Comments on: A Good Argument for Shooting in RAW [HOW I TOOK IT]

By: Edward Montague

Edward Montague — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:28:19 +0000

Is there a freeware program to post process RAW photographs?
I use a Nikon D300, and my Brother-in-Law insists that I should be shooting in RAW to gain maximum advantage of the cameras full potential.
I can’t afford Photoshop CS4.

By: Steve A

Steve A — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 11:13:14 +0000

Hey there,

Wow, I had no idea my post on the forum would be picked up and posted here by the editors OR what a reaction it would get.

I posted this as an extreme example of the flexibility of Raw files and how much detail you can actually recover from such an under exposed shot. Nowhere did I mention that I did not know what I had done wrong ‘in camera’ nor did I tell anyone that they can just forget about learning how to take a picture correctly first time, so for everyone who replied from atop their high horses – thank you for your input, but you have missed the point I was trying to make.

For those of you who actually learned something about the capabilities of the Raw format over JPEG from reading this then I’m glad to have helped :)

By: willer

willer — Sun, 03 May 2009 18:19:25 +0000

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/ )

By: Edsar

Edsar — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 05:18:54 +0000

@ 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

By: DAVID MCCLEAN

DAVID MCCLEAN — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 18:09:58 +0000

Just recently been getting your emails and am amazed at the additional knowledge
that | have gained in a short while -love the site-david

By: ben

ben — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 17:57:48 +0000

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

By: Lu

Lu — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 05:04:50 +0000

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.

By: Philip G Daikens

Philip G Daikens — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 00:32:02 +0000

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.

By: Philip G Daikens

Philip G Daikens — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 00:22:07 +0000

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.

By: Ernie

Ernie — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 02:23:43 +0000

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