PSE6 vs. Shooting RAW

[stepnette]

Okay, so being very new to photography (and to DPS, also) this may sound like a silly question:
What is the advantage to shooting RAW if I have Adobe Photoshop Elements 6 which allows me to pull up my photos in camara raw format and gives me greater flexibility in tweaking my lighting, color, etc. ? Thanks for your feedback!

[candleman]

i use raw in pse6 all the time.. its not as good as lightroom... and its slows ,load time.. but it works.
you can batch process too..
i'm not sure exactly whet you're asking to be honest.

[Samanax]

Originally Posted by stepnette

Okay, so being very new to photography (and to DPS, also) this may sound like a silly question:
What is the advantage to shooting RAW if I have Adobe Photoshop Elements 6 which allows me to pull up my photos in camara raw format and gives me greater flexibility in tweaking my lighting, color, etc. ? Thanks for your feedback!

Because you get more data with a RAW file you have a lot more leeway when editing or manipulating the image before it starts to look really bad. You can adjust white balance (something that you pretty much have to get right in-camera with JPEG) and more exposure adjustment leeway. More information available in the links...

RAW vs JPEG: A Visual Comparison

RAW vs JPEG With Sample Images

RAW vs JPEG

RAW vs JPEG: The Real Story

RAW vs JPEG: Is One Definitely Better Than The Other?

[stepnette]

Thanks a bunch Samanax! The info is very helpful.

Candleman, the main question here was why should I shoot RAW in-camera when I can shoot JPeg and just pull up my jpeg image as camera raw from "open as" menu in PSE6. This option offers more lighting editing options than pulling it up as a regular jpeg in the editing palette. Sorry for the confusion, and thanks for your response!

[LoveDSLR]

Originally Posted by stepnette

the main question here was why should I shoot RAW in-camera when I can shoot JPeg and just pull up my jpeg image as camera raw from "open as" menu in PSE6. This option offers more lighting editing options than pulling it up as a regular jpeg in the editing palette.

You gain access to the RAW converter When you open JPEG as RAW, hence the extra options.

However, your photo is already processed by the camera jpeg engine (that you can't undo) while RAW is unprocessed. What you are doing is having extra options to pp your jpeg photos.

[Taallyn]

JPEG images are compressed 8-bit files. When the camera is finished processing the image it throws all of the "left over" data away. This can lead to various kinds of artifacts just as color banding rather than smooth color gradients such as in the sky for example.

RAW files are 12 to 14 bit files that contains everything the sensor recorded. Depending on your RAW converter, your camera's settings may or may not be used. Adobe Camera RAW generally doesn't use the camera settings except for white balance. The larger amount of information gives you greater latitude in your exposures as well as a lot more information with which to make you post processing changes.

Think of JPEG as being a digital Polaroid. Sure you could make changes afterwards, but it is likely to get messy.

Think of RAW as a negative. You can go back to that negative and redevelop (i.e. reprocess) it as many times as you want for as long as you want.

Start with RAW. Process. Then save the final as a JPEG to display on the internet or your computer.

[mipo]

Whatever software you are going to use with the Raw negative file.

Just make sure that the sofrware is non-destructive to the Raw file.
Means all changes you do in the software are kept in a kind of database & only applied on screen & output.
Leaving your Raw negative file intact for some more PP & experimentation.