Banding due to automatic downconverting of RAW files to 8 bit

I'm running into an interesting problem that I can not solve on my own.
It appears that Photoshop or the Adobe Camera Raw Editor is automatically down converting my 14 bit Canon RAW files to 8 bit depth.
I took some photos to illustrate my problem and maybe someone can shed some light on the issue.
So here you can see some very serious, very bad banding. In my workflow options at the bottom you can see it says "16 bit". You can also see that this is a CR2 RAW file. It says 16 bit but it's plainly obvious from the extreme banding that the photo has been down converted to 8 bit.
As a comparison I opened up the same photo in Canon's "Digital Photo Professional 4" software. There was no visible banding and I exported the photo to a TIFF. Here is that photo being displayed in PS:
So, the exact same RAW file processed through "Digital Photo Professional 4" to a TIFF shows no visible banding. It appears that Adobe Camera Raw is downconverting my RAW files to 8 bit automatically.
It is clearly not a display (dithering) issue, as you can see it looks fine in the file that was processed with Canon software.
I have done a lot of searching and have not found a solution but I do not understand what is happening here. I have found threads where people have the same issue but none of the answers provided actually solve the problem.
If I do not find a solution my only option will be to do RAW processing in the Canon software which is not as intuitive, nor do I like as much, as PS. I would really prefer to do my RAW processing in PS but it will not be an option for my unless I can get this automatic down converting of bit depth figured out.

I was kind of hoping maybe you would ascertain from my writing that I have a level of technical knowledge that puts me well ahead of a solution of "playing with HSL sliders"...lol
Look at where the blue light hits the upper left corner of the forehead. Or the blue light on the white shirt. It should be a smooth gradient but instead it is banded very heavily. I don't understand how it is possible that you could not see this. It is very blatant and obvious.
I am not referring to any oversaturation. I haven't pushed or pulled HSL at all. Pushing or pulling won't do anything. Heck, if I convert to grayscale it will still look like crap because it's banded...
I am referring to the sections of color that should be smooth gradients but are instead blotchy patches. It is where blue light and red light meet and mix.
You can see it very clearly here:
If you can't see it there something is definitely wrong with your eyes or monitor. Maybe your GFX card has some automatic intelligent dithering to it... I dont know... Looking at this on 3 different displays it looks the same on all of them.

Similar Messages

How can I set ACR 5.2 to open RAW files as 16 Bit and not 8?

Whenever I open RAW files in ACR 5.2 they open as 8 bit. I change the bit depth to 16 and work on a file... but when I open my next RAW file it's back to 8.
Is there any way to set ACR so that it always opens my RAW files as 16 Bit.. and saves other settings as well?

Bennett, when you open a raw file in Camera Raw and finish working on it the choices to click on are Open Image, Cancel, and Done. Which one are you clicking on to close the image in ACR? Cancel will do just that. Cancel the changes and the 16/8 bit setting will not be kept. The other two choices (Open Image and Done) will maintain the changes you made and the 16/8 bit setting and the color space should stick for the next image.

CS6 crashes every time I open a RAW file as 16-bit

Greetings all,
I'm feeling very frustrated and I hope you can help. Every time I open a RAW file in CS6 (at 16-bit depth) it crashes, so I am unable to open RAW files after editing in Camera Raw. The RAW files open OK in Camera Raw and I can edit them, but then opening them from Camera Raw into Photoshop (by clicking on Open Image) causes a crash.
Further background: I also had CS3 (the entire suite concurrently) installed. Thinking that might be a problem, I removed all of CS3 using the Adobe Uninstaller tool to see if that would help. Then I re-installed Photoshop CS6 from scratch and then downloaded and installed all updates.
No help at all. CS6 still crashes every time I open a RAW file if I open it as 16-bit. If I open a .DNG file directly from Photshop (without using Camera Raw), that crashes too. I'm opening them into Photoshop using Adobe RGB (1998), 16-bit, 3456 x 5184 (17.9 MP), 300DPI.
Thinking it might be a memory issue, I checked free RAM using Activity Monitor and I see it has 3.4 GB free with both CS6 and Bridge open, which should be plenty. However I do see by looking in the crash report from the system log (portion included below), that it appears the crash may have resulted from a failed MALLOC (memory allocation).
Here's the kicker: oddly, when I open the file up in Photoshop at 8-bit depth, it works fine. What the heck is going on?
Please help!
Thanks.
Details:
Software and Hardware versions:
Photoshop CS6 Extended (13.0.4 x64)
Camera Raw 7.3
Bridge CS6 (5.0.2.4)
Mac OS X 10.8.2 (Mountain Lion)
8 GB RAM 27" iMac with 2.66 Ghz Intel Core i5
ATI Radeon HD 4850 graphics card with 512 MB RAM
1 Terabyte HD with 750GB free
Canon EOS Rebel T3i
Canon EF75-300mm f/4-5.6 Lense
Top portion of System Log file with the crash data in it:
Process:         Adobe Photoshop CS6 [4110]
Path:            /Applications/Adobe Photoshop CS6/Adobe Photoshop CS6.app/Contents/MacOS/Adobe Photoshop CS6
Identifier:      com.adobe.Photoshop
Version:         13.0.4 (13.0.4.28)
Code Type:       X86-64 (Native)
Parent Process: launchd [147]
User ID:         501
Date/Time:       2013-03-08 20:28:24.471 -0800
OS Version:      Mac OS X 10.8.2 (12C60)
Report Version: 10
Crashed Thread: 0 Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread
Exception Type: EXC_BAD_ACCESS (SIGSEGV)
Exception Codes: KERN_INVALID_ADDRESS at 0x0000000131df7164
VM Regions Near 0x131df7164:
    mapped file            0000000131dc9000-0000000131df7000 [ 184K] rw-/rwx SM=COW /private/var/folders/*
-->
    MALLOC_TINY            0000000131e00000-0000000131f00000 [ 1024K] rw-/rwx SM=COW

Chris, OK the complete crash log is at http://pastebin.com/tZ7wummp
Thanks.

Can't open raw files in 32 bit CS4

Am using Vista 64 bit OS and because I recently purchased Nik Software's Complete Ed was necessary to change from initial set up of PS CS4 64 bit to 32 for their usage compatability. Had Camera Raw 5.0 on 64 bit version, copied camera raw 8bi plug in file format and placed in correct file format folder for the 32 bit version of PS. ...sounds easy enough...but when I attempt to open a raw file in PS or bridge it will not open and get message - Could not complete your request because of a program error. Camera raw does show up and only once under the About Plug In submenu. Have tried Purge Cache option. Can still open raw files as always in 64 bit version, save and reopen 32bit version to continue but hoping for solution to eleminate that hassle. Thanks for your needed advice!

Plugin's have to be rewritten for a 64-bit environment so copying the 64-bit ACR to the 32-bit folder won't work. You need the 32-bit version of ACR in the 32-bit CS4 folder.
I'm not sure if the ACR 5.6 updater will work to update both versions, or if you need to download and install the plugin's manually.
You can get to the manual install ZIP by following the PSE link near the top of the regular ACR 5.6 page linked on the updates page:
http://www.adobe.com/downloads/updates/

How to open RAW files in 16 bit mode?

In Photoshop CS3 all my RAW files opened in 16 bit mode. In CS5 they all open in 8-bit mode. I've looked all over for where this setting might be made but I can't find it. How do I tell Photoshop or Camera Raw to open images in 16 bit mode?

That does it. Thanks!
I may have missed it in the Help files, but I sure couldn't find it. Help tells me all about why I want to use 16 bits, but not how to get them.

Camera Raw only offers to open 16-bit raw files in 8-bit mode

I am using a windows CS6 Bridge => Camera Raw (8.2) => CS6 Photoshop (13.0.1 x64) to try to open various 16-bit raw files (.dng, .nef, .arw) which Bridge sees as 16-bit, but only an 8-bit version makes it into photoshop.
How do I convince Camera Raw to do its job?
Lightroom (4.4) is able to export a 16-bit .psd which sort-of-works but shouldn't be necessary.
Thanks in advance,
Steve

You set the bitdepth in your work options dialog box, which you access by clicking on the line that looks like a link right under the ACR preview:
Don't be afraid to read the Help files or other documentation that came with Photoshop (otherwise known as Read The Fine Manual).

How can ACR 5.2 be set to open RAW files as 16 Bit as default?

When I open RAW files in ACR they always open as 8 Bit. Is there any way to set ACR so that RAW files always open as 16 Bit as default? How?
Lightroom 2.2/ PS CS4

In the middle/bottom area of the Camera Raw window is a 'hyper link' type of line showing some default info. Clicking on that link brings up the Workflow Options dialog box. The 'Depth' setting should be set to 16 Bits/Channel. Then press OK to accept the changes then press Done to close the ACR Window and save the changes.

Why when I open my raw files into lightroom, colors are different from my camera's preview?

Ciao,
I have a problem... maybe this can be a stupid question but anyway.. I would like to know the reason why when I open a raw image in lightroom, for a second I see the right colors/tone/contrast that i see when i look at the same images on my camera and soon after the word "Loading" I see the raw files with different colors.
Why this happens???
Before "Loading" and --> after
Thank you so much

Hey Giuseppe
I have a similar problem but the cause may be different from yours. I shoot a Canon 6D and as far as I know no one with the 5D MKIII has my issue, but maybe you could look into it.
Canon's Adobe Camera Raw in Photoshop CC, as well as Lightroom CC, is automatically down converting my CR2 RAW files from 14 bit color depth to 8 bit color depth. This is screwing up my colors, contrast, gradients, etc quite a bit when trying to process RAW files in Photoshop CC and Lightroom CC.
You can read my thread here:
Banding due to automatic downconverting of RAW files to 8 bit
You might want to check and see if your RAW files are actually being processed in 16 bit color depth. There is a possibility that they are being down converted automatically for some reason.
The bit depth in Lightroom for RAW files is supposed to be 16 bit but when opening my files it just converts it down.
Try downloading Canon's Digital Photo Professional 4
Canon U.S.A. : Consumer & Home Office : EOS 5D Mark III
Use that software to process a RAW photo and convert to a 16 bit TIFF. I know this software truly gives you a 16 bit depth image. Then compare the result side to side with what you're seeing in Lightroom.
If you are having this issue, I have not yet found a way to process RAW CR2 files in ACR or Lightroom and maintain 16 bit depth.
If you are batch processing to JPEGs it probably doesn't matter, but my issue is that it is down converting BEFORE exporting and thus any edits I do become much more destructive on my 8 bit image than they would if I was editing a 16 bit image. I have to be able to keep things in 16 bit up until the point they go to the printer.
Sorry, this may not help you at all, it looks like there could just be a difference in White Balance, but I figured I'd throw my two cents out there and maybe you could see if this is actually what is happening for you, and hopefully eventually Adobe could potentially fix this bug.

How to stop Lightroom from auto-adjusting RAW files

Is there a way to stop Lightroom from automatically "fixing" my RAW files? When I first load them in they look perfect (like they do on the back of my camera), but then LR auto-adjusts them to make them dull and desaturated and not at all contrasty. Is there a way that I can set LR to not do anything to the files and let me decide what I want the original to look like?

I totally understand where II is coming from. I too find it bothersome that in some images, the pre-processed preview is a more pleasing image than the unprocessed RAW. At the same time, it is the unprocessed nature of the RAW image that is the whole attraction and point to shooting RAW. An obvious workaround (if one is willing of course) is to shoot RAW+JPEG so as to either have the JPEG as a "target" reference or final image when suitable. And that is an option I used to employ until I got tired of dealing with the issues of essentially doubling the number of images I was working with.
I do disagree with II's thought that the preview showing up is slowing down any processing of the RAW image. It would seem to me that the whole reason the preview is showing up is that it is a prerendered aspect of the file that pops up while the actual preview rendering is taking place. While I don't claim to have technical knowledge as to how this all works, I would think that LR is simply showing the initial rendering of what the RAW file is telling LR it looks like until LR can actually make it's OWN interpretation. Either way, the process is fast enough that it isn't a huge issue to me on my system. In fact, those images where I see a vast difference between the inital preview image and the LR rendered resolve no slower than the rest.
It is interesting to know that there are applications/utilities out there that will extract that inital preview though. I thionk it would be very cool if LR made use of such a capability more directly as an option.
Anyway, while the frequency of my use of LR so far pales in comparison to that of PS and Bridge, so far I can say that such discrepency between nice looking inital preview and less than so RAW is far less common than it is working with PS and Bridge CS2.

Imported raw files show as jpg

Since updating to Lightroom2 (currently 2.6), whenever I import a RAW file from iPhoto - selecting to leave the photo in it's original location - it shows as a .jpg file once it is imported into Lightroom 2. With Lightroom 1 it would import as a RAW file. Is there a setting I need to select to keep Lightroom from automatically converting my RAW files to JPG on import?

Thanks for your help. It worked as you suggested except the corresponding jpg file that was made by the camera is imported into Lightroom along with the RAW file. Unfortunately, my Canon 400D will not shoot RAW files only, you have to have a large size JPEG along with it which is a waste of file space, but nothing that can be done to shoot RAW only. So at the very least I can import RAW files as you suggest and then delete the JPEG. As far as iPhoto goes, I've been using it for many years and like it a lot. I find it easier and more intuitive than Lightroom's organizational tools. Lightroom is an exceptional tool for printing or prepping a final image for electronic distribution and that's how I use it. In short, I use each application for what it does best. I only color correct, print or publish less than 1 or 2% of the thousands of images I shoot. Thanks again for solving this mystery!

I cannot open raw file shot with canon 20d. I get an error message.

I recently used a 50d camera and shot in raw +jpeg. Downloaded into computer. Was able to view jpeg but was unable to view raw version.At first I attributed this to needing software update for 50d. I brought up a raw file taken with a 20d and the same error message appeared. I could open a 20d file before. This morning I tried again.I did open a 20d file.I tried a 50d file and the error message appeared. Went back to 20d file and the error message appeared saying it cannot open file.I am less than a novice. I purchased elements 6 a year ago and am just starting to try to use it. Are there updates that I need to do .

sdefr0ghsf wrote:
Further to my above reply, I have just discovered this on the web:
Why Adobe doesn't touch proprietary raw files
Touching the bits of raw image formats that aren't publicly documented well (or at all) seems like a bad idea, bound to end in tears. Microsoft is advising customers not to edit metadata using Vista, saying,
Microsoft has received reports of compatibility issues with Nikon NEF files after installing version 1.0 of Nikon's raw codec posted in January. Tagging the raw files through Windows Vista or the Microsoft Photo Info tool after the codec is installed appears to cause these files to become unreadable in other applications, such as Adobe Photoshop. [Via]
I'm sure the problem will get sorted out soon enough, but it does illustrate why Camera Raw and Lightroom insist on using sidecar data files for raw formats other than DNG. It's less convenient, but we've seen far too many conflicts arise from touching metadata in these other formats. DNG was designed with flexible internal storage of metadata in mind, and now Lightroom and Bridge offer conversion to DNG as part of their photo-import processes. (For what it's worth, on my MacBook Pro, converting an 8MP CR2 file to DNG takes roughly 1-1.5 seconds--not a bad price for portability & reduced file size.)
Posted by John Nack at 01:47 AM on February 12, 2007
You will note this this was posed on Feb 12th 2007 and that it appears to still be an issue. Oh dear.
Sure would be nice to see the link to where you got this.
This refers to problems using Microsoft software and Vista, not Adobe software and Vista. I believe it is saying that Adobe properly handles both .nef and .dng files. I have no idea how this quote relates to this thread at all.

Cant import raw files from pentax k20d

I have a Pentax k20d and iPhoto6 will only import JPGs. iPhoto will not import RAW files from my camera. I can't find if its supported but can only assume its not.

You'd think that apple would add raw file compatibility with the next of its numerous iphoto 6 updates...
I wouldn’t think that at all. Iphoto 6 has not been developed since 2006, nor updated since 2006. I would not expect any further enhancement to it.
or maybe its just the pentax as in iphoto 6's advanced settings there are options to "save edited RAW files as 16 bit TIFFS" and "use RAW files with external editor".iPhoto 6 has not been developed since 2006.
It’s not just the Pentax. Those RAW options are there in everyone’s iPhoto 6 and later. However, RAW formats differ not just between brands of Camera but also between different models of the same Brand. So, RAW support is added on a model by model basis and not all models are supported. The K20D was announced in January 2008. The RAW format you want supported didn’t even exist when the iPhoto 6 was in development or the current version of the application.
Further, as RAW support is a function of the Operating System, and involves a patch to the OS, it was added to the OS current at the time - 10.5.
Regards
TD

Can photoshop convert .jpg to camera raw file?

Can photoshop convert .jpg to camera raw file?

And even if you could, it wouldn't be worth it. Raw files are 12-bit (or more) with much higher dymanic range than jpegs. The result is that (in the original raw file) you have flexibility to change white balance, change tone curve, recover detail from highlights and shadows in ways you can't with 8-bit (usually lossy-compressed) data in jpegs. But having thrown that extra information away to create a jpeg, you can't get it back. It would technically be possible to convert that jpeg data into raw format, but you would gain nothing by doing so and end up with a file much larger than the jpeg. In fact if this theoretical conversion went the whole way to re-create a Bayer sensor array of data, you'd be throwing away resolution.

When opening an original shot raw file it opens in CS6 almost 5 times as large

Why is the file so large when I have not made any changes?
1..is there any thing that can reset to keep the original file size?
I am using CS6 and Lightroom 4

Why does it bother you that file sizes change depending on the format?
[email protected] wrote:
I am looking at the file size in the left corner. If I do a save. My raw file as shot with a d800 is 34 MB now saving it as a tif and using LZW it is 176 MB. The files are all 16 bit and I am shooting in 12 bit from the camera .
A raw file with 12 bits per pixel is certainly going to be smaller than one with 48 bits per pixel (which is what a 16 bit RGB file really is). As has been mentioned various formats do various kinds of compression which may be more or less effective depending on image content..
Bottom line is this: You have a D800. It makes large images that can be incredibly detailed. You'll have to learn to live with the fact that these images are going to take a LOT more computer resources than the cameras of the past.
-Noel

12- and 14-bit Raw file conversion to 16-bit tiff

Does anyone know how Camera Raw converts the 10, 12, or 14 bit RAW file data(14-bit D3 .NEF here) into the 16-bit tiff files it can produce. I assume it either manages to leave empty space in the file, or interpolates by some means. If interpolation is the answer, is it by a method analogous to one of the spatial resizing methods(nearest neighbor or bilinear)?

Keep in mind that a 16bit image format (eg, TIF) is actually a container, and I've seen many variations on putting lesser bit depths in the format. EG, 10bits may only be stored in the first 1024 bins, or the same 10bit data may instead be stored in every 6th bin - the latter of which is the most common and best way. When I look at the 16bit histogram after ACR has converted 12bit RAW to 16bit TIF, it is as if 12bits has been converted to 16bits (actually 15bits), because every bin appears to have data in it.
As to how it's actually done, it may be proprietary ... but someone else may be able to draw conclusions from the open algorithms that are available (eg, dcraw).

Banding due to automatic downconverting of RAW files to 8 bit

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for