How to Use Camera RAW in PHOTO-PAINT X4

Bringing Camera RAW Files into Corel PHOTO-PAINT

When you select one or more Camera RAW files, they show up in PHOTO-PAINT in the Camera RAW Lab. It's here that you can adjust the color and tone. Adjustments made to one file can be applied to all images.

Before You Begin

Here are few things to know about working with Camera RAW images.

A common characteristic of Camera RAW files is that they are flat, dull and soft. In a processed image, such as a JPEG, these issues are taken care of for you. Processing in-camera means that the camera has taken care of certain settings for you, such as white balancing, sharpening, color correction, compression, etc.

When evaluating an image, it's important to use the histogram. Doing so will show you important information about what's happening with the image itself.

When you save a Camera RAW image after processing a good choice is TIFF, partly because it's been around for many years and is a stable format. If you decide to use JPEG, be aware that it's a "lossy" format and if you compress the images you will lose image information. In practice, I recommend that you use JPEG with the maximum quality setting (to prevent image degradation) and to save an image as a TIFF, as well. More information is in Chapter 13: Understanding Web Page Graphics and File Compression. Note that shooting at the highest resolution will take up a lot of space on your camera's card. Also, saving images as a JPEG is not a true indication of the file size.

Note: All the images used in The Corel PHOTO-PAINT X4 Insider were shot using the Canon G9, which is now supported by the Service Pack 1 release. I shot all images at a resolution of 4032 x 3024. Files of this size can be taxing on the processor, so if you apply a change and it doesn't happen right away, please be patient.

When you select one or more Camera RAW files, they show up in PHOTO-PAINT in the Camera RAW Lab. It's here that you can adjust the color and tone. Adjustments made to one file can be applied to all images.

Additional Notes

Converting a RAW file opens a TIFF file in PHOTO-PAINT. An original RAW file cannot be saved over by PHOTO-PAINT. And even though you can apply settings to subsequent files, you cannot save the setting for later use on the original file or any other files.

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