To Use RAW or Not

[table1349]

Hey people,
I have been reading in my photography books the past couple of days about the RAW format and I was wondering should I be using RAW format? I am getting used to processing my photos after the fact of taking them (I used to just think they should turn out looking great lol) and I was wondering if I do put them in RAW format will it be easier and better when fixing them up and such?

Thanks for the help!

I am going to take a little different tack on the subject. What are you shooting for. Is this a business or a hobby and what do you want to achieve? A large amount of people like wedding photographers that do this for a living use JPG. They do not have nor do they want to take the time to post process. Most have gotten pretty good at what they do and get most of the shots right or at least close enough to make them sellable.

Me, this is a hobby. I shoot in raw exclusively. I want to post process my photos to achieve the very best result possible. If you have the time and the inclination you should seriously consider shooting raw.

 

[WDodd]

I would be interested to hear what everyone's RAW work flow is if anyone wanted to share.

 

[PPAAUULL]

I am going to take a little different tack on the subject. What are you shooting for. Is this a business or a hobby and what do you want to achieve? A large amount of people like wedding photographers that do this for a living use JPG. They do not have nor do they want to take the time to post process. Most have gotten pretty good at what they do and get most of the shots right or at least close enough to make them sellable.

Me, this is a hobby. I shoot in raw exclusively. I want to post process my photos to achieve the very best result possible. If you have the time and the inclination you should seriously consider shooting raw.

For me it is a hobby and I do wish to get the best looking picture I possibly can. by the way how long does it usually take you guys to process one photo on the computer to get it to a final copy?

 

[aMac]

The processing time is really how much you personally want to spend tweaking all the raw controls, trying to tease the best out of an image you like. So how long an image takes is up to you and when you decide you're finished with it. It's not the kind of processing you normally associate with using computers like rendering or applying a complex filter. Except when you want to batch convert a lot of raw images to jpg anyway. Then you'll have to wait for the computer to do its business.

But anyway, you could spend anything from a quick 30 seconds adjusting the exposure of a shot, to 10-15 minutes playing with the levels, white balance and exposure, trying to get the most out of your shadows and highlights for example.

 

[aMac]

Oh, as for workflow, I use Aperture to process all my images. I'll import the whole card into a new project and I'll quickly view them one by one. Any shots that catch my eye, I'll quickly give them a 1 star rating (hit the 1 key) so that I can come back and tell Aperture to show all the images with 1 star rating and above. Now I can go through the images again after cutting out some of the chaff, and this is when I'll start tweaking the raw setting, which is normally exposure control and using the Shadows and Highlights tool to bring back a little detail into shadows when I need to.

Now I have the option of going though all the images again, giving ones I like out of those a 2 star rating, and repeating the process till I've got my real favourites picked out. Now I've got a range scale of quality and quantity I can use to either batch convert or deal with pictures individually.

I've been meaning to try Lightroom but so far just haven't got around to it.

 

[WDodd]

I use Lightroom, I actually just upgraded to 1.1, but it takes me just a couple minutes to get my photos into lightroom and from there it depends on the picture as to what I'm going to do with it.

But to convert to a .jpeg from lightroom takes just a couple seconds.

Shooting raw doesn't really seem to add anything to my work flow thats why I ask. I would still import my pictures into lightroom if I had shot them in jpeg.

 

[Alex_B]

But compared to jpeg is the image tweaking in photoshop better? Do you end up with a better product at the end?

if you do it properly, you end up with a better result. especially with images where exposure is a problem, or if you need better white balance .. and much more as stated above.

 

[ANDS!]

Yea I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that if youre not a "pro" - and you are using this as a hobby at this time, that shotting in RAW format isn't going to be that big of a deal for you. Maybe eventually when you feel like doing pro work where you need the ability to fine tune EVERYTHING in the final product, sure (and I've seen examples of taking a seemingly "good" photo, and working the kinks out) - but at this point, just get comfortable shooting period. I garauntee youre not going to notice a difference in the kind of shots your getting now shooting in RAW versus JPEG-Fine or JPEG-Normal.

 

[hudsonp]

I have shot RAW almost exclusively since getting RAW Shooter Essentials.

Is this the one you are using?

http://www.photo-freeware.net/raw-shooter-essentials.php

or something else?

 

[sabbath999]

RAW uses no compression - just pure information recorded by the sensor

Not true, I am afraid... I don't know about Canons, but I know Nikon's NEF format IS compressed... it is just considered "lossless" compression.

 

[hawee99]

is there a plug in for photoshop 7.0 for RAW?

 

[ANDS!]

Camera Raw is Photoshops RAW support software. It's actually pretty damn spiffy. It is intigrated in CS3 if I'm not mistaken.

 

[mschroeder]

is there another similar program like lightroom that is cheaper or free?

 

[WDodd]

is there a plug in for photoshop 7.0 for RAW?

I actually have Camera Raw for Photoshop 8.0 (CS) and it doesn't support the RAW files generated by my XT. I'm sure there is the correct file but I just can't find it. Its hard for the older versions like 7 and 8. CS3's camera raw file is readily available though.

 

[PPAAUULL]

I can't believe it though. I went looking for Free software to look at the raws and such. I found a couple but unfortunately Adobe bought them out and the 'suggest' there $200 freaking dollar program instead!!!! That pisses me right off!!!!