This Q&A is used with kind permission of Tim Grey. If you aren't familiar with him, he has a mostly daily newsletter related to the digital darkroom. The basic newsletter is free and a great way to learn. I personally highly recommend it.
Regarding the Q&A for September 27th, would you please be a little more explicit regarding "most other in-camera settings." In particular, do the settings for Sharpening and "More Vivid" have any effect on the RAW capture? I ask because I thought they did not, but then I was told by a Nikon representative that I was wrong; that they affect both JPEG and RAW capture.
Tim's Answer:
I'd be happy to be more explicit on this subject, as this is a common source of confusion. I think perhaps the largest area of confusion relates to the final effect in the converted RAW capture compared to what is happening to the data gathered by the imaging sensor.
To start with, let's consider what's going on inside the camera. Generally speaking, the RAW capture represents the information gathered by the image sensor, and does not apply changes to that data within the camera. What will sometimes be updated relative to camera settings is metadata, in some cases "private" metadata that is only understood by the camera manufacturer. In this general sense, the only in-camera settings that affect the RAW capture, or more specifically, the data gathered by the image sensor, would be the aperture, shutter speed, and ISO setting. The first two obviously relate to the image circle projected toward the image sensor (and thus the data actually gathered by the image sensor) and the latter relates to the amplification of the signal received by the image sensor (which assists with exposure but also increases the risk of noise in the final image).
So, the sharpening and vivid settings you refer to (along with all the many other in-camera settings, such as white balance, saturation, color space, and other settings) do not alter the information gathered by the image sensor, and there is no adjustment made to the actual image data contained within the RAW capture. However, that information is sometimes written to metadata (sometimes private metadata), and thus may be available later.
This may explain why the Nikon representative suggested the in-camera settings affect both JPEG and RAW captures. If you use Nikon NX to convert your RAW captures (or in general, if you use the camera manufacturer's software to convert your captures), the metadata written to the RAW capture is read (and understood) and is used to apply adjustments to the image. An example in the case of Nikon software would be the Active D-Lighting setting on certain Nikon digital SLRs. If you're not using software from your camera manufacturer, in most cases such in-camera settings would be completely ignored. And keep in mind that not all in-camera settings are written to metadata, so some would be ignored under all circumstances when it comes to RAW captures.
Unfortunately I'm not able to provide an exhaustive list of what features of what cameras are supported by what software, but considering these sort of adjustments are really post-capture adjustments anyway, they don't provide an adjustment you couldn't otherwise achieve on your own. Of course, there is an advantage in terms of workflow to having these settings applied on a somewhat automatic basis in the RAW conversion process.
As an aside, this sort of issue is why Adobe updated the Camera Calibration option in Adobe Camera Raw (and thus Lightroom) to include a Camera Profile option. In addition to the "standard" profile for the camera, you can also choose from options that relate to the various capture modes within the camera, such as "portrait" or "neutral". When you choose one of these options in Adobe Camera Raw or Lightroom, you're getting a result that is intended to be an exact match (and in my experience comes quite close) to matching the shooting mode that is available within your camera, but which only actually affects JPEG captures, not RAW captures.
It is also worth noting that the JPEG preview embedded in the RAW capture will generally reflect all of the in-camera settings (just as a JPEG capture would), and in some software (such as Adobe Bridge) will initially show that embedded JPEG image for performance reasons. That's one of the reasons you'll often see a preview image that initially looks like what you saw on the back of the camera, but then updates to reflect a preview of what the converted RAW capture will look like based on the current conversion settings.
Regarding the Q&A for September 27th, would you please be a little more explicit regarding "most other in-camera settings." In particular, do the settings for Sharpening and "More Vivid" have any effect on the RAW capture? I ask because I thought they did not, but then I was told by a Nikon representative that I was wrong; that they affect both JPEG and RAW capture.
Tim's Answer:
I'd be happy to be more explicit on this subject, as this is a common source of confusion. I think perhaps the largest area of confusion relates to the final effect in the converted RAW capture compared to what is happening to the data gathered by the imaging sensor.
To start with, let's consider what's going on inside the camera. Generally speaking, the RAW capture represents the information gathered by the image sensor, and does not apply changes to that data within the camera. What will sometimes be updated relative to camera settings is metadata, in some cases "private" metadata that is only understood by the camera manufacturer. In this general sense, the only in-camera settings that affect the RAW capture, or more specifically, the data gathered by the image sensor, would be the aperture, shutter speed, and ISO setting. The first two obviously relate to the image circle projected toward the image sensor (and thus the data actually gathered by the image sensor) and the latter relates to the amplification of the signal received by the image sensor (which assists with exposure but also increases the risk of noise in the final image).
So, the sharpening and vivid settings you refer to (along with all the many other in-camera settings, such as white balance, saturation, color space, and other settings) do not alter the information gathered by the image sensor, and there is no adjustment made to the actual image data contained within the RAW capture. However, that information is sometimes written to metadata (sometimes private metadata), and thus may be available later.
This may explain why the Nikon representative suggested the in-camera settings affect both JPEG and RAW captures. If you use Nikon NX to convert your RAW captures (or in general, if you use the camera manufacturer's software to convert your captures), the metadata written to the RAW capture is read (and understood) and is used to apply adjustments to the image. An example in the case of Nikon software would be the Active D-Lighting setting on certain Nikon digital SLRs. If you're not using software from your camera manufacturer, in most cases such in-camera settings would be completely ignored. And keep in mind that not all in-camera settings are written to metadata, so some would be ignored under all circumstances when it comes to RAW captures.
Unfortunately I'm not able to provide an exhaustive list of what features of what cameras are supported by what software, but considering these sort of adjustments are really post-capture adjustments anyway, they don't provide an adjustment you couldn't otherwise achieve on your own. Of course, there is an advantage in terms of workflow to having these settings applied on a somewhat automatic basis in the RAW conversion process.
As an aside, this sort of issue is why Adobe updated the Camera Calibration option in Adobe Camera Raw (and thus Lightroom) to include a Camera Profile option. In addition to the "standard" profile for the camera, you can also choose from options that relate to the various capture modes within the camera, such as "portrait" or "neutral". When you choose one of these options in Adobe Camera Raw or Lightroom, you're getting a result that is intended to be an exact match (and in my experience comes quite close) to matching the shooting mode that is available within your camera, but which only actually affects JPEG captures, not RAW captures.
It is also worth noting that the JPEG preview embedded in the RAW capture will generally reflect all of the in-camera settings (just as a JPEG capture would), and in some software (such as Adobe Bridge) will initially show that embedded JPEG image for performance reasons. That's one of the reasons you'll often see a preview image that initially looks like what you saw on the back of the camera, but then updates to reflect a preview of what the converted RAW capture will look like based on the current conversion settings.
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