This is probably a simple toggle but how do I keep the images RAW? As soon as I import images from my 60D into Aperture, it automatically applies a basic exposure/color/contrast look to all pics. I want to turn that "look" off so I can use the RAW images as they are or at least modify them from a RAW starting point.
If I uncheck all of the adjustments, it never gets back to RAW.
Have you checked your import settings?
You may have turned on an "Effect Preset" in the "Import Preset" panel, that is automatically applied on import.
Nope. My setting is on 'none' and I still get an automatic adjustment.
This is normal. What you see when you first import the photo is the JPEG preview embedded in the RAW file. This preview is based on the settings you have in camera for the picture style (i.e. neutral, vivid, black & white, etc.). The RAW-to-JPEG settings the camera uses are proprietary.
When you import the RAW file into Aperture, it generates its own preview based on the RAW data. The final result will not be identical to the JPEG that is in the preview. Nothing you can really do about this, as it's not possible to make them identical. You could go to the RAW Camera brick and turn down the boost to make things as dull as possible from a starting point, but I don't really see the point to that. The default RAW conversion is usually fairly dull to start with.
Note the same thing will happen with ANY 3rd party RAW converter (i.e. Aperture, Lightroom, Capture One, etc.). The only one that will be "identical" to the JPEG preview is the manufacturer's software (i.e. Nikon Capture, Canon DPP, etc.).
I understand this but there used to be a toggle to view as RAW or view as preview. I tried to change the RAW fine tuning to match the RAW look but it doesn't look quite the same. And I don't feel like fooling with sliders. I see exactly what I want everytime before it applies the fine tuning automatically. There are so other many manual overrides so how come there isn't a simple toggle?
Can you clarify what is your Before and After? Is it after a new OSX, new Aperture version, or new camera?
As for as I know there is no original RAW image, only an original rendering (after getting past the camera sourced Preview), and that will be defaulted to for each camera?
Ernie
I've been reading that there used to be a simple toggle before version 3 of Aperture that they removed.
How can there not be an original RAW image? How else would you be able to go back and re-correct from RAW without one?
I realize that the data from the camera is not a real image and that it must be debayered and processed to see a RAW image but that is what I want - the RAW image before the preview has been applied, not after.
Nevermind, the RAW fine tuning is close enough I guess.
thanks.
I am confused. In Aperture 3.3.2 in Mountain Lion, and in Aperture 3.2.4 in Snow Leopard, the same toggle to Master/Original happens when the "m" key is depressed. This provides the rendering that was first seen before I did any editing or other adjustment.
Please clarify what is expected, and what has changed from when this worked?
Ernie
Right now pressing "M" simply toggles between the changes I made and before I made any changes.
I want to see the image before Aperture applies any camera presets. That is what RAW looks like.
RAW files cannot be displayed -- they are sensor data. The format is not a displayable image. In order to create a displayable image, the RAW file must be converted to an image-format file. The software that does this is called a RAW Converter. Cameras that allow the user to record sensor data (RAW files) have RAW converters built in. Programs that display images created from RAW files either are, or have built into them, or have access to, a RAW Converter.
When Aperture first displays an image of a RAW file just imported, it might use the JPG file that many cameras provide alongside the RAW file. (This use is set at "Aperture➞Preferences➞Import➞Post Import Processing".) This short display of a JGP image, immediately followed by the display of an image created by converting the RAW data, confuses many users. Typically, the JPG image has been modified by in-camera post-processing settings that the user wants. The user is happy to see these, and then dumbfounded when the converted RAW image replaces the modified-in-camera JGP. RAW, by definition, is not viewable, and does not contain any post-processing (the "post" in "post-processing" is short for "post-exposure") -- it is just sensor data.
Aperture contains an Adjustment Brick that allows the user to "tweak" the RAW conversion settings: the RAW Fine Tuning Brick. These adjustments are applied on top of the default RAW conversion. Almost no users should have reason for making changes with the RAW Fine Tuning Brick, or for saving these changes as a new default.
Aperture allows you to toggle the Viewer between the image converted at the default RAW settings by the RAW converter (assuming RAW files), and the Image with your adjustments applied. (The command is "View➞Show Original Image"; the keyboard shortcut is "m".) If you use different default RAW conversion settings, that is what Aperture will show you with the "Show Original" toggle.
The Aperture user who imports RAW files should know that there is:
- a RAW file -- sensor data recorded by your camera
- a JPG file alongside the RAW -- of the converted and (if applied) PP'd sensor data recorded by your camera
- an image of the converted-by-Aperture RAW file (format is not specified, JPG is assumed) -- these are created on-the-fly, as needed
- a JPG Preview of image of the converted-by-Aperture RAW file -- this is used while the on-the-fly conversion is being done, when in Quick Preview mode, or when the RAW Originals are off-line. The user sets Preview settings at "Aperture➞Preferences➞Preview".
The imported RAW file is never altered. The JPG file alongside the RAW file is shown once, briefly, and never again in Aperture. Preview existence and use isdetermined by user.
"View➞Show Original Image" ("m" on my machine) toggles the Viewer between showing the fully-adjusted image and the originally-imported file (converted from RAW when needed).
"View➞Quick Preview" ("q" on my machine) toggles the Browser or Viewer between showing the fully-adjusted Image full-size and full-quality, and showing the fully-adjusted Image's Preview.
Does that help?
Message was edited by: Kirby Krieger -- minor changes.
"m" should show you the converted-from-RAW image. The conversion is done according the default for your camera. You can change some of the default settings for RAW conversion for you camera by changing them for one Image using the controls in the RAW Fine Tuning Brick and then, via the Action Menu (the gear), selecting "Save as Camera Default".
What has me -- and I think others -- confused is your insistence that there is some more basic image underlying the image converted from the RAW file (that you imported) at the RAW conversion and fine tuning settings that are the current default for your camera. I have never heard of this more basic "underlying" image-format file existing.
That helps. thanks.
I'm making assumptions based on my Red Epic camera. It has a CMOS sensor and displays RAW image in-camera and on the Mac side. So even before grading, I can toggle between the RAW image and the applied color preset. The RAW image is part of a video stream and not a JPEG.
I guess I assumed the same would be easy to implement and useful for anyone color correcting from a pure RAW image. (washed-out, low contrast). If RAW files cannot be display (as you state) then I cannot call that image RAW. What should I call it?
Craig Schober wrote:
I'm making assumptions based on my Red Epic camera. It has a CMOS sensor and displays RAW image in-camera and on the Mac side. So even before grading, I can toggle between the RAW image and the applied color preset. The RAW image is part of a video stream and not a JPEG.
I guess I assumed the same would be easy to implement and useful for anyone color correcting from a pure RAW image. (washed-out, low contrast). If RAW files cannot be display (as you state) then I cannot call that image RAW. What should I call it?
Ask RED and let us know -- questions about $40,000 camera bodies are beyond my ken. Their RedCine-X processing software looks like it has the same tools and structure as Aperture. My guess is that it employs a deliberately dull RAW conversion -- perhaps similar to setting all the sliders in Aperture's RAW Fine Tuning Brick to zero -- and may combine RAW conversion with development in a more tightly interdigitated way than Aperture does.
Note that Aperture WB and color-channel-specific Levels controls are close to identical to those in RedCine-X.
I'm serious about finding out and posting back -- I'd love to know in what technical ways the sensor-data-to-published-image workflow differs with the RED system.
The reason I kept asking about the Before and After, is that Aperture will default to the Apple default for your camera. You can have saved another set of default for your camera. If you did that, use the Reset Default button. Or you can choose a different Default Camer settings based upon your desires.
The Apple default can have changed with the latest Camera RAW updates.
Ernie
Also:
http://www.red.com/learn/red-101/rmd-non-destructive-editing
The RAW file format for the Red Epic is R3D. Non-destructive edits are saved as text in a RMD file. The RMD file is a sidecar file to the R3D file.
The color preset is part of the RMD file. If you are seeing the color preset applied, you are not seeing the RAW file.
This is completely analogous to Aperture, no? The R3D file is the "Original". The RMD file is the "Version" (and is a text file). What you see on-screen is (perforce) an image-format file, but the actual format used is not specified. When you toggle between un-graded and graded, you are toggling between the equivalent of Original and Version.
What seems odd is that for some reason the converted RAW files differ so much. I don't see the Red Epic listed on Apple's page of supported RAW formats. What files are you importing?
keep images raw
