I'm new to all this but have done plenty of reading on the topic and since I started using Lightoom I can really notice the difference in editing when using RAW.
1) The edits do not distruct the photo and the original capture remains 'unharmed'. Great for testing and learning editing as you can revert to the original or you can pull back an edit and you dont loose detail and increase noise.
2) More detail is captured and allows for better/more scope when editing.
Again I'm still learning and have a long way to go. I dont truely know the power of RAW, yet I'm converted!
i shoot raw with most of my shots that are manual but when shooting on semi manual i shoot jpeg , its the way my camera is set up .. Doesnt allow me to shoot everything in RAW.
All my landscapes/seacapes are in Raw because there is so many more different things you can do to the image when processing it when shot in RAW...
Im shooting a wedding in a month or so and dont know weather to shoot in RAW or jpeg as im going to be taking 100's of photos and i dont want to go and edit each one when shooting in RAW .. Bit undecided there . But yeh most of my shots are shot RAW. The difference is HUGE !!!!
I have been shooting raw for almost 7 years without fail. I tend to forget to set my white balance so I'm thankful that raw doesn't record those settings. and I love that the original image is uncompressed unlike jpeg.
I shoot jpeg, mainly because the raw files are so huge and would eat up my HD like nothing else. If I were to shoot professionally, however, I might consider raw.
thats article was very ineresting, thanks lynne...
I use jpeg, will try RAW though but I always heard it is so large and requires alot of hard drive space, so I've been stuck on jpeg.
I'm very much like brenda.. well maybe not in looks lol. I shot RAW unless i'm drinking at a farewell or something and then i just put my flash on, stick it in full auto and shoot away.
The problem with RAW is that you WILL start using a LOT of space so you have to be quite brutal when you cut out photos
That was a great article, Lynne.
The reason I posed this question was because when I'm shooting sports my camera will take 9 continuous images then take a long time writing to disk and I miss shots. It's frustrating. I was playing with my settings lastnight and changed to jpeg and discovered that it'll shoot way more than 9 in a row and writes at lightning speed. That got me wondering what everone else shoot in.
After reading that article I'm gonna to commit to shooting jpeg all day today and see what's it's like.
Disk space is cheap. You can find 1TB external drives for under $100. If you pick up a hard drive dock and just use bare hard drives, they're even cheaper. I dump all my photos on two different hard drives and store them in different locations for redundancy. A 1TB drive will easily hold 50,000 RAW images (assuming 16mp).
RAW, always. I love the control I have and I don't care what anyone says, I think it makes a huge amount of difference to the feel and texture of the final outcome. I'm quite brutal about deleting the images once I've edited them though so I'm not using too much space!
I shoot jpeg normally. The only time I do RAW is 1) studio work 2) really really really important stuff (think weddings, portraits, stuff that will be published, things I'm getting paid for). Any of my sports and racing coverage is done in jpeg because I don't have endless memory cards, and writing speeds are lower. When you're shooting 1500 images in a day at a race event, it's rather impractical to have them all be RAW, and I really have no need for them to be as I get my WB and exposures dialed in correctly.
I'd like to add a question to this thread.... I have shot in RAW and I really do notice a HUGE difference, but what kind of a program can I view them in? I know Photoshop will open them, and Lightroom - but I'm talking about something like Windows Picture Viewer. I am one of the kind of photographers that I take entirely too many shots of one thing at a time, so once I get the photos onto my computer, and before I start editing, I just click through them in windows picture viewer and delete all of the definite nonkeepers. Is there something I can use to click through and say yea, yea, no, no, no - so on....
Sorry if I'm confusing. Haha.
Nicole, that's why I usually shoot RAW + Basic jpeg, so I have previews to look through on the computer (and that do not take up the space of a higher quality jpeg on the memory card). I'm not sure it's the best way, but it's how I was taught.
I've shot in RAW a few times and I must say, I love it!
However, the files are HUGE and I don't have that kind of room in my laptop.
Currently I shoot in JPEG + fine and I really like it, but, obviously it doesn't compare to RAW.
When I get home, I plan on buying 1TB external hard drive and clearing up my memory... then, I'll go back to RAW.
Nicole Picasa will let you view pictures in Raw. I often load them there so I can take a quick peek to really see what picture I want to edit and print for the day and then delete the ones I don't like for space reasons. The best part too is picasa is free
If anyone shoots jpeg and wants to shoot raw but doesn't have photoshop or lightroom, no worries......... http://www.getpaint.net/ is a free program that is very similar to photoshop and supports raw files if you use the raw plugin (in plugin index in paint.net forums).
I use Photoshop, but after searching for a program better than gimp for a friend that doesn't have photoshop, I found paintnet and tried it and it's really close to photoshop, and you can't beat free!
Always RAW here (even when I'm taking dodgy photos of items for Ebay or somewhere similar ... I go to upload the file and forget I only shoot RAW and have to export!) ... I use an external hdd to store my files ...
I just love the detail RAW gives and the flexibility in editing it permits...
I haven't shot in RAW very much - mainly because of the space it takes up on my cards....now I'm going to have to experiment - it would force me not to take quite so many pictures of the same thing.
I'm scared to photograph in RAW. I learned in Jpeg and I'm playing around with enhancing without traiing or classes.
Would everyone here who loves RAW recommend my attempting it, even as a total novice? I do have photoshop..but not lightroom.. my photoshop is older.
You don't need Lightroom to work with RAW. I use Photoshop CS2, and the only thing I have to do is convert the RAW format to Adobe's version because CS2 can't read a Nikon D300's RAW format (too new or something maybe?).
RAW is easy, all you gotta do is move all the sliders and play around until you get something you like. Which if you try to get it right in the camera in the first place, you shouldn't have to do a lot.
Nicole - did your camera come with a CD? Nikons (or at least mine) came with FREE View NX and like Lightroom and PS you can view all your images in a filmstrip and/or full screen layout. Then zoom and do minor editing/enhancing, and give ratings (stars or flags) to your images you like, love or hate. Then at the end run a filter based on your rating, and then do with that selection as you please! Perhaps then these are the images you then spend more time on editing. Saves you uploading the whole lot to Piknic etc.
I shot JPEG for years with no complaints whatsoever. I switched another camera to RAW, and just use it. I have no complaints either way. I just don't get too wrapped up in it. I still shoot film too. That's RAW in the true form.
I shoot jpg AND raw. Use them both as well by the way. My camera (Nikon D5000) allows me to save both a high quality jpg file that has been fully processed in-camera, and save the original RAW file.
When downloading, I always move all the raw files to a subfolder as they are the high-quality negatives of my photos, and if I find any that are almost right, but should have been processed a bit differently to my tast, I get out the raw, make my own modifications and go on from there. Quite often the jpg is already what I'm looking for though, and then I don't go through all the hassle of raw processing. I'm working on a netbook, processing raw's is sooooo slow.
ok. so based on what ppl said I photographed in RAW today. And guess what? My software cannot open it. I said I had an older photoshop, I should have specified that I have Photoshop Elements 5.0 and not CS2. But no one clarified that you need any type of advanced software to edit them.
So, basically I can't use my images.. but fortunately I didn't take too many. I"m gonna stick to jpeg, but if anyone has any advice on how to process or load or view RAW images (free and for novices) that would be awesome.
Marne, download "Adobe DNG Converter." It's free software from Adobe, and it'll convert the RAW files into a version usable by older Photoshop programs. Then you can go ahead and open the .dng files in your Photoshop and edit just like anyone else. That's what I have to do, as CS2 will not open Nikon's newer formats. (At least I hope this will work on Elements, I'm not sure why it wouldn't...)
Yes that's my problem....Love my Nikon Camera...annoyed that they have to be special and have NEF format for RAW..which I found out the hard way, THANK YOU will go after that adobe download and give it a try!
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I'm new to all this but have done plenty of reading on the topic and since I started using Lightoom I can really notice the difference in editing when using RAW.
1) The edits do not distruct the photo and the original capture remains 'unharmed'. Great for testing and learning editing as you can revert to the original or you can pull back an edit and you dont loose detail and increase noise.
2) More detail is captured and allows for better/more scope when editing.
Again I'm still learning and have a long way to go. I dont truely know the power of RAW, yet I'm converted!
Yourself Shannon?
All my landscapes/seacapes are in Raw because there is so many more different things you can do to the image when processing it when shot in RAW...
Im shooting a wedding in a month or so and dont know weather to shoot in RAW or jpeg as im going to be taking 100's of photos and i dont want to go and edit each one when shooting in RAW .. Bit undecided there . But yeh most of my shots are shot RAW. The difference is HUGE !!!!
http://www.michaelfurtman.com/jpeg_myths.htm#comparison_photo
I use jpeg, will try RAW though but I always heard it is so large and requires alot of hard drive space, so I've been stuck on jpeg.
The problem with RAW is that you WILL start using a LOT of space so you have to be quite brutal when you cut out photos
The reason I posed this question was because when I'm shooting sports my camera will take 9 continuous images then take a long time writing to disk and I miss shots. It's frustrating. I was playing with my settings lastnight and changed to jpeg and discovered that it'll shoot way more than 9 in a row and writes at lightning speed. That got me wondering what everone else shoot in.
After reading that article I'm gonna to commit to shooting jpeg all day today and see what's it's like.
Plus here's a reason to shoot RAW. I had accidentally set my camera to spot meter on a shoot, and spot metered on a flame, so the image came out dark http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3127/2640792036_9dda82b74a.jpg
Since I shot in 14bit RAW (instead of 8bit jpeg) There was enough information to correct the image http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3144/2639964825_bb0cbedc3c.jpg
RAW save more information about image we captured. And when we do editing, it's really big different compare to JPEG..
Sorry if I'm confusing. Haha.
However, the files are HUGE and I don't have that kind of room in my laptop.
Currently I shoot in JPEG + fine and I really like it, but, obviously it doesn't compare to RAW.
When I get home, I plan on buying 1TB external hard drive and clearing up my memory... then, I'll go back to RAW.
I highly suggest it!
I use Photoshop, but after searching for a program better than gimp for a friend that doesn't have photoshop, I found paintnet and tried it and it's really close to photoshop, and you can't beat free!
I just love the detail RAW gives and the flexibility in editing it permits...
Would everyone here who loves RAW recommend my attempting it, even as a total novice? I do have photoshop..but not lightroom.. my photoshop is older.
RAW is easy, all you gotta do is move all the sliders and play around until you get something you like. Which if you try to get it right in the camera in the first place, you shouldn't have to do a lot.
When downloading, I always move all the raw files to a subfolder as they are the high-quality negatives of my photos, and if I find any that are almost right, but should have been processed a bit differently to my tast, I get out the raw, make my own modifications and go on from there. Quite often the jpg is already what I'm looking for though, and then I don't go through all the hassle of raw processing. I'm working on a netbook, processing raw's is sooooo slow.
So, basically I can't use my images.. but fortunately I didn't take too many. I"m gonna stick to jpeg, but if anyone has any advice on how to process or load or view RAW images (free and for novices) that would be awesome.
Hope that helps!