TIFF vs RAW (CR2)

[langman78]

A question I've mean meaning to ask for years.
Is there a significant advantage over processing RAW files over TIFF?
My cracked version of photoshop 6 (plz spare me the lectures of using an illegal copy folks) won't open my CR2 files. I've always just converted to a 16 bit TIFF file and gone from there.
Reluctant to try a plugin as it may stop my photoshop from working.
TIFF probably ok for general photography but when it comes to AP.....as most of you are aware, it's an entirely different ball game.
And to save me from posting another thread, just curious about what format is it best to save your completed processed image? I know the golden rule of thumb is to always keep your RAW for future tweaking (of course assuming you can open RAW in photoshop) but I guess let's just say your 100% happy and you know no future processing will occur....are you best just to save as a jpeg or TIFF?
Tutorials I've seen and read have had folks save in TIFF format after processing. If you ditch the original RAW and keep the TIFF....can you achieve the same processing adjustments of that compared to a RAW if you choose to process again? I'm also lead to believe and correct me if I'm wrong that printed TIFF images are superior to that of jpeg visually, especially when it comes to cropped images.
Thanks for reading folks and any feed back would be appreciated.
Ben

[skysurfer]

You can use Adobe Raw Converter (free download from adobe), which converts .cr2 to .dng pictures, which can be preprocessed as a raw image in Photoshop.
I did this successfully with psd 6 but now I upgraded to PSD CC 2018.

[rcheshire]

16 bit tiff is fine for astrophotography, as a rule, unless you have special requirements. The converted tiffs will be OK to use over again. Hang on to the raw files anyway...



Don't know about printing... :question:

[ZeroID]

DSS creates TIFF files as normal output. Rest of processing is done as TIFF.

[luka]

TIFF uses lossless compression and it also supports 16- and 32-bit colour depth. Converting from RAW to TIFF may lead to loss of shooting metadata (camera info, lense info etc) but you should not lose any of the image data. So it should not matter if you use RAW or TIFF, assuming a proper conversion is done, i.e. to 16-bit TIFF.

Regarding the printing, JPG compression is lossy, i.e. the quality is degraded to reduce the image size. The compression/loss factor is adjustable but some image detail is always lost. TIFF on the other side has a larger file size but always retains the detail. Hence it will look and print better.

[Regulus]

Skysurfer's tip on converting to DNG is good, but really, TIFF is fine.
But search for the latest Adobe Camera RAW, or at least Adobe Camera RAW 9.12, this may fix the problem.

[Atmos]

As has been mentioned, TIFF is fine as it can record accurately in 16-bit lossless. TIFF records all 16-bits in the RGB colour channels which is why the files are so damned big. RAW files save in monochrome and contain the EXIF data and the interpolation information which is why they are so much smaller than TIFFs but contain as much information.

[langman78]

Thanks for the intel folks.
Haven't done any processing for a long time. I actually forgot DSS saved as a TIFF after stacking.
I'll have a crack at trying the RAW plug in but I guess only really necessary for general photography. I'll be sure to have a look st DNG also :)