Yahoo Answers is shutting down on May 4th, 2021 (Eastern Time) and beginning April 20th, 2021 (Eastern Time) the Yahoo Answers website will be in read-only mode. There will be no changes to other Yahoo properties or services, or your Yahoo account. You can find more information about the Yahoo Answers shutdown and how to download your data on this help page.
Trending News
How do I use RawTherapee to get my RAW (NEF) pictures to a decent state?
As below, the preview shows a great photo (looks like the processed JPEG from the camera) but after I double click to edit, it goes to the "raw" image which is washed out and I can't seem to get it back to the "nice" image of the thumbnail.
I guess I can only show one photo...but you can see the nice thumbnail of the far right image...as soon as I double click it becomes washed out and I don't know how to get back to the nice preview or how to get the nice preview to show up in the large screen (these are all NEF files).
I'm very new to post-processing images (pre-beginner, if you will). Clearly RawTherapee can process the images to a "base" (as seen in the thumbnails)...I can modify that "base" image to change it as I like, but my problem is that I don't know how to take a completely raw image (which is what it seems to be giving me once I choose it) to a reasonable one.
3 Answers
- qrkLv 75 years agoFavorite Answer
The thumbnail is probably the embedded jpeg image within the raw file.
What you are seeing is the native raw image which looks pretty ugly.
If you read thru RT's manual (RawPedia on-line), you'll find an interesting section on generating .icm color correction profiles from ViewNX (software that comes with your camera). This should solve your problem.
http://50.87.144.65/~rt/w/index.php?title=How_to_g...
There's a reason why many folks like LightRoom as LR automatically applies the correction profiles for most cameras and lenses.
- SumiLv 75 years ago
I've never heard of RAWTherapee, I've always used Lightroom and Photoshop because of they're the best on the market with a ton of free support online. However, it certainly sounds like the program is applying a preset to make the image look washed out.
Check out the sliders/control. Once you open the image and it's washed out, make sure that they're all set to 0. A washed-out image is caused either by overexposure in the camera, or the settings of the image-editing software are too high. In your situation, it appears to be the software applying either a preset or a default setting to the image once you open it. Look for settings for exposure or brightness and you'll more than likely be able to fix the image. RAW images are also low in contrast, so you'll need to bump it up along with some saturation (but easy on the sliders).
It's common to go too far with your editing (i.e. overcook your images). This is especially a problem for those new to photography. The novelty of being able to adjust things and to make this so unique and colorful makes it very tempting to apply settings that are just way too strong. After working with an image for a while, stop. Get up and do something for a little while. This will give your eyes time to readjust so when you go back, you're looking at the edited image with "fresh" eyes. Most of the time when I do this, I end up backing down the sliders by 10-30%.
Go to YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=RawTh...
And watch all of the videos on RAWTherapee. Take notes and keep track of any new terms or concepts that you're unfamiliar with, and then do another YouTube search for those terms/topics. That's going to keep you busy for a good while, and with baby steps, you'll end up being pretty good at image editing within a month or two.
- ?Lv 45 years ago
Look at tutorials on Youtube to help you along. See link. I don't use RawTherapee. I prefer Darktable. They both are in the Ubuntu software center. Good luck and keep shooting!
