Why shoot RAW?

J

jtrain75

Member
I hear it all the time and read it all the time. Shoot in RAW!!! It'll help save images!!! I understand that the RAW files hold more information and you can more easily adjust white balance, color and sharpness in the photo.
Right now my workflow is this...
  1. Take the photo
    Download and edit in Photoshop 7.0 primarily with all NIK software (Viviza, Silver Efex, DFine, sharpener)
    Present the photos and get paid ; ;D
    So will shooting in RAW benefit me? Will it help me produce better photos? Will it improve my workflow? Depending on if I need to do heavy editing (switch heads, remove unwanted items) it takes me 10 minutes to edit each photos.
    I never shoot in RAW, so should I start?
 
"jtrain75" said:
I understand that the RAW files hold more information
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Your answer is right there but I'll get back to it.

and you can more easily adjust white balance
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I guess it's easier but it's more accurate in RAW than adjusting WB with a JPEG after a shoot. ; If you are meticulous about WB settings during a shoot, this is nebulous.

, color
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Color changes will be more accurate since JPEGS throw away everything except each pixel's color code. ; RAW doesn't. [nb]It's not supposed to[/nb] More on that in moment.


and sharpness in the photo.
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Actually I've never heard that. ; You'll probably need to correct sharpness more in RAW with any Bayer sensor camera that has an AA filter compared to JPG. ; JPG the camera is already processing it.


With the traditional Bayer sensor for each "pixel" your camera is recording FOUR. ; So your camera makes a judgment call and determines the color for each pixel to make a JPG. ; That's why RAW can save images. ; Blow your highlights? ; Well, depending on how bad you may be able to recover them with RAW because you can ignore some of the color readouts (which is how the recover highlights options actually work) while other colors didn't blow out, and go from there. ; Additionally, since certain colors expose better in shadows than others, recovering details from shadows are easier.

WB: Since you still have the original data, if you make WB changes with the RAW file, it will apply the changes to every pixel, so you will see the RAW data recompile for each pixel what the four buckets of data are and how they should look under this new WB based on the software programming. ; With JPG, you can adjust WB, but it's not going to do anything but change based on the color of each pixel - meaning it's not going to go back to the source file and determine the underlying data that created the color in the first place because that information is gone.

In a nutshell, shadows and highlights are easier to recover as you have 4x as much data to work with compared to JPG.


(this does not apply to Fuji Super CCD, Foveon CMOS, or the new Hassy/old Kodak sensors)
 
You say Photoshop 7. ; Do you mean Photoshop Elements 7 or Photoshop 7?


Anyway, Adobe offers a free Adobe Camera Raw converter program, you can at least convert the files to DNG[nb]This is Adobe's version of OpenRAW[/nb], which I believe PSE will accept. ; Somewhere around PSE 2 or 3 they stopped supporting native RAW for the PSE crowd, and even then RAW was still in it's infancy.
 
I was once asked by a photographer friend (not on this board), "If you were a professional music producer, would you record and edit in MP3? ; No, because it's a compressed format and lots of data is lost that you may need for the final edit". ; He used that argument on why I should always shoot in RAW
 
"Grumpwurst" said:
I was once asked by a photographer friend (not on this board), "If you were a professional music producer, would you record and edit in MP3? ; No, because it's a compressed format and lots of data is lost that you may need for the final edit". ; He used that argument on why I should always shoot in RAW
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Interesting analogy Grump
 
I would look into Lightroom or Aperture since either can handle RAW files and both were designed for photographers in mind. ; They both allow you to make any of the changes Roger mentioned and can do so quickly. ; Both have trial versions available.
 
I do have experience on Lightroom 2 (Aperture I will leave to the Mac users). ; But as a work flow Lightroom handles RAW great. ; I have even imported mine to the DNG format on import as I like to keep all the adjustments I make in Lightroom attached to the file. ; I won't go into a full review of Lightroom here but it has a great easy workflow (also the same as Adobe Camera Raw for Photoshop). ; I use it for 90% of my edits and can get the look I want in about 5 minutes per shot. ; Since Lightroom does not destruct the photo you can make as many adjustments you want and never hurt the original file. ;

The benefits are great shooting Raw. ; It is amazing how much adjustments you can make with the Raw file that would have been thrown out by the camera when converting to jpg. ; I also like the fact I don't really worry about WB as the WB adjustments are all done in the jpg conversion. ; I have "saved" a lot of shots just because I had more information in that picture. ; You can also pull out more dynamic range and selectivity boost one area of the photo without touching others areas. ; Lightroom does this without much complex knowledge in layers and settings. ; It really does smooth out Raw production. ; I did not start shooting in Raw until I got Lightroom and realized how much info I would use in that photo and not spend a lot of time doing it. ; It has been great and I always shoot in Raw (even on my Point and Shoot). ; One down side is is takes up a lot more memory. ; Minor issue but it does require more memory but in my opinion it is worth it. ;
 
to quote an almost famous photographer we all know
" you paid for all that sensor, why not use it"
 
thanks Doug and Paul. I'll have to check out Lightroom and see how different it is from PS7. I have 2 8GB cards and they hold a little less than 400 images each, so if I shoot RAW I'll have to get a new memory card as I tend to shoot a lot during my sessions. Thanks again for everyone's help and explanations.
 
Ok I answered my own question after a photo session this weekend. I started messing with RAW have been using it the last few sessions but really didn't have a need to use the RAW file to save a photo. But this weekend I was setting up for a session and the little 3 year old turned the knob on my camera as it was on the tripod from Aperture Priority to Shutter Speed priority, where I had it set to 1/160 and an ISO of 500. I didn't realize this until I got home and looked at the photos and checked the camera settings in the photo's properties.
I had a huge pit in my stomach when I saw noise in the photos, lack of contrast and sharpness. 3/4 of the photos were are like this!!! AAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!! :o
So I went into the RAW file and adjusted the contrast, sharpness, color temp and added a little NR to it and the photos are savable!!! They're not the best I've ever done but they're SO much better than they were unedited or if I was to edit them in the jpeg form.
I don't think I'll ever not shoot in RAW.
 
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