[formula400]

right i am really new to the world of DSLR`s and have only had point and shoots before, but every one is talking about raw`s, what would the difference be between a j peg and a raw file, would i notice the difference???

also i`ve just got CS3 so i guess that change the photo`s to look better.

so if i go away and take some photo`s in raw there be like my jpegs but i can change color setting etc to get them better.


or my sony alpha and save it as both a jpeg and a raw.

or just stick to jpegs for the time being.

[jonnypb]

have a read of this

basically raw gives you a lot more control when you need to tweak your images at a later date for changing things like white balance etc

i set my camera to shoot raw + jpg so if i do get some shots which need adjusted i can adjust the raw image

[Mike.P®]

Same here, I shoot both at the same time but that is mainly so that I can skip through the jpegs quickly and bin all the rubbish (and there is usually loads) before editing the decent raw files .. if there are any left.

[Yandros]

The main problem with jpgs is you're tied to the processing applied when you took the shot. In particular, the sharpening, noise reduction,white balance and colour modes. You can quite often extract quite a lot more detail from a a RAW file in post processing, that has clearly already been lost during the in-camera jpg conversion.

I shoot RAW+jpg fine, and here's a cut and paste from a post I made a couple of days ago, which hopefully shows an example of a "problem shot", and how RAW can help. Notice the improved petal detail, and the better colour range


Grabbed this in 2 mins flat at lunchtime. The pic is hardly original, but it's a bit of a special - a Lobivia-Trichocereus hybrid, with flowers that only last a day...and this was its first flower

The interesting part, for any Nikon flower shooters is that the recommended 'nature mode' is colour mode 3, but the colour gamut appears to be SERIOUSLY limited when it comes to red/orange/purple, or at least way oversaturated.

Here's the original jpg, shot in mode 3. The final shot was swapped to mode 1 in Capture NX, and suddenly all the orange and purple shades pop out. Incidentally, this is NOT a blown red channel.

[formula400]

right i`ve just done this and have a pic of a yellow rose, played with it a bit and i think it looks better now, but what do i do with the raw file now??? i can`t upload it to flickr and what do people do with them, change them to jpeg or what, would i be able to put raw`s on a cd and get them printed some where????

[Yandros]

RAW files are basically 'digital negatives'. Some applications (such as Nikon Capture NX) do allow you to save changes to RAW files, but mostly you need to change the format.

Do ALL your post processing, then at the very last minute save as .jpg. A lot of people also save as a general 'lossless' format such as .tiff as well for long term archiving, as there's no guarantee that camera specific RAW files will be readable in say 10 years time.

[formula400]

right i took this rose

this is my quick play with it in cs3

tell you what this is hard work, tell you what though it great being able to play with it so much, now to learn what the heck i am doing.

[senu]

Have a read

JPEG or RAW
What is a RAW?

[TarMoo]

I used to shoot JPEG Fine (max resolution) until I left the White Balance on my camera in the wrong mode and a whole days shooting was given a blue colour cast. If I had shot RAW then I could have corrected the cast later and regenerated a good set of JPEGs.

Now I shoot RAW+Fine, but since I have bought Bibble Labs 4.10 and increased the size of memory on my PC to cope with large images, I tend to process all files in RAW using Bibble Labs Pro and output interesting ones as JPEGs after some adjustments to the RAW image.

I suspect that I will shoot RAW only in the near future. The key is to have RAW image processing software that allows you to generate viewable JPEGs quickly.

[tontoshorse]

and unless you are very organised you will soon find a need to buy more storage space!

[denno75uk]

It's worth persevering with RAW as it does allow alot more control. As a novice it does seem a bit daunting, it certainly did when I started. The irony is, that shooting RAW allows for a greater rescue rate too. It's great to be able to use the software to make some of the adjustments that I often forget to think about when actually taking the shot.
The key (and I'm not sure I'm doing this) is to not rely on the convenience of RAW, but to keep pushing yourself to think more about all the settings you can adjust and elements you need to consider WHILST taking the photo. Then RAW adjusting becomes as much about interpreting a shot differently as it does about correction.

[springtide]

RAW unless you are restricted by memory card space.