To those who shoot in raw...

[cszakolczai]

what is everyones recommendation for editing software for RAW images? Is Adobe Photoshop Lightroom good? I have Adobe Photoshop 7 but I'm assuming this doesn't adequately handle RAW images... am I correct in my thinking?

 

[deudeu]

I always shoot raw as well. Delete the boring stuff, convert the okay pictures to jpeg, and keep the special ones as a raw file and/or convert as tiff to be printed.
Converting a file from raw to jpeg takes a whole 7 seconds, it is not that big of a deal.

 

[dadCameraGuy]

buy Aperture (if you have a mac) or lightroom to manage your RAW - then you always have the original and all edits are saved automatically in other files. Light years ahead of managing this stuff with your own brain.

I keep 3 backups - all externals. one backed up nightly, one weekly stored far away in the basement and one done monthly stored off site for fires/theft protection.

 

[deudeu]

buy Aperture (if you have a mac) or lightroom to manage your RAW - then you always have the original and all edits are saved automatically in other files. Light years ahead of managing this stuff with your own brain.

I keep 3 backups - all externals. one backed up nightly, one weekly stored far away in the basement and one done monthly stored off site for fires/theft protection.

On mac, I would actually recommend raw developer. It is a very good raw editing software, it is pretty cheap, has very good reviews and was designed especially for mac.
The only turn down would be the noise reduction algorithms that are not that great, but combined with noise ninja, i feel like you can't do much better!

 

[|)\/8]

I only shoot RAW. Shooting RAW gives you the most options and control over your images, so why would you want to shoot anything else? People seem to shy away from shooting RAW because it is another learning curve, but it is one worth getting over. When you press the shutter release do you not believe at that time your photo will be a keeper, I do. I know that is not reality, but to put it in "gunning" terms, I don't just spray and pray.

 

[anubis404]

raw makes your photos look better? If unprocessed my raw images are worse than my camera body produced JPG images.

Much more detail is preserved in RAW. That is what I meant to say. How the images looks is your opinion.

 

[anubis404]

what is everyones recommendation for editing software for RAW images? Is Adobe Photoshop Lightroom good? I have Adobe Photoshop 7 but I'm assuming this doesn't adequately handle RAW images... am I correct in my thinking?

I use Elements 6 and I love it so far.

 

[reg]

Much more detail is preserved in RAW. That is what I meant to say. How the images looks is your opinion.

I don't know what you mean by "more detail is preserved", but that's bordering on falsehood. You can recover a bit more, but you're not going to see more detail in the same photo, only difference being that one's the RAW and one's the jpg.

 

[anubis404]

I don't know what you mean by "more detail is preserved", but that's bordering on falsehood. You can recover a bit more, but you're not going to see more detail in the same photo, only difference being that one's the RAW and one's the jpg.

I've read everywhere that RAW preserves more detail, and seen picture comparisons everywhere from the internet from photography magazines. Even if this is untrue, the photoshop options you get far outweigh the advantages of JPG.

I prefer to process my images. I don't trust my camera .

 

[reg]

I've read everywhere that RAW preserves more detail, and seen picture comparisons everywhere from the internet from photography magazines.

Did you actually download the original RAW file and original jpg file and compare them?

the photoshop options you get far outweigh the advantages of JPG.

I prefer to process my images. I don't trust my camera .

That's beside the point. I shoot RAW, I think it's better, but it's not some magical format that makes my pictures have the detail of 8x10 sheet film. That's all I'm saying.

 

[anubis404]

Did you actually download the original RAW file and original jpg file and compare them?

I said I have seen comparisons. I have never done one myself.

That's beside the point. I shoot RAW, I think it's better, but it's not some magical format that makes my pictures have the detail of 8x10 sheet film. That's all I'm saying.

I was under the impression you shot JPG because you thought it looked nicer.

 

[reg]

I said I have seen comparisons. I have never done one myself.

So, in other words, by the time you saw it, it was ALL in jpg? Where's the comparison in that? Because you can't print RAW files, and AFAIK you can't see them in a browser either.


Either way, I'm not angry or upset or anything, just trying to figure this one out.

 

[anubis404]

So, in other words, by the time you saw it, it was ALL in jpg? Where's the comparison in that? Because you can't print RAW files, and AFAIK you can't see them in a browser either.


Either way, I'm not angry or upset or anything, just trying to figure this one out.

Never considered that. I guess I'll have to do my own tests.

 

[Joves]

I always shoot RAW+Jpeg. I toss out what I dont like. Storage is cheap as people have said. I have plenty of room on my drives if I didnt want to delete. I also backup every few cycles so I dont loose anything, just incase.