Raw Images & Filters

Raw images are images supplied from high end cameras which have not yet been properly processed, so they are in a "raw" state. These are also called negative images because they are in a "raw" format and cannot be printed or edited by bitmap graphics editors. I may be using Raw images within my assignment as I will use photos of enviroments for the background of my dvd cover. So I will have to understand how this image format works to get the most out of the image.


Before the a raw image can be used with photoshop it must first be converted into a postive image. To do this you must first open up the image, this will then open up a dialog box where you can adjust brightness, noise, red-eye, shadow etc (As seen below)

Once the image has opened I can adjust the exposure, brightness & sharpness to make the image look better. I can also adjust the white balance to make the sky more blue which makes the image look more realistic. I can use these techinques within my assignment for my enviroment pictures. My background image for my dvd cover will be very dark and post apocalyptic to give the impression of a horror movie. So I can take a raw image and use the tools in the dialog box to adjust brightness, saturation and sharpness to give it a darker feel. (As seen below)

(junoon1.wordpress.com)

I then had a go at testing out some filters in photshop. Firstly I had a go at removing the noise from the image. Noise is caused by the amplifaction of low light levels which can cause a grainy effect within the image, so to adjust this you must use the reduce noise feature in the filter menu. I then sharpened the image in the filter menu. Sharpening a image can give it more detail by artificaly adding contrast to the image. Looking at the before and after images I can see that I have added a bit to much shadow and highlights to the image as the two people now more darker than they did before, So in future I will be careful not to put to much shadow and highlights into an image. (Below is a the before and after image)

I will use these techinques within my assignment to add more sharpness and to reduce noise in some of my enviroment /people images to give more detail to the image and to make it look more realistic on the dvd cover.