help with raw

photoguy67

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I am a long time film/print user and just starting to get into digital. I have read article upon article about the advantages of shooting raw but my question is, I don't know much (VERY little) about photoshop or light room. Would it still benefit me to shoot raw since I don't know how to properly manipulate the image? Also where is a good place to learn the digital editing?
Thanks everyone for your kind and honest replies.
 
I am a long time film/print user and just starting to get into digital. I have read article upon article about the advantages of shooting raw but my question is, I don't know much (VERY little) about photoshop or light room. Would it still benefit me to shoot raw since I don't know how to properly manipulate the image? Also where is a good place to learn the digital editing?
Thanks everyone for your kind and honest replies.

Hi there!

If you really never every want to use Lightroom or Photoshop: Ok, shoot in JPEG - no need to shoot in RAW.

BUT please read:
I strongly, strongly recommend you familiarize yourself with how to process RAW images. Its not as difficult as it might sound and will give you a complete new dimension in your photography!

Start on youtube and sear for "Lightroom for beginners".

Enjoy photography!
Andreas
 
My suggestion would be to shoot in RAW+JPG; that way when you do learn more about digital image manipulation, you can come back to images that you've shot and take full advantage of all the extra "stuff" you can do to a raw image.
 
Lightroom offers a pretty good interface to handle/catalog/edit/output RAW camera files. I would start learning about lightroom by watching some good videos about the program.

Lightroom offers the ability to easily scroll through what are called presets, and then to one-click apply presets to the raw images. presets can be modified with the sliders, and custom-tuned for the desired effect. A saved preset can also be saved, for future re-use.

While learning, I think it's handy to use the command create virtual copy on a RAW file, so that you can work on multiple versions of the image, and click through and see them all, one after another.



Here is a 4:53 video by fashion shooter Lindsay Adler, on how to use presets.
 
Yup, you can learn RIGHT FROM YOUR CAMERA!

Capture both raw and jpeg. Try to edit the raw files to be similar to what the software engineers have decided you will like. When you can duplicate that look, then make it something else that isn't what the camera came up with.
 
I don't use photoshop much and don't use lightroom. I always shoot RAW. I do almost all of my adjustment in Nikon View NX2.
 
I failed to think of the right searches for youtube, I was coming up with a lot of videos showing you what you can do, but none showing you how to do it. I will try your suggestions. Thanks so much everyone.
 
There are some workshop online that could help you out. Check out the Scot Kelbys stuff online.
 
I'd recommend getting

The Digital Negative Raw Image Processing in Lightroom Camera Raw and Photoshop Jeff Schewe 9780321839572 Amazon.com Books

Great book. Also search youtube, loads of practical videos on there.

Lightroom is pretty easy to learn, has a great workflow and is pretty user friendly too. There's loads of stuff that you can pick up online so you can pretty much self learn it pretty easily.

Photoshop is harder but it's a massivley powerful program and there are also loads of info online
 
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
When I first started using LightRoom I would click the Auto for exposure.
Then I would check what it changed
Then I would Undo the Auto
and change each setting that it changed to see how each one worked.
after a while start changing other settings, etc.
takes some getting used to but the end result is rewarding.


Just learning how to use lightroom was a head banger to me. (Library Import, Collections and the entire workflow thing). But over time it started making more and more sense. Now, I can whiz through it and make some good changes to photos.
 

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