ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at what Camera Raw is and the advantages and disadvantages of adopting a Raw digital imaging workflow. It deals with the Adjustment controls found in the Raw Fine Tuning adjustment of Aperture's Adjustments Inspector. These are only available when working with Camera Raw files and determine how Aperture's Raw decoder interprets Raw data to produce an RGB image ready for further editing. Camera Raw formats are proprietary, developed by camera manufacturers to best handle the data produced by individual models. The proprietary nature of camera Raw formats has a number of important implications for the photographer whose livelihood may depend on the integrity of and future access to a library of images. Camera Raw files use the full number of bits available in the image data. Aperture's Raw converter does an excellent job of producing high quality RGB files from Camera Raw data, even in relatively inexperienced hands.
