DPP plus an Av question

[rscattle]

I just bought a 30d, and was really excited to take some shots. However I am having some issues. I just need some clarification... In a short summary I understand shooting in RAW allows you to edit the pic without losing pixels, correct. I also understood, or so I thought that CS and CS2 both will open Raw pics, as they have a RAW Converter built into them. However upon further reaserch they will not open RAW from a 30d as of yet, correct? So this leaves me with the DPP which came with my camera. My next question is that with the DPP I can change the white balance, color saturation, etc. and then it will convert it to TIFF for photoshop, right. So once it does this then I am back to editting in photoshop and then I will loose pixels again... Am I following this right?

Secondly, this is my aperature question... I took a bunch of pics of my girls outside yesterday using the Av mode, thinking I had that figured out. However, when I put them on the computer they were very washed out... the bright nice colors where gone. So then I though perhaps it was exposure, but as I shot the exposure meter on the camera was right in the middle. And to further clarify if I change the aperature setting to 3.5 versus 8.0, then I would have a more shallow depth of field. The shutterspeed should change as I change the aperature to the correct amount for exposure, so why are they so washed out. I wish I had some pics to post, but I was so disappointed I deleted them all. Maybe this is just where I need to go and experiment. Right now I am back to shooting in the Basic modes... if I am going to do that I may as well go back to a point and shoot!!!!:)

[coldrain]

RAW has nothing to do with losing pixels or not.

A sensor has photo diodes. Your camera has 8.2 million of them.
about 4 million of them register green, 2 million red and 2 million blue.

They register those colours in 12 bits of information.

A JPEG has 8 bits per channel, you lose a bit of dynamic range by shooting JPEG compared to RAW. 4 bits.
So if you want to post process your pics, RAW has an advantage.

The RAW processor needs to mix the green from one pixel with the red and blue from neighbouring pixels to get a colour that is not just green. The red and blue undergo the same process. This is called de-bayer-ing.

The way the colours and amounts are determined can vary from program to program. DPP does a very good job, but you should leave sharpening and noise reduction to photoshop and plug-ins.

You can send a photo you processed in DPP directly to photoshop, at least on the Mac. Not sure if that is the case in Windows too. Then you do not have to save the file first.

[rscattle]

okay so this is a huge learning curve... and needless to say I need to do more research. When it sends it to photoshop and I edit there I am no longer editting the RAW file correct? It is now Jpeg ot TIFF, however because I shot in RAW in the first place I am at a bigger advantage then if I had just shot jpeg. Man is this confusing!

[Rhys]

I just bought a 30d, and was really excited to take some shots. However I am having some issues. I just need some clarification... In a short summary I understand shooting in RAW allows you to edit the pic without losing pixels, correct. I also understood, or so I thought that CS and CS2 both will open Raw pics, as they have a RAW Converter built into them. However upon further reaserch they will not open RAW from a 30d as of yet, correct? So this leaves me with the DPP which came with my camera. My next question is that with the DPP I can change the white balance, color saturation, etc. and then it will convert it to TIFF for photoshop, right. So once it does this then I am back to editting in photoshop and then I will loose pixels again... Am I following this right?

Secondly, this is my aperature question... I took a bunch of pics of my girls outside yesterday using the Av mode, thinking I had that figured out. However, when I put them on the computer they were very washed out... the bright nice colors where gone. So then I though perhaps it was exposure, but as I shot the exposure meter on the camera was right in the middle. And to further clarify if I change the aperature setting to 3.5 versus 8.0, then I would have a more shallow depth of field. The shutterspeed should change as I change the aperature to the correct amount for exposure, so why are they so washed out. I wish I had some pics to post, but I was so disappointed I deleted them all. Maybe this is just where I need to go and experiment. Right now I am back to shooting in the Basic modes... if I am going to do that I may as well go back to a point and shoot!!!!:)


I suspect you need to download a plugin for the 30D from the Adobe website. I tend to prefer Zoom Browser to DPP as I've never managed to get DPP to batch process. ZB doesn't have a very intuitive workflow which is an annoyance of mine. I suspect the CS plugin which if it's not available now will solve the problem when it is available - which should be soon.

If you convert to TIFF you will lose nothing unless you burn out highlights, block up shadows or resize. TIFF is a lossless storage method.

The washed out appearance could well be light striking the lens obliquely. Try putting a lens hood on. Also be aware that you can increase saturation in camera or via post processing. Sometimes a polarising filter or a multicoated UV filter can help.

[rscattle]

See I learn something new everyday... I haven't used my lens hood much, so far when I try it I get the shadow on my shots from the hood... I am going back out to try this again!!! Persistence is the key.

[coldrain]

When it gets sent to photoshop it is nothing, just the photo in 64bits per pixel.
16 bits red channel, 16 bits blue channel, 16 bits green channel and 16 bits nothing.

Only when you save the file it gets to be a JPEG, TIFF or PSD (photoshop document) depending on what format you save it in.

When you edit/process the photo and you want to save it as JPEG, remember to switch from 16 bits to 8 bits. Else you can not save it as jpeg.

[ktixx]

Secondly, this is my aperature question... I took a bunch of pics of my girls outside yesterday using the Av mode, thinking I had that figured out. However, when I put them on the computer they were very washed out... the bright nice colors where gone. So then I though perhaps it was exposure, but as I shot the exposure meter on the camera was right in the middle. And to further clarify if I change the aperature setting to 3.5 versus 8.0, then I would have a more shallow depth of field. The shutterspeed should change as I change the aperature to the correct amount for exposure, so why are they so washed out. I wish I had some pics to post, but I was so disappointed I deleted them all. Maybe this is just where I need to go and experiment. Right now I am back to shooting in the Basic modes... if I am going to do that I may as well go back to a point and shoot!!!!:)

(without seeing pictures of course) I would have to say that your washed out shots are simply because you are inexperienced with the camera. This is by no means a cutting remark - we were all there at one point and SLR's need a lot more controlling than P&S cameras. But, the best part about learning with a digital - you can take all the test shots you want and not pay a dime! Keep practicing, and definitely post some images, good or bad. We will all be happy to critique them and tell you what we think :D
also - if you keep having poor results (washed out photos) try shooing a few in "green square mode" aka: automatic. This (while definitely not the best option for quality) will (Potentially) show you if there is something wrong with the camera..
Good Luck
Ken

[Rhys]

Could it be that you're over exposing? Has the EV been changed from 0?

Personally, on my XT I prefer to set EV to -0.3 in order to retain highlights.

[rscattle]

So much camera and so much to learn. I went and took some more shots, and used the lens hood and I think things are some what improved. Not wonderful but improved. Could it be as well that I should have my spot metering on "spot" or "partial" so that when I am taking pics in the shade it is not reading incoming light from the background. I also played with the exposure settings today... I think I need to just keep using this camera... picture a day. As well if I use automatic focus and I am doing portraits should I use the center focus, what is best... perhaps this is too broad a question, and the answer depends on the what I am trying to do. But I once read "to focus on the eyes of your subject", so if I control the focusing I should be able to do this... oh in time!!! I think I want to be able to do everything right now. Now I have to figure out how to upload.... it never ends!

[Rhys]

I tend to use centre-spot focussing, matrix metering and Ev-0.3 with max saturation, max contrast, max sharpness so that I have to make the least adjustments PP.

[NegativeGround]

Here is the link for the Camera Raw plug-in for CS2 that lets you open RAW files shot from a 30D:

Here (http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=3364)

-Evan

[rscattle]

Thanks again for the link, however last night I upgraded my CS2 and it will now let me view my raw images using "browse". I had no problem whatsoever.