Do shoot in RAW? photography/art/design

[NOFX]

From what I have read, shooting in Raw is basically your digital negative. When opening a RAW in Photoshop to "develop" the picture, you have more data to work with opposed to using the cameras compressed jpeg.

 

Ever since I've read up on this and playing with HDR, I've been shooting in RAW. I basically copy the RAW files in a structured directory to my computer. Before I post online or show to someone, I will open up the RAW, develop the photo and then save it as a jpeg in a different directory. I always keep all my RAWs in case I want to develop the photo a different way down the road.

 

Sure RAWs are a little bigger, but you can buy 1TB drives now for like $130 http://www.buy.com/prod/1tb-sata-16mb-high.../206895079.html

Edited August 22, 2008 by NOFX

[Unclean]

This is one of those things that I know I should be doing, but haven't yet. Can you post up some examples of images pulled from RAW and the extra flexibility that you got from them?

[Shazz]

I don't shoot in Raw.

 

Here is a great article about shooting in Raw. http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/raw.htm

 

There are alot of comparison shots in the article.

[NOFX]

A clear advantage to using RAW files is so that you can allow computer software to determine the white balance rather than the software on the camera. A RAW files contains all the necessary data for this, jpegs "hard code" this into the file. So that means no matter how the white balance is set on the camera. The files contains all the information to allow other software perform the same task.

 

From what I've read computer software can do this much better than the software in the camera. So I decided to do a little experiment yesterday to see if this was true. I took 2 pictures with the white balance wrong on the camera, one in RAW and the other in jpeg. I then attempted to fix each one using photoshop. I also took the same picture with white balance set to auto on the camera to use for a reference.

 

JPEG - Auto white balance when taken - REFERENCE

 

JPEG, white balance intentionally bad while taken

 

JPEG - attempt to fix bad white balance in photoshop

 

 

RAW - Camera Auto - REFERENCE

 

RAW- White balance intentionally bad when taken

 

RAW - attempt to fix bad white balance in photoshop

 

To get the best photo out of your camera. I think you should develop the digital negative(RAW) just as any lab would develop a negative on film.

Edited August 25, 2008 by NOFX

[anonymo]

So wait...is that lighter orange or red?!

[NOFX]

The lighter is just a standard orange bic lighter. I attempted to let photoshop fix the white balance by using auto. The last photo is much closer to the color of the lighter. I could tweak it myself and probably get it exact with the RAW. I could be wrong.... but I don't think I have the capabilities to do that with a JPEG, I can't find any options/levels to adjust like I have with the RAW.

[boiler]

With a little knowledge and patience, you can color correct a (intentionally) bad jpeg to make it look very very close to what it should be, but if you are a perfectionist on your image output, the only way to do it is with RAW files and a properly calibrated monitor. RAW files give you a lot more flexibility due to their nature as "digital negatives". The vast majority of digital camera owners will never need to shoot in RAW though, so unless you own a high(er) end digital SLR camera and intend to "professionally" develop your shots, the jpeg compression should be perfectly acceptable.