Ron Seher

Recently a professional photographer recommended I download my Canon 77D RAW files using the Canon Software because it is designed to pull out of the file all the that Canon built in to its camera more so then third party.

From there, choose the photos to be edited or processed and save them as a TIFF. Since it's a large file then RAW, this format is supposed to allow more capability in the post process as oppose to post processing the RAW file.

Your thoughts. I'm an amateur and have no clue nor do I look at a photo with a microscopic eye. What I am trying do is get the most I can out of my photos that makes me and others want to look at them.

Thank you in advance for your thoughts. I'm sure there are no wrong answers forthcoming but strong valid opinions...a good thing.

Ron

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

Ron, that makes a good deal of sense. tiff is not a lossy file structure, or at least can be configured as such.
--Bob

bsprague Loc: Lacey, WA, USA

In the "old days" we had negatives that we guarded and filed meticulously. They were the the original source. From them we would make the variety of prints we wanted. RAW is the original "negative" of digital workflows. It is the source, or beginning, of what we make. Everything else is a derivative. If you want to discard the source, TIFF is probably a good choice of formats. But, it is still a derivative.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

It depends on what is your 'other' software being used to edit those resulting TIFF files. Does your 'other' software edit Canon CR2/CR3 RAW files directly? If yes, why waste the time and space on the TIFF trip through Canon DPP? You didn't tell us that other software, so it's hard to assess your situation.

In the 'old days', Canon DPP was much better at processing RAW, with output into 16-bit TIFF for 'finishing' in another software. Or, output from DPP to JPEG and considered finished.

But now in July 2021, that gap probably doesn't exist, or the difference is immaterial to the extent the TIFF files and working in two software is unjustified. That was my assessment in comparing Lightroom v6 (now 5 years old) to DPP v4. It's a more efficient workflow with less storage need to simply edit the RAW entirely within LR.

There's a few unique things DPPv4 can do. Dual-pixel micro adjustments, Lens Aberration Correction, and Auto Light Optimizer are three areas that are DPP exclusive and / or Canon can address proprietary EOS equipment better than third-parties can mimic. Are you using those features? That's a lot of storage and time for TIFF if 'no'.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

A tiff file is a raster image, and very different from a raw file. There are things that one can do with a raw file and end up with better results than a tiff file, and vice versa. This is a very complex comparison, one that goes into the difference between raster editing and parametric editing. While you can use parametric controls on raster images, they are best utilized in raw editing prior to conversion to raster (tiff, png, jpeg, psd, etc).

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

I think your professional photographer is wrong. Raw is a way better storage format than tif. The size of the file is not necessarily relevant to the amount of data it contains.

Raw format is the unconverted output from the sensor. In order to convert to a viewable image, certain parameters have to be set. Tif is a viewable image produced from a raw file by setting those parameters. Once the conversion is done, you can't back out of it, although you can take the raw file and produce a different tif using a different set of parameters. To be sure, tif is a better format for editing than jpg, but raw is best. I have never seen any real advantage of saving in tif format beyond the fact that I can read a tif file with analytical software and do things that postprocessing software was never designed to do.

Current postprocessing software is quite capable of starting with the raw data and applying the appropriate parameters (which may be modified by the user). And so you have the option to play with the parameters to produce the image/effects desired. All postprocessing should start with the raw data, not pre-processed data.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

I use the manufacturer's editor, they created the RAW file format they use in their cameras.
(But I transfer image files from the card to the computer using the computer's operating system.)

sloscheider Loc: Minnesota

One basic example of raw vs tiff is tiff has the white balance baked into the image. If you want to adjust it in the future you will be making adjustments to previous adjustments. A raw file has none of these baked in adjustments.

mwsilvers Loc: Central New Jersey

You stated, "Since it's a large file then RAW, this format is supposed to allow more capability in the post process as oppose to post processing the RAW file.".

This is incorrect. Raw files are created by your camera and contain all the original shooting data. Post-processing raw files will give you a far greater latitude of image corrections than any other format. However, most raw processors are usually somewhat limited in the types of editing that can be done. Additional editing, if needed, may have to be performed in a different software program

Many of us here will first get the maximum benefit of editing a raw file in such raw processors as Lightroom, Capture 1 Pro, DXO Photolab or others and then export the image as a tiff file for further editing in pixel editors like Photoshop and Affinity Photo if needed. I do all my raw processing in DXO PhotoLab Elite. It meets all of my processing needs 95% of the time. For images that need further adjustments that are not available in Photolab, I export files in tiff format and perform further editing in Affinity.

Canon also provides a free raw processor called Digital Photo Professional (DPP). For those who have never done any post-processing before and want to experiment with shooting raw, DPP is a good place to start. However, even though DPP has a couple of features not available in other raw processors, many people eventually become dissatisfied with its lack of functionality and move on to more full featured top of the line raw processors like the ones I mentioned earlier.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Ron Seher

I'm very new to photo editing. I chose to get Luminar AI so I could learn and not have a monthly fee. In the future, I'll consider other software like Lightroom once I know what I doing and want to accomplish. Right now, the objective is to bring out the best in my photo without drawing attention to the editing used from the photo you see.

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

For no-fee software, consider the manufacturer of your camera. Their website will allow you to download software to deal with the files their camera produces. It will contribute a different program to learn on and get more ideas on what is possible. Once you feel ready for the paid software, note that most of them have 30 day free trial periods. Don't use more than one free trial at a time because you want to immerse yourself in that program to get the best idea of whether or not it fits you.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

Here's a review / product description of Luminar AI:

https://www.photographyblog.com/reviews/luminar_ai_review

I have no experience with the software, having not even downloaded the trial version. Based on the above write-up, the advice you received to start in DPP is invalid, and instead, you should just work entirely within Luminar AI. As you advance in 21st century digital photography, you're going to many times encounter the fact that some 'rules' are nothing but old habits that people are afraid to change.

Speaking about Adobe, and by extension other RAW editors, an important action / change to make is to find and use the 'camera profiles' and 'lens profiles' of the third-party software. So in Canon DPP, or Nikon Capture NX-D, these softwares default to the camera's 'standard' profile for saturation and sharpening, creating RAW images that look like the camera's JPEGs. Adobe instead uses something they call 'Adobe Standard' that is much less 'rich' in terms of color. But, in Adobe Camera Raw and Lightroom, you can change this import default to 'camera standard' and suddenly, your images will look like the camera's images as the start-point for your editing.

When you become a RAW photographer, you become the decision maker for these considerations in post processing, where many had been decided by the camera for the JPEG:

1. Sharpening
2. Noise Reduction
3. Color Saturation
4. Exposure adjustments, general
5. Contrast, general
6. Highlights and shadows
7. White Balance
8. Lens corrections
9. Color space
10. Pixel resolution for target image share platforms
11. Disk storage (for the larger files)
12. Image file back-up strategy (for those larger files)

You don't have to understand all these issues, but when you do, you'll be much more successful as a RAW photographer. Reading about Luminar AI, maybe some of these items are now being handled by the AI software? You might take each topic of 1 - 10 and investigate the topic and them how / if that topic is handled by Luminar AI, or whether (and how) you still need to add your own Human Intelligence to the RAW processing.

kymarto Loc: Portland OR and Milan Italy

This is incorrect. RAW always gives you the maximum processing capability, as it includes all the data from your sensor. Any image file format has structured that data in such a way to be viewable, but in so doing a huge amount of the RAW data is discarded.

The larger file size of a TIFF occurs because each individual pixel is assigned chroma and luminance values, and there is a lot of data written to create the viewing envelope, so to speak. And when you start with a smaller bit depth, such as RAW's 12 or 14 bit depth, saving later in 16 bit adds nothing in the way of processing possibility.

I always save my finished images as 16 bit TIFFs or PSDs, because that gives me a lot of room for further adjustment for different applications, but RAWs *always* have the most processing capabilities.

Consider the RAW as analogous to the negative and a TIFF as an excellent large print. No matter how good the print, the negative will always allow more processing flexibility and latitude than taking even an excellent image of the print and processing that, even though the print is much larger than the negative.

bw79st Loc: New York City

As long as I have a RAW file I will use that as my Master. If I were scanning photos for posterity and the scanner software did not let me save them as DNG files then I would save them as TIFFs. Of course, Vuescan does let me save them as DNG files so the point is moot.