RAW Processing Quiz: Demosaicing and Tone Curves

Understand what happens between pressing the shutter and seeing your final image. This quiz covers demosaicing algorithms, white balance application, tone curves, and the complete RAW processing pipeline that turns sensor data into photographs.

Quiz 31: RAW Processing Pipeline and Demosaicing

Demosaicing converts:

JPEG to RAW

Bayer mosaic data into full color pixels

Color space to bit depth

Shutter speed to aperture

A key tradeoff in demosaicing is:

Exposure vs ISO

Detail vs false color artifacts

Focal length vs distortion

Flash vs ambient

Black level subtraction is used to:

Remove lens distortion

Remove sensor baseline offset before scaling

Increase saturation

Speed up autofocus

White balance in RAW processing is primarily:

A gain applied to channels

A crop tool

A sharpening step

A noise reduction step

Highlight reconstruction is easiest when:

All channels clipped

Only one channel clipped mildly

JPEG is used

ISO is maximum

Camera profiles primarily affect:

AF tracking

Color rendering and tone mapping

Lens focal length

Shutter lag

A tone curve mainly:

Changes exposure linearly

Maps scene linear values to display non linear contrast

Changes white balance

Fixes chromatic aberration

"Linear RAW" output implies:

Strong contrast baked in

Minimal tone curve, more scene-linear data preserved

JPEG compression

Only black and white

Sharpening is ideally applied:

Before demosaicing always

After demosaicing and after noise reduction (general workflow)

Only in camera

Only to shadows

Noise reduction applied too early/strong can:

Increase detail

Smear fine detail and texture

Improve autofocus

Expand dynamic range

"Color noise" primarily appears as:

Random brightness variation only

Random color speckles/blotches

Lens flare

Motion blur

A LUT (lookup table) is used to:

Change shutter speed

Map colors/tones for a look

Focus stack

Remove distortion

Gamma encoding is used because:

Sensors are gamma encoded

Human perception and displays are non linear

It increases megapixels

It removes noise

Clarity/microcontrast tools typically:

Increase local contrast at mid spatial frequencies

Change white balance only

Change ISO

Reduce distortion

A "camera matching profile" aims to:

Match a camera's JPEG look in RAW editor

Increase dynamic range

Improve focus

Reduce file size

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