Make My RAW Image Look More Like a JPEG?

Click on the Camera Calibration icon (it’s the third one from the right) beneath the histogram, and go through the different profiles in the Camera Profile pop-up menu to find the one that looks the most like your JPEG file. Why would you want your RAW image to look like a JPEG image? It’s because JPEG images, in the camera, are sharpened, and more contrasty, and more colorful, and they all have this stuff added in-camera to make them look great. When you switch your camera to shoot in RAW mode, you’re telling it to turn all that sharpening, and contrast, and stuff off, and just give you the RAW photo (so you can add your own amount of sharpening, etc., using Lightroom or Photoshop, or whatever). So, your images look flatter when you shoot in RAW. What’s worse is, even though you’re shooting in RAW, your camera still shows you the nice, colorful, sharp JPEG preview on the back LCD, so you only see the flat version once you’re in Camera Raw. By the way, the way I find a profile that most looks like the JPEG preview is to take a few shots in RAW + JPEG mode (so your camera creates both a fully processed JPEG photo and the more flat-looking RAW image at the same time). Open both of those images in Camera Raw, then click on the RAW image in the filmstrip and try out the different profiles, and then compare it to the JPEG until you find the one profile that looks the most like the JPEG. You can then save that as a preset (see page 70) and apply that look to your RAW images with just one click.