Canon Digital Editing Options

Similar to Laurel's question, I too am curious as to the best way to "tweak" my Canon RAW files.

Should I be making adjustments in the Canon File Viewer Utility, or moving them over to Photoshop Elements 2.0 and make all adjustments there?

There are A LOT of things to learn. Makes me wish I had a degree in Graphic Arts!

Thanks
Kurt

In general, rough adjustments like basic exposure and white balance are better made prior to RAW conversion in whatever RAW file converter you use - in your case the Canon program. Then fine tuning the image in the photo program. This retains the most amount of detail. Just be careful that in your pre-conversion work, you don't do anything that throws away information like aggressive contrast adjustment, levels adjustment, or curves adjustment. The most common pre-conversion change will be to the white balalnce.

Kurt,

The things that should be adjusted during the conversion process can vary by preference, but are fairly standard among the more experienced. I usually adjust the exposure after the fact because I try to get the original capture very close to what I want anyway by using the histogram. If you need to make more radical adjustments to exposure (more than a third of a stop) it is best done during the conversion. Mild in camera sharpening can also be done at this time, but this is salt and pepper to taste. Be sure not to over-do in-camera sharpening as the final sharpening should be done after the image is re-sized for it's intended use. White balance should be adjusted at conversion time but final color adjustments, levels and curves are normally done in your image editing program. When converting do so in 16 bit mode if your editing program supports it.

Once the image is converted it is best to do final levels or curves adjustments, as well as removing any color cast present in the image before saving an original "master" file. If you are confident in making final color, saturation and tonal adjustments at this time then those too can be done at this stage. Just remember you need to start over if you are unhappy with any of these results. While some things can be "re-tweaked" it usually results in loss of information, which translates in quality.

Once the master file is saved with the correct exposure, contrast and tonal adjustments you have a good master that can be opened up, duplicated (or saved using "save as"), resized for it's intended use, sharpened saved for final output.

You might also download trials of BreezeBrowser and Capture One LE, both of these facilitate modifying the output during conversion. C1LE has a very nice "darkroom" feel to it. Both are much more user friendly the the free Canon software.