I've been shooting mainly in RAW for the last few months and I've enjoyed the additional benefits of it, being able to have more control over the image in post-processing, but it's always been a "Well, that's nice, not Earth shattering but nice."
Today I went to a nearby country park and enjoyed seeing deers and the early signs of spring against the bright blue sky, snapping pictures as I wandered.
It wasn't until about 20 minutes of walking and snapping that I noticed some of my settings from yesterday were still set, notably I'd adjusted my eposure to a stop underexposed.
This actually benefited my shots in bright sunshine but those more in shade had suffered.
Today I've learnt how important RAW can be in correcting stupid mistakes!
It really can. I have been using photoshop for ... 13 years I think, and I could never achieve the subtle but lovely adjustments in plain old PS that I can in PS Camera Raw. So wonderful.
I love it. I know there is a time a place for either format, but once you learn how to control RAW, it's hard to give it up. Congrats on your new understanding!
Can someone explain what is the purpose of Lightroom? I mean I have Adobe PS CS5 and my raw pictures open up with the Adobe Camera Raw in Photoshop. After making adjustments in Camera Raw, I open and finish up in Photoshop. Do I still need Lightroom? Trying to figure out why do you need both PS and Lightroom. Am I missing something?
I've been shooting in RAW + jpg for over a year now, and while it makes my hard disk cry horribly, it really is so much better for editing and, as you say, correcting silly mistakes!
@ikamera Lightroom has a "Develop" section which is exactly the same as Adobe Camera Raw. So if you are using ACR + PS, there is no real benefit there. Lightroom also has organisation and workflow features though, easier than Bridge to add tags, ratings, modify EXIF, organise collections of images and keep track of things generally. Where with Bridge/Photoshop, you mainly organise things in files and folders.
@tammeray@cheyrebecca RAW can be a lifesaver if you have an image that is over- or underexposed. You can "save" it to a much better degree than if you only had a JPG. But for most images that have good exposure, it's not a huge difference (unless you do a lot of post processing, where again the RAW allows you to do more changes without starting to get effects like banding).
@tammeray I take everything RAW + JPG. That way I have the JPG if that's enough. If I need to do some processing I might use the RAW sometimes. Important pictures you might not be able to retake, like portraits or travel maybe, I'd use RAW. Outdoor landscapes with lots of light and shadows. For day to day stuff I could just use JPG, but it's easier to just always do RAW + JPG. With RAW you force yourself to do some post processing, at least to convert to JPG, so don't shoot RAW if you don't have the time or patience. Or if you take 200 pictures of a football game, you probably don't want to have to convert them all (although Lightroom and so forth can do them in batch for you)
Write a Reply
Sign up for a free account or Sign in to post a comment.
Tweets ahoy!
Join the Group
Pin With Me
Today I went to a nearby country park and enjoyed seeing deers and the early signs of spring against the bright blue sky, snapping pictures as I wandered.
It wasn't until about 20 minutes of walking and snapping that I noticed some of my settings from yesterday were still set, notably I'd adjusted my eposure to a stop underexposed.
This actually benefited my shots in bright sunshine but those more in shade had suffered.
Today I've learnt how important RAW can be in correcting stupid mistakes!