I've been trying to decide on my next exercise. I think I've got it figured out. In the meantime, I've decided to switch my camera from large format JPG to RAW.
Yesterday I picked up my camera to grab some quick shots of my son and completely forgot about the RAW setting. When I went to download the pictures, I was reminded of my new adventure into "real" photography. So far, this seems like a lot more work. So before I get to my next photography exercise, I'm going to have to talk to some photographers who shoot in RAW. How do you handle it? Do you shoot RAW & JPG? Does it slow your camera down? It's costing lots of space on the card, isn't it? Do you convert your RAW's to JPG's as soon as you open them in Photoshop?
Oh so many questions. I really don't even know where to begin. And I thought this was going to be an easy step.
At the photo studio, we shot in RAW because it keeps more details that you tend to lose in jpeg. After all the curves were set and all exposures were adjusted in RAW, I'd convert them to large JPGs for the people who would do all our color correction. I've shot in RAW on my DSLR and find that I don't use it unless I plan on doing some serious retouching. I don't know if this answers anything though. Oh, one thing I did notice in RAW versus jpeg side by side is that my RAW shots had a lot more noise so I ended up using my jpegs after all.
ReplyDeleteI always shoot RAW + JPEG and most of the time use the JPEG. My camera usually does a great job of converting to JPEG so I often don't mess with the RAW files unless I want to do lot of PP.
ReplyDeleteIf you are going to shoot RAW + JPEG ensure that the JPEGs are full size and not half resolution. I know some SLRs don't do RAW + JPEG very well and the resulting JPEG will be half the megapixel count vs if you were shooting JPEG only.
Thanks for the input. My camera does offer the option of letting me do RAW + JPG and I can specify which resolution the JPG's should be. So I think that'll be my plan for now. I can do some basic PP, but nothing elaborate, and I think I'm going to work on the actual photography skills first and then move on to upping my PhotoShop abilities. Thanks again!
ReplyDeleteThis is old but:
ReplyDelete"Oh, one thing I did notice in RAW versus jpeg side by side is that my RAW shots had a lot more noise so I ended up using my jpegs after all.
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The RAW files have more noise because your camera applies noise reduction to the JPEG files. With the RAW files you have to do it yourself later.
This is why I shoot RAW + JPEG. If the image is fine I use the JPEG, if I need to process I use the RAW.