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04/22/2005 06:43:46 PM · #1 |
| i am new at this and I know that this is probably a stupid question but could someone please explain what the difference is with a Raw image and why they take them. |
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04/22/2005 08:01:10 PM · #2 |
I'm pretty new to RAW as well but will have a go! Your D70 will do some pp in cam when you shoot in JPEG. RAW is just that - raw data with no sharpening, contrast or other editing done at all. The thing I love most about a RAW image is that I can tweek the WB by a good two stops and still have a good image. Tonight I did all of my pp within the raw converter (including white balance, contrast, sharpening and noise removal) the resulting 16 bit image was pretty good for me :)
Downside (for me) is that its slow, big images that can take an age to load into the converter. Tonight I used to Picasa2 to load all the images from the card reader whilst I made a cup of tea so i could view the images and pick those that I wanted to edit.
HTH
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04/22/2005 08:10:11 PM · #3 |
Liney,
I used to shoot in HI JPEG all the time till I got the Rawshooter Essentials. It's a free program to work on RAW images. Basically as Ecce Signum said, RAW image is unprocessed data of the image. It allows you to adjust things that you may not be able to if you use a JPEG setting on your camera b/c the camera will eliminate about 2-3MB out of your RAW data if you save in HI JPEG to go from 6.1MB of data to 3.1MB or so. You cannot get that data back. Practically speaking, I've found that using Rawshooter allows you to control lighting better, to fill in for dark spots, to smoothout overblown/underexposed areas. I cannot duplicate the quality of the image using Photoshop when I shoot JPEG vs. when I shoot RAW and use Rawshooter. Now I exclusively shoot in RAW, and I used to really poo poo people who only shot in RAW.
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04/22/2005 08:16:37 PM · #4 |
Get yourself 'Camera Raw with Adobe Photoshop CS' by Bruce Frazer. Published by Real World.
I turned to RAW and will never ever go back to JPEG. Yip, slower, more work but more creative, more opportunities and 16 bit to boot. You will be amazed what it does for the quality of my photography.
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04/22/2005 08:34:53 PM · #5 |
| Thank you all that helps alot, there realy is so much to learn. |
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04/22/2005 08:37:06 PM · #6 |
liney, to use it simply is simple, to use it well will take practice (another steep learning curve for me)
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04/22/2005 08:47:34 PM · #7 |
Liney,
If you aren't familiar with post processing pictures, I'd first recommend using JPEG to learn it to save yourself lots of time. As you become familiar with your camera and post processing JPEG images, then start on RAW to convert to TIFF or JPEG and then post process the converted RAW image. It takes more time, but the images are much nicer in my opinion.
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04/22/2005 08:49:00 PM · #8 |
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04/22/2005 09:03:55 PM · #9 |
Originally posted by vince31874:
Un-cooked. ;) |
beat me too it.
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04/22/2005 09:08:05 PM · #10 |
| I think that in simple terms RAW is like a negative, where jpg is like a slide. |
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04/22/2005 09:14:15 PM · #11 |
Originally posted by yido:
Liney,
I used to shoot in HI JPEG all the time till I got the Rawshooter Essentials. It's a free program to work on RAW images. |
Rawshooter Essentials really converted me to shooting more in RAW - it's much better than the Pentax program. I'll shoot jpeg if I'm going to be taking lots of photos, otherwise I'll run out of card memory too quickly. |
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04/22/2005 09:18:01 PM · #12 |
here's link for rawshooters essentials freebie download..and obviously by my shots I don't use RAW...cause i'm WAYYYYYYYYYYYY ignert...someday tho...someday
//www.naturephotographers.net/articles0205/ar0205-2.html |
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04/22/2005 09:18:39 PM · #13 |
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04/22/2005 09:20:47 PM · #14 |
Raw is a whole new evolution in photography. It has been equated to negatives many times, but its even more than that. A negative already has a fixed exposure, and a chemical reaction on a given white balance. You can do many things with it, but a negative is not as flexible as a raw file.
One significant point of confusion lies in how "correctable" a raw file is. You can make more of a correction on a raw file than you can a jpeg, but if you correct past ~ 1 stop you are degrading the image to some degree. Whether you shoot raw or JPEG, you still need to nail exposure.
Another thing to keep in mind is that the in-camera algorithms for JPEG are pretty smart. There will be times when an average photographer may not have the skills to process a raw file into a final image as well as the camera does. You have to master curves, levels, saturation, etc. And I do mean master. Some raw images are tricky to pull out.
One thing I fins particularly nice about raw files is that I can go back and reprocess them. For example, I had a batch of images shot at a beautiful park with bluffs overlooking Lake Ontario. Unfortunately, I had blown the highlights on many of them because I was pretty new to the dSLR. Bibble recently enhanced their highlight recovery, and I was able to go back and improve those images significantly.
Raw is a lot of positive things, but it is not a silver bullet. There's nothing wrong with shooting JPEG, and nothing wrong with shooting raw. They each have trade-offs, and you should select a workflow that is most in tune with your style.
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04/22/2005 09:28:32 PM · #15 |
| To process RAW files you will need Windows XP (not supported by win 98, Me, 2000 and not sure about Macs) and a large amount of computing power, storage, RAM, etc. |
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