NON-DESTRUCTIV EDITING

NON-DESTRUCTIVE EDITING
The first choice you make as a digital photographer
is whether you will shoot JPG or RAW files. In the
past, there were some arguments in favor of photo-
graphing JPG files, including the expense of high ca-
pacity cards and the slow transfer speeds from the
camera to the card and the card to the computer.
However, today, those arguments are no longer val-
id. Storage is very affordable and transfer speeds
are quite good. So the only argument left in favor
of shooting to JPG in camera is that the photogra-
pher wants to deliver the images directly from the
camera without editing or converting the images. In
some cases, sports photographers or photographers
at theme parks, etc. have the
need to transfer and deliver their images immediate-
ly to editors, clients and visitors and in those cases,
the JPG has its purpose, but outside of those special
cases, the RAW image is the preferred format.
By photographing in RAW, you will retain all of the
data your camera captured when you took your
amazing photograph. The camera compresses data
and throws a lot of crucial quality away when it
makes a JPG in camera. If you have any plans to ad-
just your images in your computer, you want all of
the data in that RAW file. Editing a JPG image will re-
veal serious quality problems quickly during the editing
process. There is an exponential difference in quality

JPG compression assigns pixels with similar color values, identical color values. This makes a smaller file, but throws out information essential to smooth gradients. Notice the banding
in the sky. To prevent your camera from throwing out detail, shoot RAW.

Uncompressed RAW images preserve the unique color value of every pixel. This allows for smoother gradations as well as greater shadow and highlight detail.
between the RAW image and a JPG image. This is why I
recommend that photographers always shoot RAW im-
age files whenever possible.
Whether you are shooting RAW or JPG, when you edit
your image in your computer, on your mobile device or
even in camera, you need to understand the difference
between destructive and non-destructive editing. It is
not a choice you make on an image by image basis. The
choice is generally made for you based on the tool you
choose to use to edit the image.
For instance, in-camera editing (limited as it is) is a rudi-
mentary nondestructive
process. You may choose a RAW image and adjust its
brightness or turn it to black and white, but when you
save that change, the camera will produce a copy of the
image with your changes, and leave the original RAW im-
age unchanged. This way, you have the original image to
return to, in case you want to try something else on that
image at a later date. However, if you take a JPG image
into Photoshop, adjust it and simply save the image,
you will save those changes into the original image, and
there will be no going back. The changes will be baked
into the file.
In addition to the quality factor, another advantage of
the RAW image is that it is protected against destruc-
tive editing. Any program that can edit a RAW image is
forced to protect it by either saving its adjustments into
a database or into a sidecar file that is placed next to the
CR2 original raw images with their companion, side-car or .xmp files.
These files contain the metadata from the raw editing software, like Lightroom, Bridge, Camera RAW, etc The same images, converted into the DNG file type
do not need the side-car files because the metadata is saved into the file itself. Either raw file is protected against alteration by the raw editing software. The
underlying image is never changed, which means you can go back to the original capture at anytime.
original RAW image. The database or sidecar xmp data
contains the adjustment instructions for the RAW im-
age and anytime the program opens that RAW image,
it will check for the xmp data and show you the adjust-
ments that were made to the image, but the original
RAW image will remain untouched. These database
driven image editors will also adjust JPG images in the
same non-destructive way.
Adobe Lightroom, Bridge, and Camera RAW all fol-
low this non-destructive procedure. Photoshop itself
cannot edit a RAW image, the image is adjusted during
processing by Adobes Camera RAW, and then sent to
Photoshop as a duplicate image to be saved as a copy
JPG, PSD or TIF image.
Canons Digital Professional software is also a nonde-
structive editor, as are programs like Apple Photos.
You will always be safe when shooting RAW images
because you can be sure that no software has the abil-
ity to save over the top of the original image. If your
software will edit a RAW image, it is most assuredly a
non-destructive editor.
You must, however, be careful when editing a JPG
original image because your software may or may not
save the changes you make over the top of the original
image. When in doubt, look for the SAVE AS... Option.
By saving a copy through the save as... option, you will
avoid losing your original image capture.
 To Preserve Originals
Make Copies using
SAVE AS

In Photoshop Choosing SAVE

will overwrite your original file

1 2 3
A DNG file is still a RAW file, with all the same capabilities as a RAW image, but the xmp or side-car metadata is saved within the file, so there is no need for
the additional .xmp file and your system is able to search the keywords and descriptions within the image itself, which makes for a more portable file. In all other
respects, you will not notice a difference between the DNG and the original RAW file. WARNING: make sure you are using or plan on using a RAW editor that
reads the DNG file type before converting images to the DNG file type. To create a DNG in Adobe Lightroom, go to the Library menu and click on the convert to
DNG option. For example, Canons Digital Photo Professional software for RAW images cannot read or display .DNG files. For the highest quality RAW image, do
not check the use lossy compression option.w

If you choose to use a non-destructive editor such
as Lightroom, then every image, RAW, JPG, TIF, PSD
or PNG will all be treated in a non-destructive man-
ner, so you will always be able to go back to the orig-
inal version of the image at anytime. The only time
a non-destructive editor bakes the changes into a
file is when it exports a copy of the image to a NEW
JPG, TIF or PSD file.
There is one notable exception to the protected
RAW rule, and that is with the Adobe DNG file type.
A Digital Negative (DNG) is a full RAW image but
has a spot in the file itself, for adding adjustments
and other metadata. The image remains complete-
ly RAW and can always be reset to the way it was
originally captured, but it allows a program to store
everything about that individual file in the file it-
self. This way, no matter what computer the DNG is
opened on, a program like Lightroom will know what
was done to this particular RAW DNG the last time
it was adjusted.
Shooting and editing a RAW image not only gives
you the highest quality image you can get from your
camera, it also protects that original image from ac-
cidentally over-writing and permanently changing
your original image when adjusting, even when you
are using a traditional destructive editor like Photo-
shop. I highly recommend shooting in RAW and us-
ing a non-destructive editor (Lightroom, DPP, Pho-
tos, etc) to adjust and share your images.