New to Raw and other questions

[Michelleltn]

I am new to raw processing. I have been shooting raw and Jpeg both now for about a month.

I would usually download all the files the raw and the jpeg of each. Those that looked good enough to me in Jpeg I kept, those that I really couldn't fix in Jpeg, I played around in DPP (Canon's program) to see if I could manipulate the pic to make is satisfactory.

So about 90 % of my photos that were JPEG were IMO good enough. Good enough to print and scrapbook etc.-or whatever I wanted to do with them.

Today about 10% of the pics I took-I would not have gotten at all if I had not processed in raw-the photos were just not salvageable at all in JPEG.

So I see the benefit of shooting in raw, I guess I just don't know what to do if I don't do it in jpeg too. I mean then I have to convert every picture. Also my manual says not to convert pics to jpeg? Do most places allow you to upload in Tif format?

It is getting hard now, b/c my computer memory is eating up quickly and I have to download a few files, delete what I don't want, convert and re-size them etc.then download a few more etc.

I usually just set my camera to large so my pics are taken at 18MP, then I can re-size them later. Is this what most people do? I just never know which picture I might blow up.
But even if I do I would rarely go over an 11X14. (I just might crop a few times.)

So do people in the field change the size according to what they are shooting, or do most just resize later?

When you download files. Do you just download raw files, convert to tif and then edit? Or edit in raw and then convert to tif?

[ErikUngerPhotography]

I never resize the original or master edited copy. Storage is pretty cheap these days, and like you said, you never know what you will need to blow up. I'll make a copy and prep it for its final destination.

There is nothing wrong with properly shot jpegs. The advantage of shooting RAW is that you are not stuck with the in-camera processing decisions (color profile, contrast, saturation, sharpening, etc.) The downside for some is that then you are required to process the RAW file to your liking. The upside is you have far more control of your image. It is true you have more flexibility in fixing over or underexposed images, but there is more to it. There are just certain things you can't do to a non RAW image. I suggest to my students to shoot in RAW + JPEG until they are comfortable with editing RAW and capable of achieving what they want. Again, there is nothing really wrong with shooting in jpeg, but you have more options and creative control when shooting RAW.