Editing Photographs in Xara

[ss-kalm]

Not sure who can help me here, but I have some issues. I dropped a Sony RAW file into Xara to edit a overhead wire that was in the picture.

Two things became immediately apparent - Compare taken with Faststone Image Viewer showing original *.ARW file (left) and Xara *.jpg (right)

1. Viewing the *arw file in Zoner Photo Studio the file is apparently 4912 x 2760 which is about 16:9 which is what the photo is supposed to have been shot at. Xara has resized it to 4928 x 3276 which is probably what the camera actually shot, and is about 3:2. Not sure why that is. Can anyone explain?

2. The only editing done was a "Photo Heal" to remove the offending overhead wire. What is also very obvious is that Xara thinks the picture is much brighter than it was. IS this something I have done (or NOT done)?

I know Xara's tools can easily darken it up again, but should it need to .... Why did the exposure change so drastically?

Thanks.

[gwpriester]

In Xara use the Photo Tools > Brightness Levels Dialog and press Auto. This uses the image's white point setting (or something, to be honest I don't know exactly how it does it) to analyze the photo and corrects the saturation and brightness to what it thinks they should be.

[steve.ledger]

Not sure who can help me here, but I have some issues. I dropped a Sony RAW file into Xara to edit a overhead wire that was in the picture.

Two things became immediately apparent - Compare taken with Faststone Image Viewer showing original *.ARW file (left) and Xara *.jpg (right)

Not sure if you know this, but Faststone will display the embedded JPG first. To view the RAW you need to then press 'A' on the keyboard.
IOW: Becuase Faststone shows the embedded JPG, the image already has the camera's settings baked in. RAW does not, and as Xara doesn't load the embedded JPG first, hence the difference.
However, having said that - Xara is a poor choice for RAW editing, I completely avoid it. If you can't afford Lightroom to process RAW, then I'd use Zoner instead, but never Xara.

1. Viewing the *arw file in Zoner Photo Studio the file is apparently 4912 x 2760 which is about 16:9 which is what the photo is supposed to have been shot at. Xara has resized it to 4928 x 3276 which is probably what the camera actually shot, and is about 3:2. Not sure why that is. Can anyone explain?

RAW does not take any notice of your camera settings, inclusive of aspect ratio and resolution. The sensor is 3:2 ratio and that's what you'll get as RAW.
The embedded JPG will be whatever you set.

[ss-kalm]

Thanks Steve.

I didn't know that about Faststone, I'll check it when I get home. The editing was just to remove the overhead line, and Xara did it well. Zoner not too well. However, I've been editing the photo's generally in Cyberlink Photo Director 5, which I think is a very nice piece of software for the price (free). However, Cyberlink also shows the RAW file as 4912 x 2760. This again only exports as JPG or TIFF, so it probably is dealing with the JPG and not RAW.

I think I'd figured out that the RAW ignored the camera settings.

The picture is one taken by a friend, and we were doing some experimentation with it.

If he's shooting RAW then is there any point setting his camera on 16:9 .... I suspect that the reason we had to edit the overhead line in the first place, was that it didn't show in the viewfinder at 16:9 setting. Although maybe he just didn't notice it.

No I can't afford Lightroom - Since you wouldn't use Xara to edit RAW, is it a good choice to edit JPG's?

[steve.ledger]

Thanks Steve.

I didn't know that about Faststone, I'll check it when I get home. The editing was just to remove the overhead line, and Xara did it well. Zoner not too well. However, I've been editing the photo's generally in Cyberlink Photo Director 5, which I think is a very nice piece of software for the price (free). However, Cyberlink also shows the RAW file as 4912 x 2760. This again only exports as JPG or TIFF, so it probably is dealing with the JPG and not RAW.

I'm not sure how PD5 is working, but I suspect it loads the RAW and reads the meta data of the camera JPG settings.

If he's shooting RAW then is there any point setting his camera on 16:9 ....

No point at all unless you set the camera to save RAW+JPEG, then the JPG will be 16:9
I never used RAW+JPEG with my Pentax cameras because the embedded JPG is full (set) size.
(Some cameras such as the Ricoh GR have only small embedded JPGs, much less useful)

Since you wouldn't use Xara to edit RAW, is it a good choice to edit JPG's?

Not for me.

[ss-kalm]

I'm not sure how PD5 is working, but I suspect it loads the RAW and reads the meta data of the camera JPG settings.

I suspect you're right. I discussed that very point with my friend last night.

I thought that Xara does quite a good job with JPG's .... Not found anything quite as effective as the photo heal tool to remove wires etc. so it works for me. Zoner's tools are fairly comprehensive, but I think I prefer Xara for somethings.

I also tried out Raw Therapee (Open Source) last night. That seems like it may be a really powerful editor too. I think overall though that I may end up using a few different editors to different tasks. As long as the final product works that works for me.