What you now have on your computer is often called “digital
negatives”. We recommend that you keep these raw or original JPEG
files as they hold all the information that you captured in the
field. You may want to revisit
these original raw files in case:
• You improved your own digital workflow over time (very likely)
• Better raw converter software will be available. We have seen many
improvements over the last four years and expect more to come.
• You lost your derived files
Actually, a raw file is even more like a latent image and the raw
converter software acts like your preferred magic developer. The
only big difference in digital is that you can do multiple forms of
development over time.
THE DIGITAL LIGHT TABLE
A very important phase for every photographer is the inspection of
new and old images. Especially when you just uploaded your work to
your computer you want to analyze your new images as fast as
possible to start working on the keepers. A small thumbnail as older
files browsers show is not good enough to find out whether the
following criteria are met. As we also want to preview raw files our
digital light table needs to be integrated with a complete raw
converter.
• Is the composition ok?
• Is critical sharpness archived?
• Is the exposure ok? Here we need to see a histogram
• Quality of colors. This step most often also requests a correction
of
white balance.
We now have a look at the preview capabilities of the two currently
leading third party raw converters:
• Photoshop CS with Camera Raw
• Capture One DSLR
The preview process is a critical starting point for any workflow in
the digital darkroom.