Transcript Why I Shoot RAW

Many people smarter than I said “If you
aren’t shooting RAW, you’re not serious!”
 You must not be a “real” photographer
 JPEGs are for kids
 Blah, blah, blah.
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There is more data in the file
 RAW editing is non destructive
 Data is manipulated by YOU and NOT
the camera
 Better color resolution :ie more colors
(Thousands vs hundreds)
 No posterization
 White balance adjustment AFTER the
exposure
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Exposure correction AFTER the exposure
 You record greater levels of brightness
 Easily correct over and under exposures
 Vastly improved detail (those extra BITs)
 When new processing capabilities come
along (and they WILL), reprocess at will
from the ORIGINAL RAW file with no data
compromised or lost.
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Nope! Well, sort of. I really tried to move
forward. I shot in RAW + JPEG but then
usually processed the JPEGs instead of
the RAW files. All of the familiar excuses:
› I don’t have time to learn a new technique
› I’m in a hurry today. I’ll do it next time
› This will just be easier if I use the JPEG
Pretty well most of the time as
long as:
 The images were not too contrasty
 There wasn’t too much saturated
color
 The image was well exposed. Not
over (blown out) or under (blocked)
It was a fine Saturday morning in March
of 2007
 Lafayette Square
 Camera Club Spring Walk (Dale and
Catherine DeWitt hosted the walk)
 A backlit red Tulip
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I spent hours on the JPEG in PSE trying the
de-saturate the red and keep the detail in
the image
 NO LUCK! Every time I tried to pull down the
reds, the image detail would just kind of
vanish.
 A small voice whispered “open it in RAW”
 WOW! What a difference! But “WOW” was it
flat and lifeless! Very detailed and boring.
No PUNCH!
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Once opened in Camera RAW
(Elements version), it was so easy to
make adjustments for all kinds of stuff.
 I didn’t know anything about RAW
processing but it was surprisingly easy
and, dare I say, NON DESTRUCTIVE!
 I made a few slider moves that worked
and a few that didn’t and in much less
time than I had spent working over the
JPEG (unsuccessfully), it looked pretty OK
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I went to ACR again to get a couple of
screen captures to show what
adjustments I had made in ACR and
could NOT get the red back into the
image. Don’t know why!
 So I decided to open the RAW image in
Light Room 4 which is what you’ll see on
the next slide.
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This image isn’t “fine art” or even a
“good” image but it was a wonderful
“teaching” tool.
 The amount of detail in the flower is very
noticeable but subtle on the screen.
 It didn’t take any longer to do the
adjustments in Camera RAW or Light
Room than it would in Photoshop and I
had ALL of the BITs to work with!
 It was an eye opener for me!
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Nope! The lazy guy inside just couldn’t
be bothered with the change in
workflow!
 Most of my JPEGs were “good enough”,
at least at the time I thought they were.
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By this time (2007) I may have already taken
one of Kathy O’Donnell’s “basic Photoshop”
classes and had a pretty simple, basic work
flow established for “normal” images.
Always work on layers
Don’t save the JPEGs repeatedly
NEVER work on your original file, only a copy
I was VERY reluctant to step into the RAW
arena, even though I knew it would make
my images better and my life easier
On a business trip to Thun, Switzerland I had
taken some images of our F-18 Flight simulator
set up at the military facility in Thun.
 I switched the camera to shoot in JPEG only. No
sense is wasting memory card or computer
space for work related stuff!
 The weekend came and I tossed the camera
bag in the rental car, rendezvoused with my
team mate and off we went to see what there
was to see.
 We headed north toward France, up toward
Strasbourg. We saw a sign to Mont Sainte Odile
and figured “why not?”
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The entire Mont Sainte Odile area is gorgeous and very
photographic! I shot a lot of photos. All in JPEG!
 The weather was spring like and there was an
awesome, dramatic sky. The Monastery sits high up on
a cliff overlooking a decent sized village. There are a
couple of vantage points that allow decent angles of
the church.
 Did I mention that I did NOT change the camera
settings back to RAW + JPEG?
 Did I mention it is very near if not totally impossible to
pull down an over exposed sky from a JPEG image?
Blown out = GONE! NO DATA! NOT even 1 BITs worth of
information to adjust!
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Don’t have any data bits to work with on the
bright area
Don’t have the editing skills to do a decent sky
replacement with the tree edges
Made a couple of attempts at replacing the
blown out areas but, alas, no luck
My failure to double check my camera settings
cost me what I think is a pretty good image!
I am confident that if I had exposed the same
image, and had it in RAW I would have been
able to easily salvage what I think is a decent
image!
The dreaded red tulip. Oh the time I spent
trying to salvage that shot. Sigh!
 The photo at Mont Sainte Odile. Arggh! If I
had bracketed exposures or perhaps even
taken a second or third shot. Maybe even
checked my camera settings PRIOR to
heading out on a once in a lifetime
adventure!
 Light Room 4. What a great organizer and
powerful tool to make RAW processing so
easy!
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Not even close! Photojournalists, Sports
photographers and dare I say “paparzzi”
shoot JPEGs so they can get them to
their editors quickly and beat the others
to be published.
 I heard of a wedding photographer who
shoots nothing but JPEG for ease of
processing
 A very well known nature/close up
photographer shoots all JPEG all the time
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I shot RAW + JPEG for years and did NOT
process the RAW files and had a decent
collection of successful images with my
JPEGs.
 I’m glad I still have the RAW files as it has
been a lot of fun to go back and
reprocess the original RAW files again.
New tools and more experience = new,
improved results.
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Can be viewed on any computer with no
special software
Easily viewed on numerous handheld devices
Fast to shoot and store in the camera
Uploaded to the web for viewing
Small file size and are compressed to take less
memory (disk) space. More shots on the
memory card.
Easily emailed
Taken to a local printer like WalMart or
Walgreens etc or home to be printed directly
from the memory card. No computer required!
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8 bit files. Only 256 levels of brightness between pure
white and pure black. A 16 bit RAW file would have 16,384
levels!
5280ft divided by 256 = 1 step every 20.625 feet
5280ft divided by 16,384 = 1 step every .322265625 feet
(call it 4 inches)
When the camera creates a JPEG file, it captures a RAW
image, converts it to an 8 bit JPEG and tosses out the
unused bits. Those bits are gone forever
The camera sets the white balance (usually OK but not
always!)
Contrast, saturation, brightness and sharpening all set by
the camera.
Of all these, sharpening is almost impossible to correct in a
JPEG
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You never know when the shot of a lifetime will show
up in your viewfinder! How many blurry, over/under
exposed shots of UFOs and the Loch Ness Monster
have you seen? You DON’T want that to happen to
you!
Easy to fix white balance, day, shade, tungsten etc.
Ever get your camera settings wrong? Over
exposed? Under exposed? +/- 2 steps fixed EZ
ISO set wrong? Forgot you were shooting in near
darkness last night but now you’re at the beach on a
sunny day?
RAW captures the MOST of the available data and
allows YOU to process it non destructively!
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Whoops. Imagine a nicely cooked
T-bone steak with a fork in it!
We’re DONE
 Thanks for listening!
 Questions?
 Comments?