PHOTOSHOP 7 CAMERA RAW FORMAT/JPEG 2000 PLUG-IN
by Dave Krick
Adobe has made available a new plug-in for Photoshop 7 that combines Camera Raw Format with JPEG 2000. Shooting digital images and saving them in a raw format is advantageous for VR photographers, who need to control similar exposure and tonal ranges across a series of images before they are stitched together, making a larger image. The exciting news about this plug-in is that now the photographer can shoot digital images in a raw format and import them directly into Photoshop, whereas previously only the camera's proprietary software was able to open this type of format, thus streamlining the production process of digital image correction.
The other half of this plug-in enables the export of images from Photoshop in a JPEG 2000 (.jpf file extension) format. A JPEG 2000 format is useless at the present time because most mainstream applications cannot accept the format. JPEG 2000, with its optional 'lossless' compression algorithm, might one day make the old JPEG format obsolete, and a number of camera manufacturers have announced they will be including JPEG 2000 in future models.
The advantage of shooting and saving images in a raw format is that the raw format is captured directly from the cameras CCD or CMOS sensor without any internal camera adjustments applied to the image, so none of the image information is discarded. A raw format is similar to an uncompressed TIFF format at a smaller file size (in the Nikon D100 the file size of raw image is 9.4 MB while an uncompressed TIFF is 17.3 MB equating to a 54% file size reduction) with an increased bit-depth. Think of a raw image as the digital equivalent of a film negative. When image quality is your prime objective the raw image format is the image format of choice.
A real life scenario might clear up any confusion on the advantages of using the raw image format. Imagine you take a series of images to be stitched together for a panorama. Two of the images do not match (overexposed/underexposed) the rest of the images in the series, making your completed panorama less than optimal. However, if the images in the series were saved in a raw format, you now have better and more controls to correct the aberrant images and save your panorama.
Images shot in a raw format offer the digital photographer complete control of image processing. The raw image is imported into the plug-in, where a bevy of global adjustments/corrections can be applied. Then the image is imported directly into Photoshop and can be saved in any format, while the original raw images remains intact and unaltered. For those digital photographers not capturing images in a raw format, I strongly urge you to continue reading to learn about all the features this plug-in offers and understand the benefit of using a raw format and having total control over your medium.
Let's run through the steps of using the plug-in and see what it offers. Keep in mind that any image alterations you make will not affect the original raw image. This plug-in only makes global image adjustments to the raw image and imports it directly into Photoshop with those changes, while leaving the original raw format image intact.
Step 1: (Importing & Preview)
After the plug-in is installed and Photoshop is running, you can open a raw image format directly from the camera or from any saved file location and the image will open directly into the plug-in. The camera name and image information will be displayed in the Title bar. A preview of your image appears below the title bar. The preview can be zoomed and/or rotated (rotation is only for visual purposes, the image will be exported in the same orientation as it was imported).
Step2: (Color Space, Bit-Depth, Size & resolution)
Below the preview window are the controls where you can alter size, resolution, bit-depth, and color space that your raw image will be in when imported into Photoshop. The space menu should match the color space you have designated in Photoshop 7. If you are unsure what your color space is, do a Shift-Control-K (Shift-command-K: Mac) in Photoshop and check your color space (my personal preference for color space is Adobe RGB (1998)). The bit depth menu allows you to choose if you want your raw image to be opened in Photoshop as a standard 8-bit image or a 16-bit image (if in doubt choose 8-bit). The size menu displays the default image size in pixels that your camera captured, feel free to change it now or later in Photoshop. The resolution menu allows you to set the image resolution you desire in Photoshop.
Step3: (Histogram & RGB values)
Pressing the letter 'g' will toggle on and off a semi-transparent draggable histogram displaying the Red, Green and Blue channels with White representing the image luminance. To test RGB values in your image run any tool (tools are located in the top left of the Camera Raw Interface) over the image preview and these values will be displayed below and to the right of the image preview window. If you run the eyedropper tool over the image and accidentally click on the preview you will change the white balance of the image. Fret not, at anytime you make an error you can hold down the ALT key (Option: Mac) and press the reset button (top right under the OK button) to restore the imported raw image to its original state. Control + Z (Command + Z: Mac) will also undo as many steps as you have set in your Photoshop preferences.
Step 4: (White Balance)
Running down the right side of the Raw Camera Interface are the controls where you can make the adjustments to the raw image that the camera would typically make. Now you have the control to define these settings yourself after the image is taken. VR digital photographers not shooting in a raw image format jaws should have just dropped open because this is the power of the raw image format.
The white balance drop down menu defaults to -as shot-, leaving white balance as -as shot- will apply the white balance that the camera was set at when the image was taken. Your white balance choices from the menu are: As shot, Auto, Daylight, Cloudy, Shade, Tungsten, Fluorescent, Flash and Custom. Choosing any of these allows for compensation for various lighting conditions and provides a real time feedback of how it affects the raw image in the preview window.
If you do not want to use any of the preset white balance settings you can adjust white balance manually with the temperature and tint sliders. Temperature is displayed in the standard Kelvin scale. Dragging temperature to the right increase tonal warmth (injects more yellow) while dragging temperature to the left cools the tone (injects more blue). The tint slider allows you to fine tune the white balance. Dragging tint to the right introduces more magenta and dragging to the left adds more green.
Step 5: (Exposure Compensation, Shadows, Brightness, Contrast & Saturation)
Dragging the exposure slider allows you to increase the exposure by 4 f-stops and decrease it as much as 2 f-stops. Holding down the Alt key (Option: Mac) while dragging the exposure slider will reveal in the preview window any highlights that are being clipped by your exposure adjustments.
The Shadows slider lets you push the shadows in a similar fashion as the Levels slider operates in Photoshop. To increase the values that will be pushed to black drag the shadows slider to the right. Keeping an eye on the histogram is helpful when making shadow adjustment.
Brightness, Contrast and Saturation sliders are a less potent version of the similar sliders in the Hue/Saturation dialog box of Photoshop.
Step 6: (Sharpness, Smoothness & Moiré)
The Sharpness feature is based on Photoshop's unsharp mask filter. If you are going to do any image adjustment or resizing in Photoshop I recommend waiting to sharpen the image after all image corrections are made and use Photoshop's unsharp mask instead of adjusting it here.
The Smoothness slider is designed to remove color aliasing, high ISO noise and other digital uglies introduced by some digital cameras. Setting smoothness to zero turns this feature off.
A moiré pattern sometimes appears on digital images, especially in certain patterned clothing and certain fabrics, clicking the moiré filter button will remove the moiré from the raw image.
Step 7: (Saving Your Changes)
After you have adjusted your raw image you can save all your settings as a preset and apply them to another raw image. This is a great feature for sequential images of a multi image panorama. Click the little arrow next to the settings label (top right) of the Raw Image Interface and choose Save As. This brings up a dialog box to name your newly created custom preset and it will now appear in the setting drops down menu. Once saved your raw image will be taken directly into Photoshop for local image adjustments and the original raw format image will be untouched analogous to a digital negative.
For the $99 the plug-in costs, greater control, ease of use and streamlined process of getting a raw image into Photoshop I don't think you can go wrong with this plug-in unless your camera is not supported by the plug-in. Presently the plug-in is available at the Adobe website and Adobe claims it will be packaged with the next big release of Photoshop.
Cameras Supported by Adobe's Camera Raw Format/JPEG 2000 Plug-in:
Canon EOS-1DEOS-1DsEOS-D30EOS-D60PowerShot 600PowerShot A5PowerShot A50PowerShot S30PowerShot S40PowerShot S45PowerShot G1PowerShot G2PowerShot G3PowerShot Pro70PowerShot Pro90 ISFujifilm FinePix S2 Pro Minolta DiMAGE 5DiMAGE 7DiMAGE 7iDiMAGE 7Hi Nikon D1D1HD1XD100Coolpix 5700Coolpix 5000 ? with firmware version 1.7Olympus E-10E-20C-5050 Zoom
Visit Dave Krick's website, jux2position.com
Email: jux2position@idcomm.com
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