I shot in RAW now what??

Compared to most other digital photography accessories hard drive space is cheap. Top of the line, name brand hard drives are going for less than $0.50 a gigabyte. That's less than half the price of quality CD-Rs.
 
ksmattfish said:
Compared to most other digital photography accessories hard drive space is cheap. Top of the line, name brand hard drives are going for less than $0.50 a gigabyte. That's less than half the price of quality CD-Rs.

good point. Also if you are worried about loosing files on a harddrive you could always buy 2 (200GB for example) and use raid to mirror the files so you'll have a copy even if a harddrive fails. Try that with CDs and the every persistent rot. Not to mention who wants to keep 200 CD's worth of pictures around to then have to sort through when you can do it on a harddrive and just use the search function on your computer to find what you want (if you label well enough).
 
Thanks everyone... this actually turned out to be a very informative thread. The article about the advantages and disadvantages of RAW was very good. I learned a lot about it and the reason why you wanna use RAW. I am still not 100% on the process from RAW to JPEG. I think you just have to play with it in Photoshop or something to get what you want.. My problem is when I edit a picture in Photoshop, I usually make it worst :-(
But I guess that comes with practice!!!
I am going to take a Photoshop course in the Fall..
 
xfloggingkylex said:
Not to mention who wants to keep 200 CD's worth of pictures around to then have to sort through when you can do it on a harddrive

.....dual layer DVD's helloooo?? 8 gigs a piece. I have 2, 4 gig cards. They fill up I burn a disk and label it intelligently. Just have to stay on top of the workload.
 
All this makes me question whether I am processing my pictures correctly. When I shoot in RAW (which is usually) I don't do anything to the image until I have converted in into TIFF using the conversion software that was bundled with my Canon. Then I go into Photoshop and make the adjustments. Should I be looking to do some processing on the RAW image BEFORE I convert into TIFF (and then finally in JPG)?
 
10MB RAW? I shoot in raw with a 6mp D50 and my files are under 6mb each. How are you guys getting 10-17mb raw files? As for disk space if its a concern why not shoot in raw, do you editing in raw save to JPEG and delete the raw file, its not that hard to delete a file and shooting in Raw will alow for more leeway in computer editing.
 
Fiendish... definately do your editing in RAW mode if that's what you're taking the picture in. RAW mode doesn't 'destroy' the image each time you edit it. If you've got the computer power raw is simply amazing to work with. Especially for fireworks like the original poster said they were using it for. I got the most amazing firework photos from my first time shooting raw. It's soooo flexible!!

Why do you convert your photo from Raw to tiff then to Jpeg?
So long as you're not planning on editing the jpeg/tiff again after you save it, then it's pretty safe to cut one of these steps out. Just keep your original raw, your edited raw and a web friendly jpeg.
 
Fiendish Astronaut said:
All this makes me question whether I am processing my pictures correctly. When I shoot in RAW (which is usually) I don't do anything to the image until I have converted in into TIFF using the conversion software that was bundled with my Canon. Then I go into Photoshop and make the adjustments. Should I be looking to do some processing on the RAW image BEFORE I convert into TIFF (and then finally in JPG)?

Thats up to you..... i would change white balance and exposure, if needed, in the RAW software...... once its in ps, you can use adjustment layers to alter your image how you want..... with no real difference from using RAW software.

D-50 said:
As for disk space if its a concern why not shoot in raw, do you editing in raw save to JPEG and delete the raw file, its not that hard to delete a file and shooting in Raw will alow for more leeway in computer editing.

I wouldn't choose this method..... deleting your RAW file is like throwing your film negatives in the bin.....
I would process the RAW.... edit and save in ps as a tiff or psd..... save a jpeg copy for the web..... once you've uploaded the jpeg to the web you can dispose of it..... but keep your RAW in case you go back and re-edit the pic..... and use a tiff to print from.

Meysha said:
definately do your editing in RAW mode if that's what you're taking the picture in. RAW mode doesn't 'destroy' the image each time you edit it.

Neither does editing a tiff in ps using adjustment layers ;)
 
Archangel said:
I would process the RAW.... edit and save in ps as a tiff or psd..... save a jpeg copy for the web..... once you've uploaded the jpeg to the web you can dispose of it..... but keep your RAW in case you go back and re-edit the pic..... and use a tiff to print from.
This is similar to what I do. I keep the RAW as the original, and the TIFF as the edited form. For me, the JPG is the least important one, since it has the least quality and can easily be recreated from the TIFF. I do almost no editing before converting from RAW. Since I work in b&w, I don't care about color balance. If the default has blown areas, I'll make special adjustments, but I usually batch convert. Keeping the TIFF is very important to me, since that's where all the work is, in case I want to go back and tweak it.

The end goal for me is a print, not just the web, so quality takes precedence over space.
 
Meysha said:
Why do you convert your photo from Raw to tiff then to Jpeg?
So long as you're not planning on editing the jpeg/tiff again after you save it, then it's pretty safe to cut one of these steps out. Just keep your original raw, your edited raw and a web friendly jpeg.

Thanks for the advice. The final stage is to convert to jpg because that's what I use to post the image online, plus storage issues. I once took some pictures for a band and when I came to cut the CD for them I could only fit jpg images on it! I guess I need the RAW plugin for Photoshop as it will only read TIFF files I believe.
 
I don't notice any difference when shooting raw or jpeg. I sometimes shoot raw with a jpeg copy. There's never a difference between the two. What am I missing about the greatness of raw?
 

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