Mac Preview App question

[LunaLuna]

Hi there,
I've noticed that mac preview app shows differences of color and lightening, I mean, I display a raw file and a straight jpg (or tif) conversion and they look different.

Is that happening to me only?


Thanks in advance!

[andrewrodney]

Re: Mac Preview App question

I believe the raw rendering you are seeing is just the preview embedded in that format. It isn't the rendering you'd end up with IF you saved out the raw through the converter as a TIFF, JPEG etc. Depends too on the raw converter and the format. If you applied corrections in an Adobe raw converter to a DNG, then updated everything, the preview should be the same as what you saw in the converter. Note, there's some new buggyness in OSX 10.9 in terms of previews in the Finder. Preview seems to still be OK.

[LunaLuna]

Re: Mac Preview App question

Thanks Andrew for your answer.

I actually have more questions about this.

I think what I see is an embedded preview, as you say. When I open this raw files in Camera Raw I see a big difference from what I see in preview app.

This files are from a client, and she doesn't seem to see any difference between the raw file ands the jpgs (the jpgs generated by the camera when shooting raw+jpg)
She always use preview app to see the files.

She uses the jpgs to compare the originals to the finals I sent retouched.
This jpgs have sRGB color profile and the raw have Adobe RGB. Can this make the difference?

I retouch from the raw files. So when I send her the finals, she finds differences that I don't see, because I compare to the unprocessed raw file.

Does it make sense? It's hard to explain.

I just want to be sure I don't have any strange configuration or something in my preview app. I checked on the preferences and I didn't find anything that could be suspicious.

I want to suggest her to use Bridge to preview all images, but I want to be sure it's not my computer who have the issue.

Thanks in advance!

[andrewrodney]

Re: Mac Preview App question

Not sure I fully undertand all the ramifications here but what I can tell you is that the raw file's previews are not within that raw file unless we're talking about a DNG. The previews are built in the converter, they have no bearning on the JPEG embedded in the raw from the camera. You really need to deal with the final rendered images (TIFF, JPEG) from the raw converter and not deal with a 3rd party (Preivew) app that's only viewing an embedded JPEG that has zero bearing on the converted file you produce. IOW, if you want a match, render the data to a TIFF and send it. The raw is raw, the preview you describe isn't part of that process so it's natural they don't match.

[LunaLuna]

Re: Mac Preview App question

Hi Andrew, thanks a lot for your answer.
I think I get it now.

Best regards!
Lucía.