shooting raw?

[fsimcha]

I'm new at dslr and have been hearing a lot about shooting and editing raw. What does that mean and how do.I know if I am shooting in raw or not? Also, why do I want to (or not) shoot and edit raw? Thanks a bunch!

 

[Light Guru]

There has already been SO SO SO SO SO SO SO much said on this both here on this forum and all over the internet.

Have you done a search?

 

[tirediron]

It's also explained in your camera's manual.

 

[table1349]

Let me google that for you

 

[KmH]

The issue boils down to bit-depth, and how bit-depth relates to image editing.

Check out this group of tutorials - Photo Editing Tutorials

A Raw image data file is like a film negative in that a Raw file is not a finished image and has to be developed.

JPEG is designed to be a straight-out-of-the-camera (SOOC), ready-to-print file that will have no additional editing done to it.

 

[ABJayce]

I'm new at dslr and have been hearing a lot about shooting and editing raw. What does that mean and how do.I know if I am shooting in raw or not? Also, why do I want to (or not) shoot and edit raw? Thanks a bunch!

Like it was said earlier Raw is like a film negative. When shooting in RAW the camera saves all the data/details of the photo. But RAW files will need to be processed further to make them look the best as they can be and a lot more can be done with RAW images. To shoot in RAW you will need to change the mode to RAW in your Camera's menu. Usually under the shooting menu something along the lines of image quality or something. You will know that you're shooting in RAW when you look at the file extensions, instead of being a jpeg they will be an NEF file. I mostly shoot in raw, especially if they are pictures I know I will edit such as if I'm doing a shoot or an assignment or something. If I have my camera out with my friends and just lounging around I switch to jpeg because I won't waste time processing pictures like that.

 

[Tiller]

Let me google that for you

How do you do that?

 

[EIngerson]

Are you good now?

 

[Snowtographer]

Let me google that for you

How do you do that?

Let me Google that for you

Sorry, couldn't help myself.

 

[EIngerson]

Are you good NOW?

 

[kathyt]

It's also explained in your camera's manual.

Be nice tirediron. Don't make me lock this thread.

 

[greybeard35 7]

Raw vs JPEG is a like a "odd sock" it just won't go away.....lol.

My Experience:
First of all, you can shoot in JPEG and your shots can look great and no one will ever know that you didn't shoot them Raw. When you shoot in JPEG the camera takes the Raw image data and processes it for you. It adjust the WHITE BALANCE to whatever you have your camera set to (usually AUTO). It adds SHARPENING and NOISE REDUCTION and many cameras add LENS CORRECTION to correct for distortion and abortions inherent in whatever lens you are using. It then strips away all the data it decides to be unnecessary and creates a JPEG file and deletes the Raw data. This JPEG file is only a fraction of the size of the RAW data file. You can then take that file and edit it with a pretty much any photo editing software.

Shooting Raw simply means having the camera save the RAW data to the camera card and not go through the process of creating a JPEG. You have to put the camera card into the computer, save it to a folder and, use a program like Light Room to view it. The program won't edit the Raw file but will let you create an editable .tif or .JPG file that you can then do all sorts of fancy editing. Anyway, now that you have your Raw file in the computer and are using some sort of editing software, you can adjust the white balance, sharpening, noise reduction, and lens correction as well as crop, straighten, and a whole host of other editing I won't go into now. The real advantage of shooting Raw is that you have control over the process and not the camera. It is much easier to correct a bad white balance with a Raw file than it is with a JPEG because no real white balancing has been added to the Raw file, it is simply the (raw) data straight from the camera.

In the final result how much better will pictures look if you shoot in Raw? That depends on you and how well you manually do all the things the camera is not doing. In my case I have my D7000 setup to save the Raw file to one card and the JPEG file to the other. I usually like the ones that I've corrected myself better than the ones that the camera corrected.

Some will tell you that there is more color information in a RAW file but, I haven't seen it in my prints other than subtle tone differences that don't really amount to much. So my advice is to try both and decide for yourself if Raw is worth the extra effort. Photography for me is not my job but it is one of my passions. I do it to help me keep my sanity in the crazy world. Shooting Raw makes perfect sense for me as it gets me more involved in the process and takes me away from some of the things that make me crazy.....lol.

good luck and keep shooting.

 

[KmH]

It then strips away all the data it decides to be unnecessary and creates a JPEG file and deletes the Raw data. This JPEG file is only a fraction of the size of the RAW data file. You can then take that file and edit it with a pretty much any photo editing software.

Well sort of. First. Decisions about what is or isn't stripped away as unnecessary for a JPEG were made long ago by the Joint Photographic Experts Group. JPEG - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

While digital cameras make Raw files having a 12-bit or 14-bit color depth. JPEG is limited to having an 8-bit color depth.
Because of the limited bit-depth, JPEGs have very little editing headroom. Some poorly made in the camera JPEGs have no editing headroom at all.

None of the original luminosity data is stripped away, because we humans need that information. What we don't need in the final image is all the colors, which is why JPEG can have an 8-bit color depth.
In addition to reducing the bit depth, JPEG also locks groups of image pixels into 8x8, 8x16, and or 16x16 pixel groups which are known a Minimum Coded Units or MCU's.

Limiting the bit depth to 8-bits, and creating the MCU's is the 'compression' that makes JPEG files smaller in size. (Note: image size is not affected, and no pixels are discarded.)

The reduced bit depth and the MCU's make the editing of JPEGs problematic, particularly when a scene has smooth gradients, like a cloudless sky. Posterization and banding are common JPEG editing artifacts seen in smooth gradients after an edit has been applied.

 

[greybeard35 7]

It then strips away all the data it decides to be unnecessary and creates a JPEG file and deletes the Raw data. This JPEG file is only a fraction of the size of the RAW data file. You can then take that file and edit it with a pretty much any photo editing software.

Well sort of. First. Decisions about what is or isn't stripped away as unnecessary for a JPEG were made long ago by the Joint Photographic Experts Group. JPEG - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Yes, very similar to the difference between a .WAV and .MP3 audio file. Shooting in JPEG is a lot like recording something in MP3. It sounds fine but doesn't take heavy editing well.

 

[480sparky41 40]

Yes, very similar to the difference between a .WAV and .MP3 audio file. Shooting in JPEG is a lot like recording something in MP3. It sounds fine but doesn't take heavy editing well.

Another analogy is ordering a sandwich at a restaurant. JPEG is the sandwich the waitress brings you. Raw is being able to take you sandwich back into the kitchen, change the wheat bread for rye, add some tomatoes, take off the sauce, pile more meat on, remove half the pickles......... and change your coffee to decaf.