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I'm really get brain fried at the moment over RAW image converter software and my 300D.
As I understand it a RAW image is a digital netgative i.e. very little or no processing is done in the camera, it is all done post shoot in converter software such as Capture one, BreezeBrowser, Bibble and the like but is this strictly necessary?
I have tried them all and, after a lot of messing about with all the parameters on offer, I cannot see much difference in the resulting images than if I just convert them with Canon's free software, using the as shot settings, and then post process in PS7. Or, as the topic title says, am I missing the point of RAW converter software?
And, as an aside, I'm still not convinced this camera is all it's cracked up to be anyway. It seems an awful lot of mucking about to get anywhere near the sharp, vivid images my old S602 produced.
It / I'm producing better images than when I first got it, mainly due to the tips I've picked up from the likes of Strawman when trawling through many previous 300D posts - he's a gem, but I'm still not happy with it.
I've never met anyone whose given up on RAW and returned to JPEG and I've been on more than ten meets.
If you're happy with JPEG then shoot JPEG. A lot will depend on what you're shooting. I do a lot of macro work or work with very low light. It's essential I have as much information as I need to get the results I want. Sure it involves some extra work but I enjoy this side as well. RAW is as much about 1 2bit data as the the control. 12 bit means 4096 colours per channel rather than 256 colours per channel with JPEG. That's a lot of information to throw away . . .
I'm still happy to use RAW but I don't see the point, through my experience, of spending extra money on the converter software, when I can just use Canon's own free software to convert them to a .tif, then do all the colour balance, levels, sharpening etc. in PS rather that the converter software.
What advantage does say capture one have that my method doesn't?
RAW - necessary for you? No!
However, since one of the reasons I moved up to a Sigma SD10 (from S602Z) was to get away from someone else's idea of processing to JPEG, and SD10 only produces RAW, I use it! Sigma also have great RAW pre-editing S/W, so I maximise the advantages of RAW: WB, colour intensity, Shadow Fill - all at 12bit, prior to converting to JPEG 8bit. But then I have 3 x sensors full of data. Basically, I have full control over the data and the Sigma's probably the ultimate RAW camera (aside from the Kodak), at present.
S602Z vs dSLR. Since my Sigma's being fixed, I'm back to my Fuji and it has emphasised why I moved up: less zoom flexibility, shutter lag, manual focus difficult, less dynamic range, relatively poor low light performance, noise. Having said that, given good light, not too much detailed BG, it still produces a mean pic!
I think Capture One is the best conversion software currently on the market. I also think it is one of the easiest pieces of software I've ever used and I work in the software industry. They do a free fully functional 30 day trial. It is so intuitive and easy to use it can take less than a minute to colour balance, expose and saturate as required. I don't use their sharpening. that I do in PS but that's about all I do in PS. I think Canon's RAW conversion software is the other end of the scale and may well put people off RAW for good!
I'll second your comments about C1, I haven't really used it enough to be really proficient and still do a lot of the work in PS -but that's just down to lack of practise.
Is the Canon software still bad? I know the general concensus when I bought my D30 was that the software was, to put it politely, dire. Accordingly my PCs haven't even had a whiff of the CD that came with the camera. I went straight to Breezebrowser and later to C1, although I still use BB for many things.
KRs
Chris
If you you want to hang about for ever while'st Canon software does the job OK - but if you want to work in real time go for C1 - you only need the LE version - it won't break the bank!
Dave
I'm confused now. I thought raw files were 16 bit. If they are 12 bit then is it better to convert to 8 into PS and lose something or 16 and have to invent something?
Must get a trial of Capture 1.
I'm new at all this having just got the Minolta A2 which gives me RAW or RAW+Jpeg, (and have the Dimage software which came with the camera, and Photoshop 6) and I'm struggling a bit as well with technicalities. Have been trying to compare a 'superfine' Jpeg, a tiff, and a RAW converted to Tiff. PS6 does only limited things it appears with a 16bit file, so converted this to 8bit and my trial now has four versions.
First thing am struggling with is the 'bit' bit. I seem to be able to save from RAW to tiff at 48 bits I think but in practice I can only use a 8bit file in photoshop. Aren't I losing a lot of bits (whatever bits are, anyway). Where does Edward's reference to 12 bits come in. Do later versions of PS have more bit handling capabilities or whatever.
I am rarely going to print something without quite a lot of tweaking (the style of images I produce, require it), so am basically left with the superfine jpeg, tiff, and 8bit tiff from RAW.
First impressions are the difference between the jpeg and the ordinary in camera tiff, is very small at 300 percent image size. Conclusion, stay with jpeg.
I then compared the jpeg with the RAW to tiff, conclusion RAW wins with more detail and better colour. At the moment am testing out whether it is better to give a sharpen before converting to tiff or to sharpen in photoshop, and have yet to try printing them.
Hope you can make sense of that, I seem to have forgotten what I was asking now!
Oh yes, does anyone know if there is a way in the camera RAW+jpeg option, to change the jpeg option bit to superfine instead of fine?
Am I stuck with using an 8bit image in PS6, does it matter much, and if so, how do I get round this (preferably without spending any money!)
I seem to have as well as the RAW files, some THM files, Windows don't recognise these so sent me to a website that dealt with file extensions. This site told me it was a thumbprint from a Canon G3 camera!
p.s. I can sometimes be overwhelmed with technical jargon - am a beginner. 
p.p.s. Trying to have three 48MB files in PS6 at the same time, makes it crash.
Ian, just spotted you, think will let you carry on with this, I shall lurk in the wings.
Sensors give 3 x 12bit which requires 16bit capable file format (RAW, TIFF, etc). A lot of editing S/W and filters are only capable of up to 8bit
Theory goes that better to edit, where possible, the max (12bit) and then convert down to 8bit
JPEGs have max capability of 8bit
THM files are Thumbnails, created by a number of different application S/W
Most DSLR's including the 10d and 300d capture 12 bit per channel data from the sensor. The sensor for these cameras is made up of a grid of red, green and blue cells. Each block of four has two green, one red and one blue. They human eye is more sensitive to green light - it once was a green world. This raw data is then saved as a raw file or converted to an 8 bit JPEG. The raw data needs to be converted to an image format. JPEG is only 8 bit where as TIFF can be 8 or 16 bit. To create a 16 bit image, the software interpolates upwards adding information. 8 bit conversion gets rid of it. But when you think going from 4096 tones per channel to 256 tones per channel that's a lot of binned data. If you use software like C1 though, you're setting contrast, colour correction, WB etc as part of the conversion so the final image is ready to print and therefore this lost data doesn't matter. If however you start with a jpeg from camera, any post processing will mean less and less data and you can end up with banding. As I've said, I shoot a lot of macro in low light and when I've shot jpeg and printed I can see the bands.
Thanks for clearing that up Ed. On a similar note, if I convert to 16 bit for editing with PS7 it only allows me to do a very limited number of things, such as crop. All the layer tools and other image editing are disabled until I convert it to 8 bit. Is this normal for PS7?
Don't know. I use CS and it has a few more 16 bit tools. I don't do much in PS anyway. if you've got good conversion software then get it to output 8 bit and then carry out final tweaks in PS.
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