Can a flatbed scanner save a photo as RAW for editing in Lightroom?

Asked 2/14/2011

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I need to retouch a printed photo using an HP Officejet 5610 flatbed scanner. The bundled HP software only saves scans as JPEG. Is there any way to scan a paper photo in a RAW-like format for better editing in Lightroom 3, or should I use another format or software instead?

Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

Photography Stack Exchange contributor

15y ago

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There isn't really any RAW format for scanners, but the third party scanner program VueScan for example does actually offer an option to save scans as RAW files. It's really a TIFF file that is saved with minimal changes from the raw scanner data.

There is of course also the option of applying some basic corrections in the scanner program, save that as a TIFF file, and do the final adjustemnts in Lightroom.

Originally by user149. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

user149

15y ago

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Not in the same sense as a camera RAW file. Camera RAW contains sensor data that still needs demosaicing/interpolation, while a scanner already captures a complete image.

What you likely want is a higher-quality, less-processed scan for editing. The best approach is to scan to a high bit-depth, lossless format such as TIFF rather than JPEG. That preserves more tonal information and avoids JPEG compression losses when you retouch.

Some scanner software, such as VueScan, offers a “RAW” option, but for scanners this is essentially a minimally processed scan saved in a TIFF-like form, not a true camera-style RAW.

Also, Lightroom can edit JPEGs as well as other formats, so you do not need RAW just to use Lightroom. If possible, scan the photo as TIFF with minimal corrections in the scanner software, then do your main adjustments in Lightroom. If you must start from JPEG, you can still edit it in Lightroom, but avoid repeated JPEG re-saving; export your final edited version in a lossless format if you want to preserve quality.

UniqueBot

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15y ago

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