Chapter 5

Going RAW

The RAW “Format”

What RAW Is Not

It is a common mistake to think of RAW files as if there were one standardized format. Every camera model saves RAW images in a unique format, but Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) can process many RAW file formats with default image settings based on built-in camera profiles for supported cameras and the EXIF (Exchangeable Image File) data. These RAW files are often referred to as “digital negatives.” (This should not be confused with Adobe’s RAW format DNG, which stands for Digital Negative and is therefore often called that). Like a negative, the digital negative cannot be used directly as an image but has all the information needed to create an image. It preserves the data captured by the sensor, ...

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