The Problem with RAW Editors

The problem with RAW editors is that the line between correction and creativity has been blurred to a point where new photographers have no real grasp of what a RAW image actually is and what happens to it in RAW processors such as Adobe Lightroom, DxO PhotoLab and Affinity Photo.

I’ve taken an interest in Affinity Photo recently, of all the Photoshop competitors it seems like the most credible, the forums are not full of complaints, people seem to be able to use it constructively and when I took a close look a couple of months ago I liked what I saw and I’ve continued dabbling ever since.

In my first review of Affinity Photo I made the comparison with Adobe products that Lightroom/CameraRAW more or less maps onto the Develop Persona and Photoshop maps onto the Photo Persona. However Lightroom is one of the worst offenders when it comes to blurring the boundary between correction and creativity, it is possible these days to do complete a very effective processing cycle entirely within Lightroom. Many people do.

Which brings me to the point. I believe that there are two significant phases to successful photo editing, correction and creativity. The correction phase should be seen as doing all the things you need to do to optimise the file for creative processing. This is perfectly logical, for powerful processing tools to work well, we need the image to be in a place where we can get the best out of the tools, and a basic RAW file is not that.

In Lightroom and PhotoLab, a certain amount of stuff goes on beyond the demosaicing process, before the image is brought to the screen. Pre-Sharpening, noise reduction and a light tonal adjustment to create contrast. If you select presets, you can add major tonal shifts, contrast, and so on. In Lightroom, AI assisted masks make it possible to move seamlessly between correction and creativity however the wise photographer engages with correction first, the aim is to create a technically complete RAW file – the perfect histogram in a sense. Once there, the photograph can respond better to creative choices.

For example, if an image is overexposed, some detail can often be rescued from the blown out areas in the picture by reducing exposure or reducing highlights. Bearing in mind that it’s easier to rescue detail from crushed darks than it is from blown highlights, and also considering that the information in your RAW file is never discarded, it makes more sense to reduce highlights as a corrective action at the beginning of the workflow and have the option of fine tuning them later in the workflow than it does to start fine tuning an image with obvious flaws where your choices will be limited.

In Affinity Photo, the Develop module is best used in my view purely as a means of optimising the RAW file for the more flexible layer based processing that follows.

This is what my workflow in Affinity Photo 2.6 looks like.

I first import the RAW file, it opens in the Develop persona and it is here that the corrective heavy lifting is done, the aim is to create a good quality starting point for the Photo persona.

• Set color space to Adobe RGB

There are some settings I have configured as presets in the Develop Assistant

These include:

• Set Color Space to Adobe RGB
• Noise Reduction – Apply Color Reduction
• RAW Output format – 16 bit (this determines the file that I work on in the Photo Persona)
• Tone Curve – Apply Tone Curve

In the Lens Tab I set:

• Select Lens Correction
• Choose or check the correct lens profile is applied from the drop down list
• Tick Chromatic Aberration
• Tick Remove Lens Vignette

In the details tab I set:

• Tick Noise Reduction
• Adjust Luminence to around 10%
• Adjust detail refinement (pre-sharpening) Radius 10% Amount to taste – don’t overdo it, this is a global adjustment.

In the Basic tab I’ll adjust Exposure, Black point and Brightness keeping an eye on the histogram as I work. This is about optimisation not creativity.

At this point the image should look less flat and more like the RAW files opened in PhotoLab or Lightroom. You’ve just done a lot of the work that those programs do under the covers.

I will also crop the image at this stage bearing in mind that I can make this crop tighter later if I need to.

I will now commit these changes and move into the Photo Persona.

This is the creative part of the process. The changes I list here are simply suggestions, every picture will have different requirements, but these are the layers I will typically add in the beginning of the process.

Any distractions in the photo I can clone out at this point by making a new blank layer and using the clone brush tool set to sample “current layer and below” – this means I can turn these alterations on and off as they are only present in the new layer.

Next I will check and adjust levels using a Levels Adjustment layer. This has the effect where there is headroom at either end of the graph, of stretching the tones in the photograph to meet black point and white point, creating a richer look. I’ll use the Black Level, White Level and Gamma sliders to fine tune the levels until it looks the way I want it.

I can use an HSL Adjustment layer to control the overall hues, saturation and luminance or a Color Separation layer to enhance individual color channels.

I will then use a Curves layer to add contrast.

I may go on to use other types of adjustment layer with or without masks to fine tune areas of the image, for example Vibrance, Contrast, and so on. These are very subjective adjustments, typically applied locally using masks. The ones I have listed above are global adjustments and represent a second stage in a three stage process.

1. Optimisation
2. Global Adjustments
3. Local Adjustments

Done this way, the end result is invariably better because we are using the software in a way that plays to its strengths.

Check out some of my other articles on Affinity Photo;

Introduction to Affinity Photo 2

Sharp Focus with Affinity Photo

DxO PhotoLab and Affinity Photo

Refining Selections with Affinity 2.6

AI Selection Tools in Affinity Photo 2.6

Overlays, Layers and Masks in Affinity Photo 2

I have no commercial relationship with Serif or Affinity Photo, but if you are interested in buying Affinity Photo here is the link – Buy Affinity Photo

You can also get a 7 Day Trial which you can download here – 7 Day Trial