Use Camera RAW with Sony Nex-3

Question

Hey Guys!
I want to get out more details from my photos.
Im using Adobe Photoshop CS5
Sony NEX-3 Compact Camera (listed in the camera raw compatibility list)
First i changed the cameras picture format from jpg to RAW & made some photos.
At home i tried to open the files with Camera Raw. Doesnt work. The sony camera saved the pictures as an ARW File.
So i downloaded Adobe DNG Converter. I converted the ARW into a RAW file and opened it with camera raw.
So far so good! I opended the RAW picture with Photoshop. Just for testing with 8 & also 16 bit. Does my camera support 16bit?
I compared the RAW File with the new created jpg.
Normaly the quality of the raw file should be much better than the compressed jpg i think.
I took a look at some other jpg pictures (i shot them in JPG Mode) & compared them with the RAW Images (RAW Mode).
I saw absolutely no difference between RAW & JPG.
I also tried a exact tonal value correction at both images.
Same with other picture corrections. Details, Noise, Sharpness.... same.
With the Sony NEX-3 there also was a RAW Program included which opens the ARW Files.
I cant see some differences between RAW & jpg here too.
What I am doing wrong?
I have to say that i am an camera raw beginner. I tried this for the first time. I thought this would be easier!
At the screenshot below you see a JPG picture on the left & a 16bit DNG on the right.
I found no differences!
I would be very happy about your help and some good advices.
Best regards Andi

Answer 1

Andi265 wrote:
Basicly i understand how RAW works. But im still wondering why i cant see just only a very little difference to my jpg Images.
The image of the Mountain Railway Station i postet has a lot of dark shadow areas & details.
I´m also wondering why these chromatic aberrations are shown in the RAW file? I thought its only in the jpg images because of the compression.
Your raw file may be 12 or 14 bit, and have no output colour space - it is only limited by its physical characteristics and analogue-to-digital converters. You should set Camera Raw for the biggest workspace necessary, which in my case is 16 bit AdobeRGB. Others work in ProPhotoRGB—it's a personal choice. This has the effect of constraining the raw data, and you will learn to use the sliders to work within those constraints.
Using normal processing settings there will only be subtle differences between the conversion preview and the camera JPEG. The tonal response will be slightly different, seeming slightly lighter or darker, and the colours' hue/saturation will be slightly different too. Also, depending on the camera, automatic distortion/vignette/aberration correction will be missing. This is all to be expected, and your expectations have been misplaced.
However, this is only a starting point. Whilst JPEG shooters can go on to process their images, the resulting quality will be inferior; JPEG is a finished image format. Raw shooters have much more to play with, and can manipulate the conversion's parameters to boost shadows, recover highlights, adjust mean exposure, increase/reduce/localise sharpening and noise control, apply processing gradients and masks, apply local contrast and selective saturation boosts, and correct your camera's colour response, as well as apply lens defect corrections—all before the conversion to JPEG.
So, you won't start to see the difference until you start to push these adjustments. You have been given a second (and a third and a fourth...) chance to create your JPEG using your own set of picture parameters, and the ability to change these parameters for each photo after taking the photo.
In your photo above, you can bring out detail in the shadows by boosting Fill and Blacks. As you shot in Raw, you will have a good amount of tonal resolution recorded in the shadows (assuming you didn't underexpose in the first place), which would be absent from a JPEG. You also have the ability to change the sharpening to suit the image, and even apply local sharpening where it's needed most (and less where it's not needed).
You also have the ability to modify Camera Raw's default settings how you like it. You can enable automatic lens defect corrections (like chromatic aberration—make sure you're on ACR 6.7). You can change the default camera profile (which dictates how tone, hue and saturation is translated) to a preset, or make your own using a calibrator. Do this and your starting point will be how you want it, not how Sony wants it.
I could go on, but I think you have probably heard much of this before. The main point I'm making is that you shouldn't expect to see a big difference straight away, but the possibilities you have created are much greater.
Message was edited by: Yammer P