Bad Reason to Shoot Raw, but Impressive

[Trever1t]

I've pulled plenty an image but that is extreme. Please do share your basic method. You managed to keep it looking real.

 

[Ysarex]

I'm trying to figure out how this shows it's a bad reason to shoot RAW, and why it was not a good reason to save that RAW.

Seems to me that this shows exactly the opposite.

Because you shouldn't save raw files just in case you need to pull one out of the fire

Why not?

I dunno Joe's reasoning, but for me, (while I may often employ this tactic), RAW should not be used as a crutch for poor photography and you should not be lazy and sloppy with your exposures knowing you can pull them out in post. (Or maybe, Joe just doesn't want everybody to send him their poorly exposed files for his recovery operations.)

Gary

PS- Good job on the processing. I guess the buck stops with you.
G

Basically yes. I think it also occurred to me to phrase it that way because I spend too much time on these internet photo forums and when ever the raw versus JPEG topic comes up someone usually throws out the cheap shot; "I don't need to shoot raw to cover over my mistakes. I get it right SOOC." And that really drives me nuts.

Joe

 

[Ysarex]

I've pulled plenty an image but that is extreme. Please do share your basic method. You managed to keep it looking real.

I am curious how these get recovered. In aperture I am limited to two stops. Is there a tutorial?

Adobe (ACR/LR) does provide a 5 stop exposure adjustment and actually does a very good job with this photo. But because of the noise I also looked at both PhotoNinja and DxO as options. DxO touts their new "prime" noise filtering as state-of-the-art but for this image I wasn't sold and I settled on PhotoNinja (includes a 3 stop exposure adjustment) but also includes NoiseNinja which I think edged out ACR/LR but only by a hair -- color noise processing was better with NoiseNinja and although the Luminance noise was splotchier than ACR/LR I thought NoiseNinja made a better compromise detail/noise overall.

So with PhotoNinja's 3 stop exposure adjustment I had to raise the brightness further and white balance the photo -- otherwise it's the noise processing. When I prepared the screen res version to post here I only sharpened to buck and less than normally because of the noise.

Joe

 

[480sparky]

There's a huge difference between, "I shoot raw so I don't have to worry about exposing images correctly" and "I shoot raw, in part, because life comes at me fast and I may not have my camera set up correctly for the shot that presents itself so fast and fleetingly I won't have time to change settings on the camera."

 

[Derrel]

You know the old saying:

"RAW? Did you day RAW? Why, them's fightin' letters!! Grrrr!"