RAW pictures in IrfanView and PhotoShop CS6 differ

[Submarine]

Hello,

My problem is that the RAW pictures that I open in Irfanview and PhotoShop differ. Meaning that the RAW pics opened by IrfanView are more saturated (which is nice) than opening the same RAW file in PS CS6 (Looks washed out). But if I batch process the RAW pictures to JPG and open them in PS then the picture is the same on PS as on JPG (With the nice saturated colours).

This has been bothering me for a long time because sometimes the JPG image is fine if I make some small corrections but once opened on ps I need to change a lot to get the thing I want.

I have read a lot of forums about similar problems but could not fix my issue.

Please help!

PS. using Irfanview 4.36, PhotoShop CS6,
Camera: Canon eos70d, Windows XP

Down here you can see the difference.

[jazzman]

RAW files contain the data as they are recorded by the camera sensor. They differ between camera maker and even between camera models of the same maker. RAW files themselves aren't displayable images. The programs (IrfanView, CS6, etc.) need to convert/interpret them in order to display.
There is no single "correct" conversion. Deriving an image fromthe RAW file involves demosaicing (see links below), white balance, contrast, sharpening, etc.
Especially the in-camera parameters of the shot that are included in the RAW file may go into the conversion.

Different photo viewers use different algorithms for this and will come to different results, a bit like sending your images to different labs for printing.

See here for in-depth explanations:

https://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/camera-sensors.htm

https://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/RAW-file-format.htm

[Submarine]

Well... does that mean there is no chance set up settings to make the the picture look the same between Irfan and ps?

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

If you want to edit RAW photos use a suitable program.

IrfanView is excellent just for viewing them quickly.

[Jacal]

As said, image viewers by default only display the embedded jpeg preview images, included in raw photos. Many viewers can be set to actually render the raw file, which is much slower and not really useful. In IrfanView, this can be enabled in Settings/PlugIns. IV's raw plugin is, as far as I know, based on the open-source dcraw, like many others are. But you have no control over the process and the photos get converted to 8-bit per channel colour space, unuseful for raw photo editing. To view the actual raw file, multiple external raw editors can be configured and used. (10 external editors can be set in IrfanView.)

The picture will only look the same between PS and Lightroom, since they are both using the same rendering engine, Adobe Camera Raw.

Raw editor, provided by your camera manufacturer, will provide something very close to in-camera jpegs.

Every raw editor, commercial or open-source, will render a raw photo in a different way. Raw photos are not images, they have to be decoded, demosaiced etc., before they can be displayed as pictures.

With it's Neutral profile, RawTherapee provides the most neutral interpretation of raw photos, that I know. One can even turn the demosaicing off temporarily, for analysis. Commercial programs are doing many more things under the hood, that the user can not control.

An useful article from RawTherapee's manual: Eek! My Raw Photo Looks Different than the Camera JPEG