Why is this happening: I'm new at taking photos taken in raw format, but this one has me wondering what happened, why it came out so lousy, as in Sharpness, high noise, color balance...

VINNIE_B Loc: Ukiah, Ca.

I'm new at taking photos taken in raw format, but this one has me wondering what happened, why it came out so lousy, as in Sharpness, high noise, color balance, etc.
If you down load the images, take a close look at the skin tone & sky pixels.
I used a Konica Minlota Dimage 2 8mpx camera.
Settings are:
1. set at full manual mode
2. ISO 400 1/500 f/7.1 used in camera histograhm
3. RAW at 3264X2170 3:2
4. AEL center spot
5. Auto focus center
6. color set at Nat. sRGB
7. Anti shake off
8. Noise reduction off
9. Focal length 50

The picture shown looked realy good in the view finder but, here's what I did.
1. Used photoscape to open and preview raw image.
2. No pp done so you can see the original.
3. Saved 1 as Tiff, and 1 as jpeg
4. Opened in PS7 and saved to desktop for sending to you

Picture # 1 is the untouched Tiff
Picture# 2 is untouched Jpeg
Picture# 3 is a similar one using full auto mode.

Would the ISO 400 make that much noise?

#1 Tiff

#2 Jpeg

# Jpeg - full aoto mode

PalePictures Loc: Traveling

Looks like a Whit Balance issue to me. Blue is indicative of to cool. Did you have AWB set. If you did it got fooled.

VINNIE_B Loc: Ukiah, Ca.

PalePictures wrote:

Looks like a Whit Balance issue to me. Blue is indicative of to cool. Did you have AWB set. If you did it got fooled.

Thank you for the response. That's the one thing I forgot, but the color is only one of the isssues. What do think of the other issues I mentioned?

Ched49 Loc: Pittsburgh, Pa.

Also looks like a WB issue. If it was a sunny day, iso 400 is a little high. I think if you correct those two issues, the rest might fall into place.

nikon_jon Loc: Northeast Arkansas

AF center is a good mode to use, but you have to focus lock onto your subject, otherwise the background is focused and your main subject is not.

ISO 400 is a very versatile ISO speed and can take a lot of enlarging without noise. If you were shooting hand-held, why did you have your stabilization turned off?

raynardo Loc: Oceanside, CA

Definitely a white balance issue! You gotta remember to either put it on automatic, or manually set it to the correct Kelvin temperature of the predominate lighting of the scene. Oh sure automatic white balances can occasionally be fooled, but if I were a betting man, I put my money on the automatic setting, since it will be correct many more times than it is wrong. On a side note: nothing in this world is perfect.

That's not to say you can't cheat and use a warmer (or colder) light balance on a scene to create a more desirable photograph.

RMM Loc: Suburban New York

The first two are taken at an entirely different time of day. Look at the shadow. What time was the top photo taken? Also, there is no EXIF data for either of the first two. It's not clear if it's the lighting or a software issue. Is Photoscape the software that came with the camera? Is there another raw software package that you could use to open it?

VINNIE_B Loc: Ukiah, Ca.

Thank you all for you analysis.

Yes, I did space out on the WB, so now my question is.... By adjusting the color balance in PP, will that affect the grain also? I did spot focus on the subject and assumed that I had a high enough shutter speed not to have stabilization on, which I have read some where that it has some adverse effect on quality. The 3rd picture (Jepg) the stabilization was off and the shutter speed was lower, but the quality and subject focus was much better, maybe by luck?

Another question.. Would the RAW converter program I am using (Photoscape) effect the over all quality?

Due to my work load I haven't had any time to practice shooting Raw but will do so as soon as I can, and repost the results.

Thanks again, you've all been very heplfull

VINNIE_B Loc: Ukiah, Ca.

RMM wrote:

The first two are taken at an entirely different time of day. Look at the shadow. What time was the top photo taken? Also, there is no EXIF data for either of the first two. It's not clear if it's the lighting or a software issue. Is Photoscape the software that came with the camera? Is there another raw software package that you could use to open it?

The first two were taken approx 2pm on Oct. 14th, the last one (for comparison of similar shoot) was taken approx. 4pm in April, in Hawaii.

I don't know why there is no EXIF data. I know it's there, but don't know why I can't see it. Might be the fault of Photoscape?? which I recently downloaded becuase it's free.
My economic condition dictates that anything free is a good thing, but maybe not.

RMM Loc: Suburban New York

VINNIE_B wrote:

The first two were taken approx 2pm on Oct. 14th, the last one (for comparison of similar shoot) was taken approx. 4pm in April, in Hawaii.

I don't know why there is no EXIF data. I know it's there, but don't know why I can't see it. Might be the fault of Photoscape?? which I recently downloaded becuase it's free.
My economic condition dictates that anything free is a good thing, but maybe not.

The third image had EXIF data, so it's pretty obvious that Photoscape stripped the EXIF data out. I'd bet it did the rest of the number on your photos. Check out Picasa (free), and see if it can handle your raw images.

RMM Loc: Suburban New York

Here's a copy of the TIFF image opened in Photoshop as Camera raw and beaten up with white balance adjustments and some additional adjustment to the sky.

jeep_daddy Loc: Prescott AZ

You beat me to it. I did an auto white balance in LR4 and used the lens correction to remove some of the CA.

VINNIE_B Loc: Ukiah, Ca.

Thank you RMM & jeep daddy, nice recovery on the photo. I have Photoshop 7 which will not recognize my RAW images, so I'll down load Picasa and see what happens. I tried color balancing, but could not come close to what you guys did. I've been having some computer hard drive issues but don't if that would effect anything, and maybe the camera it self. This is my first try at Raw so I will need to do some experiments and see what happens.

cameranut Loc: North Carolina

VINNIE_B wrote:

I'm new at taking photos taken in raw format, but ... (show quote)

Didn't do anything much for noise but the colors seem a little better. Used Zoombrowzer on the jpeg.

VINNIE_B Loc: Ukiah, Ca.

cameranut wrote:

quote=VINNIE_B I'm new at taking photos taken in ... (show quote)

Nice color adjustment, I appreciate the effort. I know I forgot to white balance so, lesson learned. I'm still not happy with the sharpness, or maybe it's just my eyesight failing. :shock: Will do some extensive testing on my camera to check focus, etc..