photomatix query

[pammie]

I have Photomatix Pro 4.0.2. When I tonemap a raw file (shot on Nikon) I use "save as" which saves it as a jpeg. I can then do other things in photoshop. However, this process does soften the image considerably in some cases.

I want to save it as a raw file, because then I will have less loss of quality.

Can this be done?

I have tried saving it a a NEF file (the Nikon file) but then I cannot open it all as my computer will not recognise it.

Any ideas?

Cheers

[Theo Dibbits]

I am no photomatix guru but because you are using a RAW file no sharpening has been applied what so ever.
So if you save it as a TIFF you can then apply the sharpening which would be much more then when you get a file from the RAW converter (which normally applies some sharpening on output)

What is confusing me some what is that the pre-view in Photomatix appears to apply some sharpening which is not there after the file has been processed.

I processed a RAW file with some serious sharpening to a TIFF. When pulled up in Photomatix it look awefull. As if the sharpening sliders had been wacked all the way, but after tone mapping and saving as a TIFF the results were fine (except the colours were not as nice)

Theo

[John]

You can't save it as a RAW file because it isn't a file format as such - it's the original output from the sensor, more or less. In practice even a RAW file is slightly manipulated by the camera, but we're splitting hairs with that.

When you open your RAW file, you see it displayed as a bitmap and this is how Photoshop handles images. The software that opens it can by default sharpen and ACR does this, using a default sharpening of 25%. This is called input sharpening anf if you don't want it you should switch it off.

After the file has been manipulated in any way you save it in an apprpriate format - JPEG, TIFF, etc. Only at that point do you create a file format for your image. For lossless saves, use TIFF with no compression. You could also decide to save as 16 bit if you wanted to, but this restricts the manipulation you can do and in the end you will have to convert back to 8 bit anyway.

Hope that helps!

[Paul Jones]

I have Photomatix Pro 4.0.2. When I tonemap a raw file (shot on Nikon) I use "save as" which saves it as a jpeg. I can then do other things in photoshop.

I don't use Photomatix, but does it have the option to save it as a Photoshop file (.PSD) instead of JPEG?
I would think this would be better as you can then work on it and keep all your layers intact.

[pammie]

Hi Thanks all for your answers, I'll try these and see which I find easier/work the best.

P

[Carl]

Hi Pammie,

I have tried saving it a a NEF file (the Nikon file) but then I cannot open it all as my computer will not recognise it.

I installed a codec from Nikon that provides Windows support to work with NEF files, not sure if this helps you here at all, but I found it quite helpful as it allowed preview to work with NEF files from Windows in the same way as JPGs.

link was... http://nikonimglib.com/nefcodec/