lamiaceae wrote:
Nope, but look how the subsequent UHH'er answered it. The printer has to have some file format it can "read". Printers don't read or understand RAW. I use Photoshop CS6 so all the Lightroom Export and Module references are lost on me. Note the OP never stated what PP they were using. So I was sort of asking (not a previous post of mine also here) can you print from a Raw file. I've never tried it. Per a few replies, perhaps as Ps and Lr automatically create some print format when asked to print, if that is what they are saying. I guess that might answer my rhetorical inquiry. Why would any one want to print a Raw file that is not sharpened and adjusted, etc. anyway?
Nope, but look how the subsequent UHH'er answered ... (
show quote)
When you have a raw file, it is analogous to working with exposed, undeveloped film. It must be developed into a bitmap before it can be printed, just as the latent image on film must be developed into a negative.
A bitmap is an array of RGB pixel values. To save it, metadata (data *about* data, or how to interpret it) is added, and the result is stored in one of dozens of different file formats (usually .psd, .tif, .jpg...).
BUT, before that bitmap is saved into a file (exported), it can be sent to a printer driver.
When we say we "print a raw image," we really mean we are "printing an on-the-fly bitmap conversion of it." This allows immediate feedback, review, RE-CONVERSION, adjustment, reprinting...
So, the difference is that a raw image can be RE-developed infinitely into a gazillion variations. Film is developed once.
Time, temperature, agitation, and choice of developer affect the permanent potential of a negative. But a raw file can be developed over and over, in different "developers" (software applications), to subtly change what's in the bitmap. The raw data NEVER changes.
The power of this is that you never lose the ability to change your mind about how the image should look.
You CAN store a 16-bit TIFF file of an adjusted image without losing anything in the conversion, but once you do that, you lose the ability to redevelop the image in the way you can redevelop raw files. A raw conversion allows the purest image adjustments possible.
That's why we "print from raw."
How big a deal is this? It depends. Are you selling a $20,000 celebrity portrait, or printing a 60" x 40" landscape for a MOMA exhibition? Or just a snapshot of a funny face at a kid's birthday party? I would print the first two from raw, and the party pix from JPEGs.