Working with RAW
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in terms of general advice...
hmmm...
I always shoot in raw, disk space is cheap enough these days that there is no real reason not to.
Once I have copied all the images to my file server I convert all the photos with no adjustments at all to .jpg files no larger than 1000 pixels in height or width. This lets me go through them quickly and prune the ones I don't like.
oooh... here's one... Always leave the images on the memory card, formatting them just before the next shoot, if you have a short term disaster it's good to know you still have them on the card.
Generally though i'm not too sure there any sure fire things to do or avoid. RAW files make changing things like the white balance nice and easy if you're a bit off.
hmmm...
I always shoot in raw, disk space is cheap enough these days that there is no real reason not to.
Once I have copied all the images to my file server I convert all the photos with no adjustments at all to .jpg files no larger than 1000 pixels in height or width. This lets me go through them quickly and prune the ones I don't like.
oooh... here's one... Always leave the images on the memory card, formatting them just before the next shoot, if you have a short term disaster it's good to know you still have them on the card.
Generally though i'm not too sure there any sure fire things to do or avoid. RAW files make changing things like the white balance nice and easy if you're a bit off.
Thanks Squidders for your quick reply I will have to have a play around and see what I come up with
RAW has the huge advantage that you can fiddle around with it a lot more than jpeg, which is great *if* you like fiddling around with pictures, trying to get the best out of them. It is, however, slower for the camera to capture, and slower to go to final print -- if you need to shoot lots of images really quickly, then it can be a bit of a pain.
The biggest advantage is that you have more flexibility with exposure in post-processing, and can partially recover a lot more shadow or highlight detail than you can when shooting jpeg.
About the best information I've seen (if you like technical, and Photoshop oriented) is at:
http://www.ronbigelow.com/articles/articles.htm
It's also worth remembering that the camera applies automatic sharpening to jpeg images, and not to RAW, so the RAW tend to look much softer, until you manually sharpen them.
Good luck!
The biggest advantage is that you have more flexibility with exposure in post-processing, and can partially recover a lot more shadow or highlight detail than you can when shooting jpeg.
About the best information I've seen (if you like technical, and Photoshop oriented) is at:
http://www.ronbigelow.com/articles/articles.htm
It's also worth remembering that the camera applies automatic sharpening to jpeg images, and not to RAW, so the RAW tend to look much softer, until you manually sharpen them.
Good luck!
All the advice above is great but one thing I would really recommend is to get your hands on Adobe Lightroom or Aperture (for mac) - i use lightroom and love it - really simplifies my worklow and lets me apply fixes and tweaks ver7y easily. plus it doesnt scare me like photoshop does - plus at the end of the day photoshop was not designed for this anyways.
On the other front depending on what camera your using I would make use of the RAW+JPEG mode which will record a raw and jpeg at the same time - I finf it really helps to see how the camera's image engine would process the image if it was "jpegging" it and it also saves having to generate JPEGs later, the caveat to this is an increase in write time to your memory card but that shouldnt be too much of a problem unless your firing of many fps and fill up your buffer.
To be honest when I first started shooting RAW it scared the daylights out of me but the control you have is just fantastic and a dedicated RAW processing program with workflow such as lightroom makes a huge difference - plus its not too pricey either.
I would still filter the old fashioned way for the likes of ND grads and especially CIR polarisers.
Anyway finished waffling.
Tom
On the other front depending on what camera your using I would make use of the RAW+JPEG mode which will record a raw and jpeg at the same time - I finf it really helps to see how the camera's image engine would process the image if it was "jpegging" it and it also saves having to generate JPEGs later, the caveat to this is an increase in write time to your memory card but that shouldnt be too much of a problem unless your firing of many fps and fill up your buffer.
To be honest when I first started shooting RAW it scared the daylights out of me but the control you have is just fantastic and a dedicated RAW processing program with workflow such as lightroom makes a huge difference - plus its not too pricey either.
I would still filter the old fashioned way for the likes of ND grads and especially CIR polarisers.
Anyway finished waffling.
Tom
Just had a look at the website for this, and it sounds like its an add-on for Photoshop. Is it? I have Elements 2 and have been looking for something that will allow me to manipulate RAW images at a price I can afford. I have ACDC with the RAW addons, and this is OK for what it does, but it doesn't allow much in the way of manipulation in the way Elements does. Money is really tight at the moment, so any solution will probably have to wait, but thought I'd chip in as the thread is here
G
The full product is called Adobe Photoshop Lightroom and is a stand alone program - its on V2 now so you can pick up V1 for £70 or so. It's not the only tool out there and if your willing to look after your own workflow then the GIMP (think free photoshop) is free and a great image editing tool.
Lightroom is a lot more expensive than free but imho is the best ive used. Im sure they used to do a trial of it. - check here
Tom
Lightroom is a lot more expensive than free but imho is the best ive used. Im sure they used to do a trial of it. - check here
Tom
Thanks for that Tom. I've known about GIMP for years, but never actually tried it. Perhaps now is the time. I'll also investigate a trial version of Lightroom when I've worked out what I actually want to be able to do.
Cheers
G
Tiff files at least do not have compression artifacts like Jpgs If you want the best quality for large prints it is worth using them.
Raw are the best though as they allow you to access more of the information recorded by the camera.
For a start jpgs and tiffs are usually only 8 bit but the camera may record 12 or 14 bits of information to a raw file.
By converting the raw to a 16 bit tiff or Photoshop file you can hold onto a smoother tonal range with more headroom for tonal editing (Curves, levels or the like.)
Additionally, the white balance is only coded to the file, which means you can alter the white balance after taking the shot without damaging any of the colour information in the picture.
Probably the most important factor is that a 12 or 14 bit file can record a higher dynamic range (Difference between recorded highlights and shadows.) which means you can access that information post exposure.
This is often witnessed as the ability to recover blown highlights or lighten shadow detail, but by combining those abilities it allows you to render scene contrast far beyond what could be recorded with an 8 bit Jpg.
Raw are the best though as they allow you to access more of the information recorded by the camera.
For a start jpgs and tiffs are usually only 8 bit but the camera may record 12 or 14 bits of information to a raw file.
By converting the raw to a 16 bit tiff or Photoshop file you can hold onto a smoother tonal range with more headroom for tonal editing (Curves, levels or the like.)
Additionally, the white balance is only coded to the file, which means you can alter the white balance after taking the shot without damaging any of the colour information in the picture.
Probably the most important factor is that a 12 or 14 bit file can record a higher dynamic range (Difference between recorded highlights and shadows.) which means you can access that information post exposure.
This is often witnessed as the ability to recover blown highlights or lighten shadow detail, but by combining those abilities it allows you to render scene contrast far beyond what could be recorded with an 8 bit Jpg.
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