Ysarex Loc: St. Louis

It can certainly seem as if processing a raw file isn't much different than editing an RGB image in a raster editor. The commercial raw app vendors work hard to make it that way. Software engineers for Adobe, Serif, Phase One, On1, etc. study the JPEG output from the various cameras and then engineer their raw processors to basically match the camera output pretty closely.

We never really see unprocessed raw data. It doesn't look very good. So when we open a raw file in whatever app to process it our first view of that image is already heavily processed. In the commercial apps that are available not only are we first presented a heavily processed image before we do anything but for the most part we can't turn that base processing off.

I took a photo of my coffee cup and mouse. Below are two processed versions of the raw file. The first is default opened in Affinity. I've done no editing. Affinity did a good job of matching the JPEG from my camera. The 2nd image is the same raw file opened in Raw Therapee but I went through and turned all the default processing off. Specifically I shut off, input sharpening, white point adjustment, white balance, lens profile, camera input profile, base tone curve, and highlight reconstruction.

The bulbs in the fixture in my ceiling are daylight 4000K. To take this photo I deliberately set the camera's white balance to 3000K. As a result the image is blue. My mouse is white and the tissue in the box in the background is white. Affinity won't allow me to shut off all the processing that I shut off in RT but it will allow me to shut off the base tone curve and white balance the photo. In the first version AP noted the white balance I had set to take the photo and it used that value. Those two items, tone curve and white balance are critical. In the third photo below you see the result from Affinity with the base tone curve shut off and the photo white balance set from the tissue in the box.

And so the question where do I want to start editing my photo and does it matter. I process my own raw files because I want my photos to look like my photos. I do not care to even see what someone else thinks my photo should look like (camera engineers who wrote the software that creates my camera JPEGs or AP's engineers who wrote Affinity's software that tries to match my camera's software).

The best way I can explain this is with an analogy. You want a burger. You're a good cook and you can certainly make the burger that you want. One of your "special ingredients" is your own homemade ketchup (Grandma taught you to make it). You have two options. 1. Make your burger or 2. buy one. There's a place in the neighborhood Bob's Burgers and Bob makes a good burger but it's not your burger and Bob doesn't have your ketchup. To get the burger you want do you make it or do you buy one from Bob and then try and "fix it?" Can you edit Bob's generic ketchup to taste like yours? What's easier? Make your own ketchup the way Granny taught you or try and fix the ketchup Bob uses?

If we try and edit an RGB image already processed by our cameras we don't start from scratch we start with a base tone curve and white balance already in place. And the same in fact with most raw processing apps unless they allow us to turn those things off or reset them. If we want even slightly different results those default processes of base tone curve and white balance can actually interfere and make our job more difficult. If you took the first AP version of my coffee cup photo into the main raster editing component of AP with the default white balance in place you'd have h*ll to pay to try and correct it and after a long struggle you'd fail. Once the white balance is set and the image is converted to RGB it's a much more difficult job to change it. It's like trying to fix Bob's ketchup so it tastes like Granny's ketchup. You don't want to do that.

Similarly once the base tone curve is applied further adjustments to the tone response of the image can be more difficult to accomplish because you're trying to apply them on top of already applied changes that may not have been what you wanted.

I'm going to wager that most people using AP don't know how to disengage the base tone curve and they start their editing of raw files accepting the AP default. Most raw processing apps are designed with the assumption in place that the user wants the first default edit done for them. And so raw processing can seem not much different than using a raster editor with an RGB image. But then here's the rub -- if we get the default processing shut off do we know what we want to do.

Oh and -- last photo is my version of my coffee cup and mouse photo.

Joe

JhnMhn

Thanks Joe.
I have made my living from photography since the late 1980s, and dealing with RAW files since the late 1990s. Until recent years, I did the two step...RAW converter, then raster editor (Affinity Photo which I am most impressed with).
I use a range of RAW converters: Digital Photo Pro, Iridient Digital, Luminar 4, etc.
Most recently I am transitioning to ON1 2020 for many of the reasons you discussed, as well as its DAM abilities.
Your discussion of parametric RAW processing and the reasons for it are the clearest I have read.
Thanks again,
John

Wanderer2 Loc: Colorado Rocky Mountains

<<AP doesn't save my editing work for my raw files?!! That's got me cussing and spitting on the ground.
Joe>>

Joe, I continue to be perplexed by that. I've not done tens of thousands of raw photo edits in AP but have done over 1000 and I don't recognize losing my editing work. I inport the file, do the edits I want, when satisifed with the image I export it as tiff and jpg files, and there is no visual indication that anything was lost, only that chages were made, and the original file is still available. The way you worded the comment above you lose your edits in some way during the process and they aren't available for saving, prints, etc. Is that what you meant?

All of my editing is of DNG raw files. Does impact this process in AP in any way?

Since my knowledge level on all of this is much lower than yours I've been doing some research trying to better understand what you are saying. Are you referring to AP not creating xmp side car files? I do know that AP saves the original files from before the editing was started, and it seems to me that's the definition of non-destructive. At least within the context of that definition it seem misleading to me to say that AF is destructive.

Sorry to be so dense on this.

Ysarex Loc: St. Louis

Yes, and or some other way of doing the same. The work you do in the Develop module with the tools provided is work. It takes time and effort and some of it is pretty important because it either can't be done or can't be done as well with RGB data once you get into the Photo Persona.

In the Develop module you're working with raw data. In the Photo Persona you're no longer working with raw data but RGB image data. When you click Develop in the Develop module AP converts your raw file into RGB data and moves it to the Photo Persona. It applies what you did in the Develop module but it doesn't save that work for you.

Non-destructive has two meanings. 1. The original from the camera is preserved and never overwritten. 2. Your editing work is preserved in a manner that retains re-edit access so that you don't lose the ability to continue editing and/or the ability to change your mind without being forced to start over.

This 2nd understanding of non-destructive is where there's an issue with AP. If for example you decide a week, month or year after completing an edit that you'd like to tweak what you did or even simply re-interpret what you did can you go back to that edit and make the change or does the software force you to start over and do the entire edit again from scratch.

If what you decide you'd like to tweak was something you did with the raw data processing in the Develop Persona you're forced to start from scratch because AP didn't save that work.

AP has a bias toward raster editing your photos. When I showed up on AP's forum and raised this same issue that the Develop Persona work was not saved the AP rep responded it was no big deal. His perspective was that you shouldn't do much in Develop anyway just get the image white balance and make sure the tone response was normal and hurry over to Photo where you get your real editing done.

That's APs model. They're selling a raster image editor and that's what you should be focused on. So don't dawdle around in Develop, get the image into Photo and get to work editing. Fair enough since AP is a raster editor but even the competition that focuses on a raster editor at least saves your work in the Develop side of the process. PS saves what you do in ACR. ACDSee saves what you do in Develop. And all the stand-alone raw converters save your work.

I have a different bias. I want the weight of my editing shifted toward Develop where I retain access to the raw data and I want to do as little as possible in the Photo Persona. So with my bias I obviously want my work saved. There's an element of dissonance between what the AP rep told me and the AP Develop tools. If the goal is to get out of Develop pronto then why does it have masking capability that makes it possible to accomplish local edits? And if you go through the trouble to create a mask or two or three and effect local changes you're OK without saving that work?

My other bias is that I want all my editing to remain accessible for future adjustments. Even if it's just that I realize the next morning when I'm sober that I shouldn't have done that. I don't want to be forced to start over.

Joe

Wanderer2 Loc: Colorado Rocky Mountains

<So don't dawdle around in Develop, get the image into Photo and get to work editing.>

That's exactly what I do so I guess that's why I haven't encountered the problems with the Develop Persona that you describe. I guess I've been influenced by Affinity's description of the Develop Persona's main purpose being to prepare files to be processed in the the other Personas. Most of the time I don't even know what Persona I'm working in and I wonder if it is even in Affinity's best interest in dividing the processes up into Personas the way they have.

Is my conclusion about the AP not using xmp side car files, as other editing programs do, correct?

Thanks for the explanations. It has helped me understand all of this better.

Ysarex Loc: St. Louis

Yes, AP does not save side car files for the parametric instructions in the Develop Persona. Calling them xmp files along with side car files is sort of a case of everyone calling facial tissue Kleenex as xmp was originally what Adobe named their side car files. Other vendors use other extensions for their side car files but there's been an unfortunate trend where a couple of the other vendors have also adopted xmp. That can cause a conflict. There are a couple variations for example DPP from Canon will actually write the parametric instructions into the meta data of the raw file but not mess with the raw data. Some raw converters will place a sub-folder in the folder with the raw files and write their side car files there.

The key issue and reason for complaint against AP in this is they're standing alone. No other raw converter/editor does what they're doing and fails to save that work in one form or another.

Joe

I'm going to go out into left field now and so the rest of this is just off the record speculation. I think Serif looks at AP and their place in the industry with some degree of fatalism. LR rose to dominance in the photo processing industry in the last decade. LR represents a sea change and has brought some other competing editors along with it. Before LR we can credit Aperture as visionary. It's indeed ironic that LR came from Adobe the creators of Photoshop. Before LR Photoshop provided the dominant model. And that model is a raster editor with a raw converter plugin (ACR) or 2nd app to handle the conversion from raw to RGB image. The RGB image we all assumed would be finished in the raster editor. The raster editor was the locus of the action.

LR is strictly a parametric editor. It can't push a single pixel around. In the previous decade LR kept expanding it's toolset allowing more and more editing work to take place parametrically. Adobe's advertising presented LR as a DAM plus fast mock-up but with the big gun PS waiting to do the heavy lifting. Watch Adobe's advertising change in the second half of the last decade. The emphasis in advertising to photographers shifts toward LR and away from PS. And then we start hearing more and more photographers claiming they get all their editing done in LR. They don't even have PS. Instead they have a copy of PSE for the occasional clone/erase job.

Throughout that last 5 years LR's toolset get's richer and more capable. And we look at the action in the industry now and what are the hot editors: Luminar (parametric editor), On1 (parametric editor), Capture One (parametric editor), Exposure X5 (parametric editor), DXO Photolab (parametric editor), LR of course (parametric editor), Affinity Photo (raster editor), there's still PS and PSE (raster editors), but there's that sea change. The action is in parametric editors and the raster editor is legacy.

Serif knows this but they chose to go legacy with a raster editor. It was their strength. AP is an impressive raster editor. No one else has achieved what Serif has with AP and reached a point where they truly are nipping at Photoshop's heals. And yet you can buy AP right now for $25.00. That pricing says something. It's the fatalism that Serif sees about AP and it's place in the industry. They have a good run ahead of them but I think they know they're going after PSE and not PS. Where's the future for PS? The graphics and press industry will still need it but in photo it's already a give away that comes with LR.

Serif knows they're going after the enthusiast market and quite frankly the budget end of the enthusiast market along with JPEG shooters who don't want to work with raw files. JPEG editing has new life breathed into it with all the 24 plus megapixel cameras that hide it's evils underneath high resolution files -- why not. So the raw processing component of AP isn't high priority. An Elements like organizer is high priority and I'll bet that shows up before AP will save side car files for raw development.

I'm probably going to catch hell for all that.