It's a Lot Prettier than it Looks in the Photo - I Swear!

If you've been following me you know that I'm working on a big quilting project this year.  My 2016 Modern Sampler uses a range of fabrics from yellow to green to blue.

I'm sticking with one color for each block (all blue-greens for example).

When I started working on the yellow-green blocks I ran into trouble.  Photography trouble.  That pretty mustard fabric with the silver spiders was looking baby-poop green in photos.  No matter how I manipulated it in photoshop I just couldn't get it to work.

Yuck!  See what I mean?  And this was the best I could get after a lot of manipulation.

Luckily I live with an expert on digital imaging.  I asked dad-to-the-Empress what I should do and the answer was so simple!

Now if you're a better photographer than me you probably know this already.   But if you're like me - just a quilter who wants to take pretty photos and knows just enough Photoshop to be dangerous - this is new information.

All I had to do was import the RAW image into Photoshop instead of a JPG.  I had to set my camera to save both RAW and JPGs.  On my camera (a Nikon) the file is called an NEF file.  It's an uncompressed image so no information is lost.  I also had to update Photoshop so the software could recognize my file.

The result?  An image that was almost perfect!  I tweaked the brightness a bit but that's it.  Wow what a difference!  From now on I'm starting with the RAW file instead of a JPG.

For more information (from actual experts):

Nikon Electronic Format (from Nikon USA)

RAW Image Format (Wikipedia)