Canon’s current format uses the extension. The RAW formats themselves are specific to digital camera manufacturers. Since the RAW file represents the original as seen by the camera, any camera that saves photos to its flash memory only in JPEG or TIFF format is discarding the original and handing the user an inferior, degraded copy. Capturing in RAW lets you experiment and try them all.Įvery perfectionist knows you should always preserve the original and makes changes on a copy. In addition to adjustments themselves, there are multiple, competing algorithms for converting RAW to standard RGB, and there is no consensus on which is best. The idea is that interactive software can help users perform all these tweaks, taking advantage of adjustable algorithms to reduce noise and recover data from washed-out or underexposed areas (turns out we humans are better at that sort of stuff than our machines). But the RAW formats do contain high bit-depth readings, uncompressed, and not yet remapped for white point compensation or other alterations eventually performed to tweak the image for display. In reality, there is always a small bit of processing done in-camera, to remove dead pixels and so on. The RAW formats are supposed to contain unaltered data from the camera’s CMOS sensor. That said, RAW does refer to image file formats not yet processed. It is generally seen in capital letters, a convention probably meant to distinguish the term from the generic adjective raw, meaning “not yet edited.” Rather, it is an umbrella term describing multiple file formats controlled by multiple hardware manufacturers. Let’s take a look at how to do it using Linux and open source.įor starters, it is important to understand just what is meant by the term “RAW image file.” Despite how the term is generally used (in the singular), RAW does not designate a file format. But rather than mentioning your camera’s specs outright, the shrewd move is the heavy sigh followed by lamentations about your tireless search for the perfect software to properly manipulate your beautiful work. The ability to save pictures in RAW format rather than JPEG or TIFF is what distinguishes a “pro level” camera from a consumer device. The easiest way to sound like a professional when you talk about photography these days is to grumble about the deficiencies of RAW file converters.
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March 2023
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