RAW question...Help!!!

[cherrygirl]

OK, so I'm a little confused. I thought all this time I was shooting in RAW but when the discussion of RAW came up with our production department here at the newspaper I work for, I checked my setting and I'm not shooting RAW.

My photos have been turning out great but should I switch to RAW? What difference will it make? Any advise would be great! Thanks!

[dcclark]

If you haven't noticed... why switch?

You may come to a point, as you advance, where you discover that you want a bit more dynamic range, or the ability to change white balance (and other things) after the fact. Then you might find shooting raw to be useful. But clearly, so far, you don't need it, and that's just fine!

Keep focused on good composition, colors, and light, learning the "rules", and maybe breaking them. That's what's most important for now.

[cherrygirl]

Originally Posted by dcclark

If you haven't noticed... why switch?

You may come to a point, as you advance, where you discover that you want a bit more dynamic range, or the ability to change white balance (and other things) after the fact. Then you might find shooting raw to be useful. But clearly, so far, you don't need it, and that's just fine!

Keep focused on good composition, colors, and light, learning the "rules", and maybe breaking them. That's what's most important for now.

Thanks dcclark! So great to have folks like you to help!

[AnneWynne]

RAW carries more information for you to work with in post processing. For example in Photoshop when you open a RAW file you can do lots of adjustments before going into the editing screen.

If you do a lot of post processing to your photos, save them in tif...every time you open and close a jpeg file you loose a little information (at least that is what I have been told),. Also, saving in tif allows you to save in layers...jpeg does not.

[Jim Bryant]

If you've ever shot film, then shooting RAW give you the same effect. You have more information to work with and it will save your butt as RAW gives you a digital negative.

[LostMahbles]

Originally Posted by AnneWynne

every time you open and close a jpeg file you loose a little information (at least that is what I have been told)..

Just to clarify, it's not every time you open and close, it's every time you open and save. JPEG is a "lossy" format, meaning that when you save as a JPEG you're going to lose information from the original.

When you save as a jpeg, behind the scene, the program is compressing the image, removing any bits it can in order to reduce the file size without losing picture quality. While it's often unnoticeable to the human eye, if you blow the image up, you'll probably notice a difference, particularly in color gradients (the compressed jpeg will have a more noticeable "step" to the gradient than the original, uncompressed image has).

[vandergus]

When you save as a jpeg, behind the scene, the program is compressing the image, removing any bits it can in order to reduce the file size without losing picture quality.

And you'd probably have to do this 10 or 20 times before you noticed any degredation. There are many compelling reasons to shoot RAW, but I don't think reducing jpg compression is one of them.

[dcclark]

Originally Posted by vandergus

And you'd probably have to do this 10 or 20 times before you noticed any degredation. There are many compelling reasons to shoot RAW, but I don't think reducing jpg compression is one of them.

Agreed. Unless you are saving at VERY low qualities (like, 50% level compression), you won't notice jpeg artifacts until you've saved MANY times.

[cherrygirl]

Originally Posted by Jim Bryant

If you've ever shot film, then shooting RAW give you the same effect. You have more information to work with and it will save your butt as RAW gives you a digital negative.

Interesting. I learned photography shooting black and white film and developing it myself so the digital negative reference makes a lot of sense. Thanks for breaking it down!

[inkista]

Originally Posted by dcclark

Agreed. Unless you are saving at VERY low qualities (like, 50% level compression), you won't notice jpeg artifacts until you've saved MANY times.

... assuming only minor edits between saves. You do some massive color shifting or mondo amounts of cropping that completely rewrite the color table, and you may see it long before then....