How many of you actually use RAW?

Today I had to shoot some product shots for my boss so we could put the images up on our website. I know from experience that our two 500 watt tungsten lamps don't really provide the best lighting for this kind of job but for now it's all that we have and it's a heck of a lot better than the flourescent lights above. I white-balanced to the lights but decided this time to use the RAW mode, and when I opened up the files sure enough they needed some adjusting as the nuetral white background paper was showing quite a bit to the warm side. So, I adjusted the image to 3900 K in my Canon Software and what a difference that made. Saved it as a tiff and proceeded to open it up in photoshop and made just a few slight adjustments in constrast and the images came out really nice. Using the RAW mode and just making that white balance change saved me a ton more time from having to color correct and do other stuff in ps.

For the past year that I've had my Canon DRebel I've never really bothered with the RAW mode, but now I'm beginning to see it's advantages when one needs to process a lot of images in a short amount of time without having to make a lot of corrections in ps. I think I'll be using it a lot more often. How many out there also use RAW on a regular basis and what other changes do you find yourself making in your RAW software?

Once I got PSCS a year ago, I started using it on occasion - separate conversion software was enough of a hassle that I didn't use it. Low contrast shots will really benefit from the greater bit depth of the image (8 bit jpeg vs. 12 bit or so from the camera in RAW). PSCS2 handles up to 32bit files so we see where that's going... Better beef up the RAM in the PC before that happens!

I still believe in getting it as close to finished as possible in the camera, at time of exposure, but it has a lot of advantages. I shot a senior portrait a couple of weeks ago and for the first couple of shots had it in jpeg mode. The RAW files just ended up with a much nicer finished product - and I needed all the help I could get. Problem was that the only time he and I had to do it was in the mid-day sun and the shots were with him and his car.

With product shots, you may still be OK with jpeg because the light is constant. Just do the custom WB and you'll take care of most of the problem. I guess when in doubt shoot RAW because you leave the options open, but it does seem like the majority of the shots I take are still jpeg.

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Originally Posted by schrackman

Today I had to shoot some product shots for my boss so we could put the images up on our website. I know from experience that our two 500 watt tungsten lamps don't really provide the best lighting for this kind of job but for now it's all that we have and it's a heck of a lot better than the flourescent lights above. I white-balanced to the lights but decided this time to use the RAW mode, and when I opened up the files sure enough they needed some adjusting as the nuetral white background paper was showing quite a bit to the warm side. So, I adjusted the image to 3900 K in my Canon Software and what a difference that made. Saved it as a tiff and proceeded to open it up in photoshop and made just a few slight adjustments in constrast and the images came out really nice. Using the RAW mode and just making that white balance change saved me a ton more time from having to color correct and do other stuff in ps.

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I still shoot all JPEG. I have made forays into the RAW format, but it really slows down the shot rate, and I have limited card space aswell. Also I just havn't really seen much benifet to shooting RAW. I know that pros get a lot out of it, but for what I do JPEG is doing fine. I have printed 5MP JPEGs as big a 10x15 and the results were awesome. Wanna go bigger, RAW may be your best bet.

Hey here is a challenge to RAW users. Convince me, a guy teetering on the edge, to make the switch to RAW. I want to, but the processing times, and file sizes are keeping me with JPEGS. Got any really GOOD reasons???

Part of the fun of digital photography for me is post-processing, and RAW ensures that I get to do plenty of that....But I do like the added flexibility of RAW, especially with exposure and white balace. And as much as I'd prefer to get the shot perfect straight out of the camera, I usually have to do some tweaking, and RAW lets you get away with more manipulation than JPG does before image degradation sets in. Of course, it's a little easier shooting with the D70's NEF files, since they are losslessly compressed, and only take up about 5-6mb per file, which isn't too bad.

I only shoot RAW for critical work, in my case, accreditation cases for AACD, and studio shoots. Otherwise, I shoot JPEG for the convenience and speed of workflow. RAW is great, but somewhat inconvenient, like having to bring film to a lab for processing ;) . Even when I shot film, I usually developed my own for the speed and convenience it afforded me. On the other hand, there is nothing like RAW for absolute control of the image, but I just hate the added time and work to archive, and convert the RAW images. C1Pro is nice since a lot of the editing gets done easily prior to conversion, but it is still time consuming.

I really hate the results of a color correction on a jpeg image, once I've seen what I can do with a RAW file. The results of the corrections themselves seems so much smoother, more professional. Once it's a jpeg, I'm fighting color casts and stuff, when if it was just a RAW file I'd simply make one simple adjustment and it would be beautiful. When color correcting a jpeg, I'm often altering areas I didn't want to alter in my attempt to get something else right. (I rarely do selective color corrections. To me, cutting a mask is more work than working with RAW.)

But I hate the processing times. I should correct myself: I HAVE hated the processing times, when I was using the Canon software. I would get so frustrated I'd want to throw my laptop across the room. But now that I've got PSCS, it seem soooooooooo easy.


Bottom line: when I'm shooting unimportant shots just for the fun of it, I'll shoot jpeg. When the pictures are a bit more important, where I think I'll actually want to frame them, sell them, submit them, whatever, then I'll shoot RAW.

Also, when I'm shooting fast action shots, I'll use jpeg, just because I want to shoot completely auto. I'm not good enough yet to capture fast action in manual mode.

To sum up:

kitty cat: jpeg
European photos: RAW
football game: jpeg
the moon: RAW
the kid snowboarding: jpeg
the mountain the kid is snowboarding on: RAW

I don't shoot RAW. Maybe it's my lack of skill in photography (or post-processing) or maybe it's the fact I'm just too lazy to change it, but I like jpeg, and it's work well for me. I haven't shot anything bigger than 11 by 14, but quality has been superb in jpeg, so I haven't really had a need to shoot RAW. That being said, maybe I'll go try shooting RAW this weekend:p

I shoot 99% of my shots in RAW mode and am grateful that I took that step both in the time to learn post processing and the time to get to know RAW better. It has saved me on several important shots that I got wrong, but wa able to salvage the shots to the point that they were more than useable shots. The only thing is I don't use Adobe RAW conversion but use Capture One to do the conversion, but the latest CS looks interesting and their are new players in the conversion software that are starting to make inroads into the big world as well. Capture One development has been going backwards over the past 12 - 18 months and their management have really pi**ed off a lot of their client base lately, going back on their agreed upgrades for those SE user that are being upgraded to PRO version due to SE version being discontinued. What used to be a 4 upgrade package has now been effectively cut back to 2. There are a lot of people that are looking at other software and not going to support Capture One in the future. One of their consultants who has supported the product for a long time, recently severed ties with the company as a consultant and isn't actively supporting the software as much as previously, which is quite noticeable.

Another company getting too arogant for itself, which will impact on thier bottom line I think over the next 12 - 18 months unless they get their act together quickly.

An interesting article on Nikon's "lossless" NEFs.

Danielle

Shooting RAW is the digtial equivalent of having a professional custom photo lab at your disposal as opposed to a one-hour place. Can you get a quality print from a machine made one-hour place? Absolutely. You just lose a lot of your control over the final image.

It's the same with digital. The extra versatility/options versus extra effort/responsibilty tradeoff is there just as it is with film. IMO, the only downside to RAW is storage, and we all know how cheap that is nowadays (recently saw a 1G CF card on sale for about $40).

Having worked with RAW images for quite some time now, I don't buy the argument that they involve more post-processing or take longer to work with than jpeg files.

Once you initially learn it, the PSCS RAW converter is a breeze to use. All adjustments are previewed in real time. I spend perhaps 30 seconds or so adjusting my first RAW image from a shoot and converting it to a PSD file (and making a copy jpeg for proofing). The rest are then batch processed, usually while I'm doing something else. How hard is that?

That's as far as it goes using the RAW files. They get archived, and from that point on I work in PS with PSD files...

BTW, I don't know how others do it, but when I occasionally shoot jpeg in camera I have to go through pretty much the same basic process as well (converting to PSD and resizing a copy jpeg proof), so for me the time spent on both file formats is virtually the same.

If for no other reason, RAW gives you the extended color bit depth, proving a VASTLY greater amount of color information, something that can be crucial when doing color editing.

Anyway, to each his own... :cool:

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Originally Posted by almo

I still shoot all JPEG. I have made forays into the RAW format, but it really slows down the shot rate, and I have limited card space aswell. Also I just havn't really seen much benifet to shooting RAW. I know that pros get a lot out of it, but for what I do JPEG is doing fine. I have printed 5MP JPEGs as big a 10x15 and the results were awesome. Wanna go bigger, RAW may be your best bet.

Hey here is a challenge to RAW users. Convince me, a guy teetering on the edge, to make the switch to RAW. I want to, but the processing times, and file sizes are keeping me with JPEGS. Got any really GOOD reasons???

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Up to now I have shot mostly JPG on my D70. When it's good it's very good and when it's bad it's awful. I don't usually have too much choice over my lighting situations, use a lot of flash. In difficult, contrasty light I tended to use negative film because I knew I could get the highlights back in the scan.

I tried Nikon Capture out briefly when I bought the camera and finally I bit the bullet and bought a real copy last month. Last weekend I tried out the D70 + RAW + Nikon Capture on a jumble sale in the village on a bright sunny morning. I just went out and shot as I would with a negative film then came back and reworked the RAW files in Nikon Capture. It was quite easy. The final conversion from RAW to JPG was done in batch while I was scanning some slides on my second system.

To be honest - I was STAGGERED. It was like using a totally different camera. Almost all the things that annoyed me about digital images disappeared. I regret that I didn't shoot some of the stuff I've done in the last 6 months on RAW, I would have been able to do it much better.

Note that this is RAW + Nikon Capture. I'm not sure that the all non-Nikon software knows how to treat the image so well.

Charles

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Originally Posted by Asylum Steve

Having worked with RAW images for quite some time now, I don't buy the argument that they involve more post-processing or take longer to work with than jpeg files.

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I'm sure the complaints are mostly due to the software you choose to use. If you've ever used the Canon software that comes with the camera, it's extremely frustrating to wait a minute and a half for your file to even OPEN. Multiply that by a 1 GB card and you'll see the frustration.

So to realize that the file I just opened in PSCS was a RAW file, which I only realized because of the controls that popped up, not because it took any more noticeable time to open, was what inspired my WOW wow WOW wow WOW wow WOW thread below. :D

Once it's open, you're right, the working time isn't bad at all. Especially if your system doesn't run like molasses while munching on the processing.

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Originally Posted by kellybean

Once it's open, you're right, the working time isn't bad at all. Especially if your system doesn't run like molasses while munching on the processing.

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Well, my system actually is (relatively) slow, but I'm so used to that when image editing, I've been programmed to simply multi-task and do other things while I wait... ;)

And, yeah, I agree about RAW software. I putz'd around with the Canon software too when I first got my 10D and found it a royal pain. But PS CS changed all of that... :cool:

I have been reading up on RAW vs JPEG with the D30, and the concensus seems to be that between ISO100-400 there is little value in shoot RAW except of course for the added color depth. However at ISO 800-1600 the findings were as such, "the noise appears to cause some JPEG hue errors and thus it's better to shoot RAW at these high sensitivities."

I think I am going to have to treat RAW and JPEG the way I do ISO. I am just going to have to figure the which is best for a given situation.

Any thoughts on this???

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Originally Posted by almo

I think I am going to have to treat RAW and JPEG the way I do ISO. I am just going to have to figure the which is best for a given situation.

Any thoughts on this???

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Yeah, that's a good thought! I see myself using RAW more and more in the future as I see all the benefits to it with my own eyes. Just a matter of having enough CF cards, I guess.

Here is a link to an interview with Dave Coffin about RAW files that ya'll might find interesting. Take a look.

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0504/05...ninterview.asp