raw rile for the same reason.

I use Affinity Photo for editing. It processes PEF and DNG Raw files and just about any other type of image file you throw at it. People say it has the capabilities of Lightroom/Photoshop (never used them myself so can't confirm) except that it doesn't have cataloguing so you've got to organise your photo files yourself. However, unlike Lightroom/Photoshop and some others, it's a one-off payment not a monthly subscription so it's yours forever (which I like!). Current price is £68, but there are frequent special offers at the usual times of the year. I got V1 on offer back in 2018 then last year upgraded to V2 and got a couple of their other programs all on offer. Total cost of everything was about the current full price of just Photo V2 alone. So if you can wait until nearer Christmas... It's capabilities are way beyond what is needed for simple editing, but if you ever find you want go a bit beyond the basics then it's almost certainly there.

Free software is also available. Raw Therapee has been mentioned for editing Raw files. GIMP is an image editor (i.e. edits Tiffs, jpegs etc., it is not a Raw processor). Both have their fans. Both appear to be perfectly OK in what they claim to do. I tried both years ago (well, before deciding to go down the Affinity Photo route) and found that like much free software their user interfaces weren't as slick as commercial software and they weren't as intuitive to use. However, time has moved on, the programs have changed, their user interfaces have probably changed (I haven't looked) and what suits one person doesn't suit another. So worth trying them, it won't cost anything other than time.

Personally, I suggest working with RAW and if you want to save in a non-RAW format at an intermediate stage in an edit then use the editor's native format as it will be tailored to the specifics of the program. The only reason I would use Tiff at an intermediate stage in an edit is if it was necessary to do some of the edit with another program, then Tiff is a suitable lossless format for doing the transfer. If you really want to output the final version of a photo in a lossless format, then Tiff is there. But highest quality Jpeg with current sensor pixel count is so good that it's perfectly good enough for most things.

Steve

Hi thanks once again for the great info and will look into all your suggestions.
Thanks
Graham

Nobody has mentioned Faststone Image Viewer (forget the final word) which is a free, simple and powerful editor (and viewer). I can't even understand Photoshop, Lightroom or Affinity and gave up on them years ago - they are even more incomprehensible now. I get perfectly good results from Faststone.

I use faststone to and find it enough for my needs

Incidentally, I do actually have and occasionally use Faststone Image Viewer. But it's not my go-to editor because I'm not keen on its user interface and it doesn't do some things that I want to do. On the other hand, Faststone Photo Resizer gets fairly regular use for resizing photos (including for this forum) while XnView MP (another free program) is what I use for a quick look through a new batch of photos and trying out quick 'n dirty experimental edits before heading for Affinity Photo for the serious stuff.

Which just goes to confirm what we all really know already - there's no substitute for trying it out and seeing what works for you. So get a few, try a few and see what clicks.

Steve

I use raw files (DNG) and do the conversion in Adobe Camera Raw. If I have images where I need to bring out shadow detail I will concentrate on that in the conversion process, as well as the obvious white balance adjustment (if needed).

I then usually convert that to TIFF in AdobeRGB colour space. Reason being that TIFF is a lossless format, and retains almost all the data of the raw file. This means that the next stage of selective dodging/burning* can be done in Photoshop using layers.

Once I have the image looking how I want it in TIFF format, I will "flatten image", convert the colour space to sRGB, resize for web viewing, and finally add output sharpening. Then save the image as a JPEG. The RAW and worked-on TIFF will be saved too in case I wish to re-visit the editing process with them.

*as an aside, Photoshop does have a dodge/burn tool, but I do not use them. I prefer to use a selected part of the image, say sky, make a layer of that, and use the curves tool to adjust. This is less destructive.

I hear the sound of the worm-can being opened !

I do spend a lot of time on editing, and hopefully the end result is a lot better than the original, and more importantly resembles what I saw with my eyes, rather than what the dynamic-range limited camera sensor records................. eg.

For about a year now I have been using Capture One software to the extent now that I won't be renewing my Lightroom/Photoshop subscription. It costs a bit more and is cheaper to pay annually but after four years you can elect to cancel and retain the software without updates. It is geared to studio portraiture but works great on everything else, from the outset images look cleaner and sharper and adjusting noise and sharpness is so much better than faffing around with generating a new file in Lightroom for instance. It won't do what Photoshop does but I so rarely use it I won't miss it.

Hi everyone, once again excellent info and thank you for that. I have looked at your suggestions and I am going to see how I get on with Rawtherapee. I have been busy transferring my photos to my new setup and will see if I can get some decent images.
Thank for info
Graham

Hi everyone me again. i have been playing with Rawtherapee to good effect however every time I go to save the edited as a jpeg it saves it as a as a pp3 file which Windows cant open. ihave had a good look around to try to solve this but cant find it. It is probably simple and its just me being a Div. Can any body help please.
Thanks
Graham

I don't use Rawtherapee but do have it on the computer so have just tried to open and save a file as jpeg. It does save a .jpg file. By default, it also saves a file which contains 'processing parameters' and has the same filename as the .jpg file but with .out.pp3 added to the end. If you don't want that file (and I'm not sure what is in it!), untick the box 'save processing parameters with image' which is at the bottom left of the Save dialog. Saving then just produces a .jpg without the additional .out.ppt file.

Hope that helps. Others who actually use the program will no doubt be able to explain what is in the .ppt file and why you might want to have it as well as the .jpg.

Steve

Brilliant thanks very much Steve
Graham