Why can't BBpro update original raw image?

[nickdu]

Is there a reason why BBpro can't update the original raw image? I'm new to image editing and in the past just uploaded the jpeg images the camera produced. Now that I have a nicer camera I thought it would be a better idea to capture the raw image in case I wanted to make any adjustments afterwards. And I was even thinking that I would archive the raw images as opposed to the converted images. However I'm guessing this isn't the typical approach. Though for picture wide edits like exposure, white balance, etc. it seems as if it would be nice to be able to edit the original raw image. Is this not the case?

Nick

[ssim]

I'm going to comment on your workflow and leave the technical stuff for Chris to address.

The RAW file is akin to a negative in the film days. It is there to make your working copy of whatever output you want. My workflow in a nutshell is to take my RAW file and convert to 16bit psd files and then work on that file for anything that I want done to it. I do archive all of my RAW files to dvd and an external hard drive. If you convert a file in BB, quit and then open up BB again it does remember the settings that you used to convert it.

Typically no program that I know of actually changes the original raw file. It may appear they do but in reality they are only creating a set of conversion instructions that will be stored elsewhere.

By all means archive your RAW files. If you ever want to make a change to them you can. As I got better at RAW conversions I have gone back in time and redone many RAW files and got better results. It is a learning process. Make your changes to the file that you converted to, psd,tif,jpg.

[Chris Breeze]

BBPro has initial support for saving the raw conversion settings in a XMP sidecar file so that the same settings can be used again at a later date. Please see this thread for details:
http://www.breezesys.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2212