Pixiq

It’s easy to forget that everyone isn’t on the same level of technical knowledge that I am at. It’s even easier to think that everyone is “caught up” to where we are on this blog as far as technology and software advances go. That’s one of the reason’s I love, and I mean L.O.V.E., getting emails from you guys/gals. It really helps remind me that I have to occasionally go back to the basics and maybe re-describe or re-introduce a topic for the newer readers amongst you. I mean…we are gaining new readers everyday and I’d be remiss to neglect any foundational information that you may have missed. Oh yeah…the email from Janet:

“Hey Damien,

I was wondering if you would be able to explain what raw is and why I should or shouldn’t shoot in raw. I have a Canon Rebel and am using more and more of the semi-manual settings but I’m still shooting in jpg. I read in many blogs that I should be shooting in raw but I’ve somehow missed the memo or something. I know it’s supposed to be more flexible during retouching but I’m not a pro so I’m not sure if it’s worth the extra work.

Thanks for the hard work on the website.

Janet”

So let’s first go over a short definition of RAW. A RAW file is the most basic digital equivalent of a pure film negative. Nothing has touched it except light. The RAW file contains information on the amount of light that was seen by the sensor. It doesn’t really know how or why you captured the scene or what kind of light it was that was present. You have full control (or as much as your software allows) of the RAW file is processed. It’s much more like being in a real dark room.

Every single digital image begins it’s life as a RAW file. That includes your mom’s point and shoot that doesn’t even have a RAW output. All digital cameras have a native RAW conversion processing software built in that applies white balance, color correction, compression settings, and adjusts barrel distortion (amongst other “fixes”). The compression settings and data manipulation lead to a loss of information when your RAW file is converted to an 8 bit file.

If you look at a RAW file in it’s purest or most basic sense, it’s really just a collection of the luminance values recorded at each photo site when you hit the shutter. Throw in some data that contains camera settings and a JPEG thumbnail for your LCD viewer and you’ve got a RAW file.

Every camera manufacturer interprets this data in different ways (even when the same imaging sensor is being used). That’s why we have a slew of RAW conversion software platforms. Every camera manufacturer has their own that comes with camera and there are third party companies that handle this as well. Most popular, of course, is Adobe Camera RAW which is found in Photoshop Elements, the CS family, as well as Lightroom.

If you need total control and the highest image quality that your camera can produce you should be shooting in RAW. You get greater dynamic range, color depth, and post-capture editing capabilities that help you pull and push the pixels to better suit your desired result.

If you’re already using Adobe Photoshop Elements or Adobe Lightroom it’s not any real extra work at all and worth the extra flexibility in post production.

A couple of things to consider; Shooting in RAW will cost more in hard drive space as the files are uncompressed and take up more room in your computer, and if you’re computer is pretty old it may not be able to handle the extra processing required in editing and working with RAW files.

My suggestion would be to shoot for a week or so in RAW or RAW+JPEG and see if you can handle the few extra steps it takes. I think it’s worth it and I’m guessing you’ll feel the same.

Worse case scenario is that you just don’t want to make the switch and you go back to your old ways of doing things. Nothing wrong with that at all. At least you tried it out.