In a recent post you mentioned sometimes going out to a plug-in early in the process of editing an image. This is something i already do using Photoshop Elements but it has got me thinking about a few things.
I'd like to know which if any of Aperture's adjustments might act differently, or less effectively on the Tiff or PSD files which come back into Aperture once edited externally.
I'm often reading that shooting Raw rather than jpeg lets you do a lot more with an image when it comes to adjusting the exposure or white balance for example, but where does a Tiff or PSD fit in?
Adjustments to my Tiff & PSD files look absolutely fine but say I want to make the same adjustments to two similar pictures, one which has been edited in photoshop, and one which hasn’t left Aperture. Will these adjustments be consistent between the two pictures, or are there any adjustments which i should always try to make before leaving Aperture?
Thanks!
StefB,
There’s no easy answer to this, but the most important adjustments probably are exposure related (levels, curves, etc.) or color adjustments (saturation, color shifts, etc.)—anything where you’ll be accessing data outside of the standard 8-bit space.
That said, if you choose 16-bit TIF or PSD, then my understanding is that the entire RAW data set will be there (at least until such time that our cameras start shooting at higher than 16-bit). Current top-end dSLRs are shooting at 14-bit, I believe.
As I said though, this is my “understanding”. I’m not an expert in color space so I’d do some additional research if you’re really interested.
My workflow to keep the best possible file if I was going to be bouncing back and forth would be to do the exposure corrections on the RAW file then convert to 16-bit PSD or TIF to send to a plug-in.
-Joseph @ApertureExpert
@PhotoJoseph
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Thanks very much for answering my question so promptly.
As this is far from being critical work I’m happy that along with what you’ve said here, and my simple tests that I shall continue working in a similar way as I have been although I’ll definitely try to make some of these adjustments first in future.
As I don’t truly understand what you mean by accessing data outside the standard 8-bit space its clear that I need to do some research on the subject. If you know of any easy to understand resources either on the web, or in books I’d be very grateful if you could point point me in the general direction. Otherwise I shall just say thank you very much for your help with this, and everything you’ve covered on the site and books so far, its all been extremely helpful.
Stef.
StefB,
My pleasure to help. I’ll give you a little primer on what I mean, but then you’ll have to dig elsewhere for more details (and I don’t have a recommended place to start, sorry).
Look at a histogram. Think of it as a window that is 8-bits wide. Imagine the “mountain” in the histogram extending beyond the left (black) and the right (white) sides of the histogram “window”. The mountain is a 16-bit wide hill of data; the histogram is an 8-bit window through which you’re looking. You can only see 8-bits at a time.
If you shoot JPG, then the remaining data (outside the window) is unceremoniously cut off and discarded like yesterday’s fish. Your overexposed highlights and underexposed shadows are gone forever.
When you shoot RAW, the remaining data (outside the window) is still there—you just can’t see it. BUT because it’s RAW, you can use the exposure/recover/levels/curves etc tools in Aperture to pull that data into view. That allows you to pull detail into highlights and shadows that the camera captured, but wasn’t showing you in 8-bit space. You’re still looking at it in 8-bits, but you’re pulling data into view; compressing the mountain if you will.
The reason we can’t simply see all 16-bits of data at once is that our monitors are 8-bit. There are a few, very expensive monitors that will display more than 8-bit, but they aren’t practical. One day, but not today.
Hope that helps. That analogy is one I use on educating people on the advantages of RAW over JPG, and it’s the same lesson of 8-bit vs 16-bit.
cheers
-Joseph @ApertureExpert
@PhotoJoseph
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