RAW

[puyjapin]

Should I start shooting in RAW? What are the real advantages?

 

[inTempus]

Should I start shooting in RAW? What are the real advantages?

It really depends on what you want to do with your images.

I would say yes, always shoot in RAW. Even if you don't have a desire to tinker with the settings today, if you archive your images as you should, down the road you may decide to make some tweaks.

The benefit is that you can adjust exposure, color, tone, sharpening, etc. without loss of image quality. The only real downside to shooting RAW is that you'll almost always want to do PP to your images and the image files are quite a bit larger.

I shot in JPG maybe the first two days of owning a DSLR. I've been shooting RAW since.

 

[puyjapin]

i do a few adjustments to my jpegs in PP mainly just in picassa but ive got a trial version of PSE7. I have not noticed qualiy loss with my adjustments, perhaps im just not seeing them. So if i shoot in raw will PSE7 convert them?? or do i d load a converter? I assume its possible to view them in a normal image viewer?

 

[Samanax]

Should I start shooting in RAW?

You aren't shooting in RAW now?

What are the real advantages?

RAW vs JPEG

RAW vs JPEG: A Visual Comparison

So if i shoot in raw will PSE7 convert them??

Yes it will.

or do i d load a converter?

PSE 7 will load ACR (Adobe Camera RAW) automatically when you try to open a RAW file.

I assume its possible to view them in a normal image viewer?

Only if you already converted the RAW files to JPEG. Some image viewers will work with RAW files but not all...depends on the image viewer you use.

 

[Dantheman4334]

Should I start shooting in RAW? What are the real advantages?

yes, you should. the main advantage is there are so many more things you can change or adjust than with jpeg. If you are serious about photography, than raw is a must.

 

[manaheim]

Shoot in JPEG until one day you go "damn, why the heck did it do THAT?" Then when you realize why JPEG screwed you up, you'll know it's time to shoot in RAW in that situation.

There's nothing wrong with JPEG until you have an eye to see what's wrong with JPEG. Until that point, shooting in RAW may well drive you buggy.

However... RAW is unquestionably better overall and anyone that tells you different is smoking something really exceptionally cool.

 

[Mgw189]

Shoot in JPEG until one day you go "damn, why the heck did it do THAT?" Then when you realize why JPEG screwed you up, you'll know it's time to shoot in RAW in that situation.

There's nothing wrong with JPEG until you have an eye to see what's wrong with JPEG. Until that point, shooting in RAW may well drive you buggy.

However... RAW is unquestionably better overall and anyone that tells you different is smoking something really exceptionally cool.

Great advice. I have been shooting JPG for just over a year or so when this exact scenario happened to me. Its not that I didnt know how to use or process raw its just that I hadnt though that I needed to shoot raw until recently when I started getting more serious.

 

[manaheim]

Great advice. I have been shooting JPG for just over a year or so when this exact scenario happened to me. Its not that I didnt know how to use or process raw its just that I hadnt though that I needed to shoot raw until recently when I started getting more serious.

heh, yup. I didn't realize I needed raw until I took some pictures bathed in incadescant light.

 

[puyjapin]

so would i shoot raw, use PSE7 to convert to jpeg then process or open the raw file, process then save as a jpeg?. Do you mean some of the functions with PSE wont actually work with jpg?

 

[Samanax]

so would i shoot raw, use PSE7 to convert to jpeg then process or open the raw file, process then save as a jpeg?. Do you mean some of the functions with PSE wont actually work with jpg?

You would shoot in RAW> move the RAW file to your computer> open PSE 7 and then open the RAW file> ACR (Adobe Camera RAW) will open and you can do some editing at this point (white balance adjustment, exposure adjustment, straighten the horizon, etc...) and when you're done with those edits you can then send it to PSE 7 for further editing (using layers)> when you're done editing in PSE 7 you can then save the image file as a PSD file (the native Photoshop file format that keeps the layers so you can work on them later) or convert it to JPEG, TIFF or whatever you want to save it as.

 

[AUZambo]

The only downside to RAW is the amount of post-processing you have to do and the fact that they use about twice the space on your card. If I'm shooting for art or for something I may want to hang on my wall I use RAW. If I'm just snapping pictures of my family at Christmas time or something like that I use JPEG.

If you have a high capacity card or don't anticipate taking tons of pictures you can always shoot in Raw+JPG and get the best of both worlds.

 

[puyjapin]

so am i correct thinking that if i shoot raw the image has to have post process, other than just converting the file? meaning will the image look wrong with no PP. I have just taken a couple of trial RAW files and they look like the jpg on the camera screen

 

[Captain IK]

Rob,

THe way I understand it when you download a RAW image to your computer the computer or software has to "guess" at what it should look like so there is something to show on the screen. The beauty of RAW is that no image data is lost during this "guess" and you have a better opportunity to make adjustments to the image as you see fit, because you have more data to work with...as opposed to jpg where much of the data has already been deleted.

 

[Tayfun]

By shooting raw, you will also have the flexibility to adjust the white balance later, during PP. Of course you can adjust the settings on JPEG but will loose data. But you can adjust exposure about 1 stop lossless when you use RAW data.

Btw, I swithed to shoot JPEG from RAW shooting. I don't think that every shot have to be postprocessed. I shoot RAW (I can switch to RAW by one button thanks to Pentax K10D) if I feel that photo will gain a lot by PP. RAW takes more place in card so limits the space more.

Best
Tayfun

 

[Captain IK]

I shoot in RAw simply as a precaution (in case that one shot comes up that I need to do some major adjusting on), but realistically I do very little PP and most of the time simply end up converting the RAW image to JPEG.
Although the RAW images are substantially larger files, this doesn't pose a problem...for me at least.