Hi Folks:
This was planned as a fairly short blog post (for me), but it didn’t work out that way. It describes an experiment that I thought would work, and it does. Before we get started we need to iron out a few terms. A ‘RAW’ file in the world of digital photography is essentially the raw data from the camera sensor. In order to be able to see that raw file as an image, it needs to be run through some software called a raw converter. Don’t worry, we’re not going to be throwing around terms like linear demosaicing here – suffice it to say that the raw converter takes the original image data and massages it into an RGB image that looks like a photograph. Now, one of the challenges for people that make raw converter software (ACDSee, Adobe Camera Raw/ Lightroom, Apple Aperture, Bibble, Capture One from Phase One, etc) is that camera companies regularly put out new camera models and these same companies seem to take great delight in creating new, proprietary raw formats for each camera they release. In response, the software companies need to regularly release updates to their software that include these new camera profiles. Going from Lightroom 3.x to Lightroom 4.x for example is a software upgrade and includes a number of new features. Going from Lightroom 4.3 to 4.4 includes some bug fixes and updates, but it also includes profiles for two dozen new cameras.