Thank you for your post. i was getting very tired of a certain member constantly saying my images were 3 stops under exposed when they were clearly not, just like you have demonstrated.
I haven't seen anyone in this thread say your image was 3 stops underexposed. Can you post a link to the post or copy/paste the sentence along with its author?
the problem was is that when the L lossy compressed files were processed via ACR they had less fine detail ,texture and tonal information than the compressed file, size was very similar though.
Switching the y-axis to logarithmic certainly makes the data clearer visually. Yes, the clipping is clearer now. So really, I had only about 1/2 a stop of highlight headroom in the raw data reds and blues and no headroom in the greens in the original shot (_MG_1468) where the camera's histogram was beginning to show clipping.
Of course, extracting the encoded raw data and then processing that into a monochrome mosaic pattern is one early stage example of processing raw data into a viewable image. I could "extract" the encoded raw image data in other ways, with a text editor for example, but I wouldn't have a viewable image. A program which is capable of: extracting the encoded raw data, understanding what it represents, and processing (convert, transform, choose your word preference) the raw data into some type of recognizable image form is needed, if I want it to be viewable.
There are a number of steps contained in the raw processing pipeline to arrive at a full color (or monochrome) reconstruction of the recorded raw image data. The image can be viewed at various stages of processing. Thanks for sharing one example, which is a PNG file labeled as "raw" — but close enough for demonstration purposes. There are other examples at different stages which can be found elsewhere, such as in the PDF link I provided.
The posted "raw" image that I was referring to was essentially completely processed except for a few adjustments to white balance and tone to present a more normal appearance. It does open the door to the question of: just how raw is the raw image you see displayed when you're processing it in your favorite raw processing app?
sony has added 3 more raw compression formats LL LM LS for my a74. just did another test with 3 of them .uncompressed, L lossy compressed, compressed. and even at 3000 % with raw ,psd, jeg from raw i couldnt tell the images apart.
"RAW files are image files that contain uncompressed and unprocessed image data, allowing you to capture practically every detail seen from the camera image sensor." -- www.sony.com/electronics/support/articles/00024655