A Good Argument for Shooting in RAW [HOW I TOOK IT]
Earlier in the year DPS forum member stevoarnold (on flickr here) shared in the ‘how I took it‘ section how he’d managed to get the following transformation of an image because he shot it in RAW and was able to do significant post production and recover much of the image despite it being under exposed.
See the two images at before and after.
Here’s his description of how he did it:
“I thought I would share with you my latest experience. I went out this evening with the intention of getting some nice dusk shots of the sea shore but left it a little late and it was pitch black when I got there. I took some shots anyway which turned out completely under exposed due to lack of light even at a 30 second exposure.
So I got them home, imported a RAW file into photoshop and after a little bit of fiddling about I came up with the image below.
Here are the steps I took to get from this Before shot to the after shot:
1. Open RAW file in photoshop
2. Increase the exposure by 2 stops and then “open image”
3. Create an “Orton effect” layer by:
- Duplicate background layer
- Add gaussian blur to the duplicate
- Set blend mode to Soft Light
4. Add a curves adjustment layer to increase brightness
5. Flatten, rotate to straighten and crop final image
Got an image that you want us to tell us about the shooting and processing photograph of? Submit it to our How I Took It forum.
43 Responses to “A Good Argument for Shooting in RAW [HOW I TOOK IT]”
December 20th, 2008 at 12:31 am
I forwarded this on to some friends ,which included my wife, who just happens to be a grammar nazi, but she edits textbooks for a profession. Anyway, she kindly pointed out that Argument should only have one ‘e’ (check the post title).
On the positive side, I think some people are going be more interested in the power of RAW.
December 20th, 2008 at 12:40 am
Awesome.
I agree, this is exactly why all newbies MUST be using RAW.
It gives a lot of leverage to the photographers to correct their mistakes later in post processing.
December 20th, 2008 at 12:48 am
I don’t disagree, but I’ve been told by pros to take what you want with the camera, not expecting to edit it later. Take the best shot.
December 20th, 2008 at 1:26 am
I think, even though you messed up, it turned out very nice. It created a very mystical effect which is very appealing. You know what people say, some of our mistakes can create master pieces.
December 20th, 2008 at 1:49 am
if you got it, use it.
its a bigger file but worth the room.
great post.
December 20th, 2008 at 1:50 am
Perhaps newbies should be learning how to get thing right at the moment of exposure instead of fixing things later in RAW. For example, there’s an awful lot of noise in that photo for something shot at ISO 100. The photographer would’ve gotten a much cleaner image had they achieved a proper exposure in the first place and not had to push it 2 stops.
If you can perform a fix like this in post-processing, is the photographer more or less likely to learn from their mistakes. I would argue less likely. RAW processing should be used to get the best possible image quality out of the camera instead of fixing mistakes.
December 20th, 2008 at 1:56 am
I disagree,
I heavily doubt that the second image was what the shooter saw with the naked eye. Although having a lot of advantages, RAW images can bring many issues especially to newbies and may prolong their learning curve in capable shooting.
December 20th, 2008 at 2:27 am
Does the A200 not have a bulb mode nor the ability to go beyond ISO 100?
Instead of using this as an example of the power of RAW, why not call it an example of how to have a brain fart and not capture a good image to begin with? Step 2, “increase exposure by two stops,” could have been done by using ISO 400.
December 20th, 2008 at 4:16 am
Although Erik makes a point as to why this isn’t the best example it still illustrates the point as to why RAW is better. I need to do this a lot when I do concert photography (have to keep the shutter speeds 1/30th or faster due to movement). Even if I have the ISO at 3200(H) and use my 50mm f/1.8 some of the photos still are too dark and have to be given some punch.
December 20th, 2008 at 4:33 am
Indeed, RAW can be a lifesaver. I just think there are better examples - situations like you mention where you have better first options (like moving beyond ISO 100).
December 20th, 2008 at 8:00 am
I agree with Erik on this one. And as someone who isn’t taking pictures professionally (as in, I have lots of other commitments) managing hundreds of RAW files just isn’t conceivable. I’d rather get it right, or as close as possible to that, in camera.
December 20th, 2008 at 8:11 am
i am a strong advocate of shooting in RAW, although after reading this post, i decided to open a jpeg image in camera RAW. I was able to do the same adjustments to the JPEG as i would to any RAW image. second, what are the benefits to editing an underexposed photo in camera RAW rather than plain old photoshop?
December 20th, 2008 at 8:50 am
Michael, RAW images have a lot more room and dynamic range than JPEGs. You can do the “same type” of adjustments, but they’re not nearly as effective at things like highlight recovery, etc.
This image, had it been captured as a JPEG, would not have been nearly as “recoverable.”
And Pete - I’m not a professional either, but I strive to capture the image properly “in camera” AND I shoot RAW only. They’re not mutually exclusive. (Part of the reason to shoot RAW only is to put off worrying about white balance.)
December 20th, 2008 at 9:07 am
erik, thank you for the clarification. since understanding RAW, it’s the only way i shoot these days!
December 20th, 2008 at 9:25 am
@ derfasaurus
Raw is not better. It is JUST a feature open to those who need to use it. POINT.BLANK.PERIOD. From your post you seem relatively new to concert photography. Nifty fifty/pushing your canon **D to iso3200, still getting dark photos. Your obviously not working with light well. Visit this forum
http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=415099
Sorry, but this is a poor attempt at supporting the RAW feature. The second image looks HORRIBLE!
December 20th, 2008 at 11:04 am
One thing to consider there are reasons beyond “getting it right in camera” to shoot in RAW. The fact is every camera “shoots in RAW.” The difference is that when you have the mode turned to JPEG your camera is converting your 12 or 14-bit RAW file to a 8-bit JPEG for you. In the process of doing this it is hard setting some things such as White Balance, Contrast etc. It is also compressing the color information from 4,096 to 16,384 brightness levels per pixel down to 256 brightness levels per pixel. It is doing all of this based on a couple of simple algorithms and presets built in to your camera. If you really trust your camera unconditionally and feel it will make the best decisions each and every time why not just put the remainder of your faith in it and shoot in Auto?
The fact is that even if you batch process RAW files to JPEG because everything was absolutely perfect in camera, RAW processing software does a far better job of it than the very basic algorithms in the camera.
Anyone who has the misconception that “RAW is only for noobies so they can fix mistakes and JPEG is for Pros who always get it right” is sadly mistaken.
December 20th, 2008 at 3:28 pm
Or, you could look on your viewfinder and see that the image is way underexposed and then expose it properly. But that’s just me, maybe some people enjoy spending hours in photoshop doing something that a few quick changes on the camera could have done in the beginning.
December 20th, 2008 at 7:16 pm
I am wondering what the result was if you tried changing the original JPG with Photoshop…You might come a long way without losing any quality…
December 20th, 2008 at 7:49 pm
I saved a very under exposed shot taken for my niece in her prom, she was very happy. But it was JPEG, so for me this is not reason enough to use the bigger slower RAWS.
December 21st, 2008 at 12:21 am
Anyone who thinks JPEGs is for pros who “get it right the first time” are fools. Sometimes, no matter how perfectly you capture the image initially, you’ll still want to make some minor adjustments. I think a perfect example is for things like panoramas. In those, you want to make sure you have uniform exposure, white balance, etc. If you let the camera handle all those things, your images may not properly match up for smooth transitions of the images that make up the panorama. Not only that, but there are times where you’ll want to make drastic changes to an image to give it a look and feel that’s just impossible to achieve straight from the imaged captured on the sensor. Also, pros will almost always do all the image processing manually. They will very rarely leave it up to the camera to handle. This is for a multitude of reasons, but probably the main reason is simply that of control. If you let the camera do all the adjusting for you, you have a very limited set of control over how it handles the processing.
Then, possibly just as important (especially for pros), is the matter of quality. As mentioned already, RAW files are uncompressed, have higher bit depths, etc. Even if you “get it right” every time and have no need for adjusting color, white balance, exposure, etc in post, pros will always want the advantages afforded to them in the RAW format as opposed to JPEG. Let us not forget either, that JPEG is a lossy compression scheme.
To the person who said that “managing hundreds of RAW files just isn’t conceivable” - why not? If you’re just taking snapshots (that is, “non artistic” type of shots) and whatnot, sure, by all means let your camera handle the white balance, exposure, etc. But why wouldn’t you at the very least, want to keep a higher quality “master” (that is, RAW) copy?
And let’s examine this whole concept of “getting it right the first time” shall we? What exactly does that mean? While I agree that a photographer should try and capture the image as best as he can, and rely less on editing the image in post, this whole idea of “getting it right” is a bit odd to me, and in fact, complete and utter BS. The human eye (and also, just as importantly, the brain that interprets the images sent by the eye) is a hell of a lot more adaptive than any camera lens and sensor. It’s why we can look around at a scene, and go from looking at a brightly lit area, to looking at an area in shadow and still be able to discern details in those shadowed areas. A camera, unless you’re doing an HDR shot composed of a few images, is unable to do the same thing. Along those same lines, white balance in a camera is just a guess. It’s taking a guess and assuming what should be white, but is instead tinted yellow by the sun, or tinted blue by the sky, etc. This is why I prefer to do it manually. I can have more control, and I can control it to make it look more natural, or just more pleasing to the eye, or however I choose to do it. This way, I also have the original source image - Instead of having only a jpeg where the camera has done the work for me, and where you’ve actually lost the original image as captured directly by the sensor. (Essentially, the camera has deleted the original image, and replaced it with the processed image where it has altered the white balance, exposure settings, even removed red-eye in some cameras, etc.)
December 21st, 2008 at 8:01 am
Does this mean (assume) the same technique will not work if the shots are done in hi quality JPG?
Du Blitz Kah, I have a question. Are you saying when shooting RAW no matter how the image turns out there is so much detail within the RAW file that the actual scene we saw with our eyes is in there? Where as with JPG files what you see is what you get. All the details are gone and we have no other options to pull the actual scene out of the JPG file? I’m Curious because I want to try this technique on some under exposed images I captured recently because of a bad flash. Thanks…
December 21st, 2008 at 9:06 am
I’ve been shooting wedding for about 3 years now. Not until recently, and regrettably, have I started shooting in RAW. Regrettably because I should have been shooting in RAW from the get go. It’s incredible how many images we save now that once would’ve been too blown out or just too dark. I’ll never go back to shooting JPEG.
December 22nd, 2008 at 5:23 am
RAW is a net, it makes you able to get at least satisfying output in any single case, up to incredible retouch. I’ve never understood people shooting for money with JPEG only. This is simply not a good workflow. shooting JPEG on a DSLR should be set up as an option by manufacturers, not as the standard. In my opinion, it should be almost banned!
Cheers
Julien
December 22nd, 2008 at 3:11 pm
The main reason I shoot in RAW is White Balance. Not having to worry about it at all is just nice.
The only time I shoot with JPEG these days is if I’m just fooling around and only want snap shots to put on facebook or for a friend. Then I just shoot 5 Megapixel JPEGs and call it good.
December 22nd, 2008 at 7:39 pm
I am not a pro, but a budding advanced amateur. I got my first DSLR (Nikon D80) in August 2008, after having used an advanced bridge camera for years (Olympus 5060). I listen to TWiP and read DPs, and heard everyone say, RAW, RAW, RAW!
I tried shooting in RAW two weeks ago. I had no idea what to do, and still don’t really. It will require a lot more study, seemingly (I use Aperture 2.0). In the meantime, when I take 400 shots typically on a shooting day, there’s just no time to edit that many.
If I were on an assignment and looking for THE single shot to sell to a client (not that I even have such assignments), then I can see the benefit of shooting RAW.
For a person learning how to use a DSLR, adding RAW to the list of things to learn seems a bit overwhelming. I think the time to learn RAW processing would be better spent on learning to use all the features and settings of one’s DSLR.
Later, when you get paying gigs, and have learned how to process RAW and have a good, fast workflow, then yeah, shoot RAW.
If there is anyone in Tokyo who’d like to show me their RAW workflow, I’d be willing to learn.
December 23rd, 2008 at 5:23 am
The second image is even worse than the first…
December 23rd, 2008 at 8:50 am
Hi fellow photographers, I have been reading all the comments about Raw and one thing to mention is about the fact that you can do multiple raw conversions to blend in photo shop. For eg. skies very often are too bright and a corrected sky raw conversion will blend with a mid ground or forground raw conversion all from one raw image. Also you can adjust one image for colour or white balance and if all the rest of the batch or selected images require the same adjustment they can be done with the previous or custom drop down list with one click.One more thing some cameras will shoot in both raw and jpeg at the same time giving you both files per image.
December 24th, 2008 at 1:19 pm
hi
this argument is just retarded
every photographer since the dawn of time has edited their pictures in a lab even newspapers edit the pictures they get hours before they put the photo to print. a raw file is like a digital negative it gives you full control in your “lab” to do as you wish with you picture. you think pros don’t push a picture up one or two stops when they want to? or that they couldn’t do that in a lab? you think lab work was less time consuming?
stop arguing about things you don’t understand before you take a class on the subject and go out and shoot instead it will save me valuable light instead of spending time looking for something worthy of being read on this godforsaken thread!!!!!
December 24th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
I think we all know that wether we are experienced or not we need to GET IT RIGHT the first time. I think everyone is skewing the topic here. The topic here is how much flexibility RAW gives you. It seems that there is an argument about this being a bandaid for a lack of knowledge and skill. NOTHING is a bandaid…
Perhaps the choice of photos to do some extreme editing on could have been different and showed how much you can change a photo that was good to begin with. THAT is what this “argument for raw” is all about. Unfortunately the easiest way to show the flexibility of RAW is to take an underexposed photo and recover what previously would have been impossible.
December 24th, 2008 at 2:38 pm
For all those that spell it RAW it is actually Raw, just being pedantic.
If you have Raw format on your camera, point&shoot or otherwise, use it. Most Photo editors handle just about every Raw format there is, and your camera will have come with software which will allow you to work with Raw images.
Raw conversion takes place at the software level and normally you cannot save back to a Raw image but have to save the worked image in another format. This adds a level of protection to your image. It also means that you can go back to the image and make adjustments or tweak them.
If you shoot jpeg images you are allowing the camera to make decisions about how the image should look. Normally the procesor leans towards higher contrast images, and the sharpness can be a bit flat. Tools like Adobe Camera Raw will now work with jpeg and tiff images giving a bit more flexibility.
If you are a beginner, or don’t know much about Raw there is an abundance of material on the net. And nearly all conversion packages have an “Auto” button on them which can often produce good results.
You have control over White Balance, Exposure, Contrast, Sharpness, and often other tools within the Raw Converter which means that often you may not even have to use a Photo Editor to clean an image.
The only drawback using Raw is the size of images. You will need to have more memory sticks, but with 2gig cards selling around $15 this is hardly an issue.
December 25th, 2008 at 6:10 pm
you mean this is by photoshop right?
December 28th, 2008 at 1:19 pm
Having spent 20 years in the commercial printing industry and experiencing the evolution of “getting” a quality photo, or “getting a photo that needs some work on it” I agree with those postings that RAW is a great option that allows a professional who has done all their pre work and preparation and still gets a photo that needs some tweaking;….that being said, the person who goes out and shoots in RAW and expects to make chicken salad out of chicken s___ is really only playing with the technology, and not really using their brain….technology should make us better, not lazier…..RAW is not an excuse for not understanding exposure, ISO, white balance, f stop etc….
December 28th, 2008 at 7:14 pm
“Controlling†colour compression in JPEG files.
There is an excellent web page at “http://www.impulseadventure.com/photo/chroma-subsampling.html“ that discusses the effect of how the Hoffman table settings affect the compression of luminance (brightness) and chrominance (colour) in JPEG files. I suspect that if you can compress a JPEG file without compressing the colour information then you would have latitude in varying exposure close to that of a RAW file.
Basically, the extent to which a JPEG file is compressed is influenced by how a piece of software uses these settings – the more the colour is compressed the smaller t he file. A freeware program JPEGsnoop allows JPEG files to be inspected to view these settings.
On my Pentax K100D Super all the three camera JPEG compression quality settings compress the colour space. However, when processing a RAW file with Pentax Photo Laboratory and saving in JPEG format there are five compression quality settings available and the “highest quality†choice saves with no colour compression. The resulting file is larger than a normal JPEG – about 50% of the RAW file.
I am not technically minded but examining the same photo (Raw and JPEG versions) and increasing the exposure 3 stops shows only minor variations between the two to me. Perhaps this offers a way to get increased quality JPEG files. (Lightroom decreases quality in its exported files, SilkyPix has an option to save with no colour compression, RawTherapee seems to save with no colour compression)
Perhaps by examining the degree of compression of JPEG file it is possible to select software that produces higher quality JPEG storage.
December 29th, 2008 at 1:13 am
if you buy a DSLR of any kind it should be because you intend to learn to use it and not because you shoot in raw and forgot all the other things you need to learn
December 29th, 2008 at 7:00 pm
IMHO, the ‘after’ result does not really justify using raw. It looks as fake as can be.
January 13th, 2009 at 12:23 pm
There are in fact a lot of Pro’s out there who do not shoot in Raw.
I have done a few experiments, using Raw and Jpegs taken at the same time,
processing them in Camera Raw, and to be honest about it, I see very little difference if any.
you can make in camera adjustments, to most of the settings available, why not get these to your satisfaction. Ernie
January 15th, 2009 at 10:22 am
I also take a lot of low light and night time shots, the images are sometimes surprising and quite interesting. Unless I’m shooting a sporting event I always shoot in RAW, the version of Photoshop Elements I have does not allow me to work in RAW so I use the camera’s software to get things started. Once in Photoshop I can get some amazing results, but the fun does not stop there. When I’m about to save my reworked picture, photoshop will give you plenty of options to save in. Although JPEG is a manageable size, quality and sharpness of detail is not the best. If I only have a few photos to take to the lab for printing I will save my photos in TIFF 16 bit format. Check it out for your self, its easy but the file sizes can be 40 to 50 MBs. Compare on your computer if your monitor is colour correct. Look at the fine details.
By the way, GREAT shot, I love it.
January 15th, 2009 at 10:32 am
Sorry, my sequence was off on the previous comment. From the camera software I convert the RAW image to TIFF 16 bit then go to Photoshop for refining the details. Save the same photo in JPEG and TIFF 16 bit then compare, the difference is amazing.
January 16th, 2009 at 3:04 pm
Until recently I was a proponent for shooting in JPG. I got tired of post processing and preferred mastering my camera and shooting techniques. When I used to shoot 30 or 60 photos at a time it was fun to tweak my photos afterwards. After purchasing my DSLR, and shooting tripled to 180 and more shots, I lacked the time.
Last month I gave Raw a shot during a New Year’s celebration indoors and I was sold on Raw. I fooled around with different apertures, shutter speeds, etc… and was able to dramatically improve many shots. The downside as others have expressed is the amount of time involved. I only tweaked the brightness, but after converting the Raw to JPG for every single photo, you can imagine the increased amount of time.
In summary, if you have the time and inclination, you can’t go wrong with shooting in Raw. Although JPG saves a lot of space and time, I could never justify missing out the opportunity to save an improperly shot photograph.
February 18th, 2009 at 3:57 am
hi
i shoot some pics in raw but i couldnt open them with photoshop cs3…
do you have any idea why this is so?
do i need adobe bridge to open raw files in photoshop?
it’d be great if you could answer me!!
greets
ben
March 28th, 2009 at 4:09 am
Just recently been getting your emails and am amazed at the additional knowledge
that | have gained in a short while -love the site-david
April 5th, 2009 at 3:18 pm
@ Ben,
Normally you are able to open the RAW format to photoshop CS3 with out using any bridge or something, you can simply open the file with RAW format and drag it to photoshop and there it is… presto it will give a heck of option to edit your picture.
As im a newbie as well and trying hard to understand how this one works better…
Regards to all, keep shooting
May 4th, 2009 at 4:19 am
wow! first time here, and saw a long discussion but i read few of it on top,
First of all, I having both film and digital SLR, one shot without post processing are sound to be a pro, but my answer is RAW. I will pay more $$ for storage to get RAW. why?
1st) I only care about producing good picture (the final outcome)… I can pay less to hire newbie to shoot good picture for me :)
2nd) for me, the difference between RAW and those compressed/fixed format, it just how good you control your “camera” software and “PC” software…. ( see this http://photo.net/learn/raw/ )
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