To expand on Shel's response:
Camera Raw is a tool for rendering RAW to an RGB format. It's a plug-
in and is not designed to manage a print output. Photoshop and
Photoshop Elements are designed to edit RGB into finish output for
printing and other purposes.
I'm not sure what you mean "the default RAW structure". Once you're
done with RAW conversion processing, you should be saving to
a .PSD, .TIFF or .JPG file, normally: these are RGB file formats.
Saving to a .DNG file means you're just converting your .PEF files to
another RAW format, which has the bonus of capturing and saving the
Camera Raw processing parameters into the RAW file's metadata. That's
not a "finished" image, just another RAW file that includes a little
*more* data than the original.
All RAW conversion operations lose data, that's in the nature of the
gamma correction and chroma interpolation process. Saving to an RGB
[EMAIL PROTECTED] file retains as much of the useful image data as is
possible for an RGB rendering. Converting [EMAIL PROTECTED] to
[EMAIL PROTECTED] data is where you potentially can lose a lot of *useful*
data, unless you've done your editing correctly. If you have edited
your image correctly, the conversion at end to 8bit formats loses
very little of significance since nearly all printers today can only
handle 8bit data anyway.
I use Photoshop CS2 so I can't speak to what PSE does. Photoshop CS2
has fairly sophisticated color and print management, and modern print
drivers for the better printer work well with it. There is little
need to explicitly convert 16bit to 8bit anymore with it: it does the
conversion for you automatically when you set up the print job in the
"Print with Preview..." dialog.
(Shel, As an example, all of the prints in my exhibition were printed
directly from [EMAIL PROTECTED] original .PSD files, using the Adobe RGB
ICC profile and the Epson R2400 standard driver set to high quality
output mode, with Photoshop running the color management and the
printer's color management options turned off.)
Godfrey
On Mar 25, 2006, at 5:26 AM, Shel Belinkoff wrote:
RAW is 16-bit. Printers, with one or two notable exceptions, are all
8-bit. A RAW file has to be converted to 8-bit somewhere in the
workflow
in order to print the image.
Yes, there are losses when going from 16-bit to 8-bit, and there
are losses
when manipulating and adjusting the image in Elements. Do as much
as you
can in RAW, adjust as much as you can in Elements in 16-bit.
Always save a
16-bit version of your file. Convert to 8-bit for printing as late as
possible in the workflow.
Shel
[Original Message]
From: Walter Hamler
OK, I just got a new computer and bought PS Elements 4.0. I
upgraded
Adobe
Camera Raw to ver 3.3. Shot some RAW files, imported them into
the ACR
editor, tweaked. Then I noticed that there is no print tab or
capability
from the editor. I saved to a file using the default RAW file
structure.
Then I could open in Elements and further manipulate, etc, and print.
Why can you not print the file from the ACR editor, and are there any
loses
when you save in the default raw file structure?
