RAW question...

macvisual

macvisual

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Peter
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I'm very new to digital photography, recently bought a Canon 5D (Mk1), question is;

Do I shoot everything in 'RAW' format? Then edit in the likes of 'Lightroom 3' and save as a hi-res j-peg? I've yet to buy the likes of Lightroom 3 etc...

I take it once saved as a j-peg from the original RAW photo, the RAW photo becomes non usable then?

I would appreciate any advice on this subject please, thanks!


regards;
macvisual
 
The RAW will still be usable. Think of the raw as a negative and the jpeg as a print produced from the negative. You can always go back to the RAW and and recreate another jpeg if you wish.

As to whether to shoot everything in RAW. Bit of personal choice. You can do a lot more with a RAW file in terms of editing later but obviously that all takes time. If you are unsure, shoot both for a while and see what suits you best.
 
So you can save/transfer the original RAW file photo from your c.flash card to the likes of storage hard drive or a dvd and keep on using it as the original..?

Sorry for my questions as I'm new to this digital marlarky, thanks!
 
Yes that is true.

When somebody with alot more knowledge comes on, they tell you that RAW will get betrter with technology as the programs that deal with RAW will get even better.
 
Yes .
I always shoot RAW, save them to my pc then edit the ones i like to look of delete the ones i donot and save a a few of the mmm maybe's, then save the edited ones as Jpegs and then save everything to an external hard drive aswell.

how you shoot is a personal thing, some people shoot RAW/Jpeg others just RAWand others just Jpeg.

spike
 
gad-westy said:
The RAW will still be usable. Think of the raw as a negative and the jpeg as a print produced from the negative. You can always go back to the RAW and and recreate another jpeg if you wish.
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Exactly as Graham says. :thumbs:

Shooting RAW will take a little more effort and time in post production to get JPG's out but it does give more "wiggle" room. It is much easier to deal with an under/over exposed shot with a RAW file than it is with a JPG.

It's all personal choice though really and a bit of a learning cure about how your work flow will progress.

Good luck and welcome to the forums, there are plenty of friendly helpful about on here. :thumbs:
 
yeah all i do is is transfer all my pics taken to an external hard drive, delete all the oof ones then edit as necessary save as jpeg for printing off or posting. Always keep the raw file so when i learn new processing techniques i can go back at a later date and try and use a different look on them.
 
I've been shooting RAW only for the last 7 years. Can't see how it takes any more effort tbh but definitely has helped rescuing those shots that otherwise were useless.

My tool of choice is Apple Aperture, all RAW files stay in my managed library, no copies or duplicate JPG's are laying around. Any edits or adjustments are stored in XML files which is basically a text description of what I have done and that get applied automatically. Aperture fully integrates with the operating system, so unless you have very very very specific needs over full control of an exported file, there really is no need to create JPG's. The Media Browser that is integrated in any OSX application fully automatically handles that, you can search by any bit of meta data, select the photo and the adjustments get applied and the jpg created just for that purpose.

Like when I attach a file on here, just drag/drop from Aperture to the upload button and it gets done all for you.

It is why I like Apple's Aperture so much as it save a lot of duplicates all over the place.
 
There's a free utility that can save JPEG files from raw, IJFR. It'll do batch conversion in a few minutes and it's very easy to use.

Raw will also let you change white balance and exposure very easily, if you didn't get the settings correct in the camera you can change them with Adobe Camera Raw or the camera software.
 
RAW files never alter, when you save as a jpef its saving a copy if you like. Basically the RAW is a digital neg. When you convert the RAW file is untouched.
 
To add a little to the above, jpeg is a `lossy` file-type. Every time you save an image as a jpeg, it gets compressed and then when you open it, it is re-expanded. Each time you do this, a little information is lost, and the image will deteriorate. In RAW, this doesn't happen, so you can take as many copies from the original as you wish without loss of quality.

This expansion is one of the reasons why a jpeg will nearly always benefit from some sharpening - it probably isn't you lens, just the way electrons act when being persuaded to become pictures.
 
it has to be RAW...if you care at all about doing half decent post production on your photos, you have to shoot RAW...and these days when hard drives / mem cards are relatively cheap, i just don't see any reason not to go RAW. :)
 
With the RAW file you can create multiple different edits of the same image (in Lightroom you "create virtual copy". This creates a database file with different values for the various things you can edit in your program. So you may have one copy in colour, another in B&W, another with different edits and so on.

Now you can do this with JPG too but the RAW file will contain more detail to start with.
 
rampanthamster said:
it has to be RAW...if you care at all about doing half decent post production on your photos, you have to shoot RAW...and these days when hard drives / mem cards are relatively cheap, i just don't see any reason not to go RAW. :)
Click to expand...

How about if you have an hour,maybe two, to sort and process about 1000 shots?

Would you still shoot RAW?

Both jpeg and RAW have a place and differing benefits. Use whichever suits your needs best, but don`t dismiss either because you don`t use one of them.
 
fracster said:
How about if you have an hour,maybe two, to sort and process about 1000 shots?

Would you still shoot RAW?

Both jpeg and RAW have a place and differing benefits. Use whichever suits your needs best, but don`t dismiss either because you don`t use one of them.
Click to expand...


Agree, if I had to print on site or wire shots straight to a news desk etc. Jpg simplifies things. I would shoot jpg+RAW though ;)
 
Each to thier own.......:thumbs:
 
If you get lightroom timewise it would be the same as both jpegs and raw are edited in the same workspace and then all you do is export them at the end.
 
I always used to shoot RAW + JPEG and never really thought about why. Always meant I ended up going through the folders deleting all the jpegs.

Only reason i shoot JPEG now is if it's family pics in which case I can't be bothered sitting editing them when the quality isn't the most important thing. That and it means my wife doesn't wait for months to get my pictures too.
 
When I first got my camera I shot everything in RAW because it better right? and it's what real photographers do. Then I found it a pain because the wife wanted to facebook pictures immediately after they were downloaded, so I had to rush the conversion so started shooting RAW + JPEG instead. I'd use DPP for the RAW conversion, tweaking sliders here and there until the image looked 'right' then convert to JPEG, and guess what, 9 times out of 10 it looked the same as the camera produced JPEG!!!

Now I'm not saying that RAW doesn't have its place, but it's not an automatic road to better pictures, you need to have skill and time to post process the RAW files properly. If you don't then JPEG may be the answer.
 
FACT 1645 : Take a good picture and you don't need RAW at all.
 
fracster said:
How about if you have an hour,maybe two, to sort and process about 1000 shots?
Click to expand...

Probably yes (I've done that).

It just depends on what you shoot.
 
amtaylor said:
If you get lightroom timewise it would be the same as both jpegs and raw are edited in the same workspace and then all you do is export them at the end.
Click to expand...

:thumbs:
 
fracster said:
How about if you have an hour,maybe two, to sort and process about 1000 shots?

Would you still shoot RAW?

Both jpeg and RAW have a place and differing benefits. Use whichever suits your needs best, but don`t dismiss either because you don`t use one of them.
Click to expand...

Sorry but I can't see what the difference is in processing time whether you had shot the image in JPG or RAW. You still got to sort through them? How does it make a difference? Whether I load a JPG or RAW in Aperture or Lightroom doesn't make the slightest difference except that you get more tools at your disposal if you so wish to use them.
 
dejongj said:
Sorry but I can't see what the difference is in processing time whether you had shot the image in JPG or RAW. You still got to sort through them? How does it make a difference? Whether I load a JPG or RAW in Aperture or Lightroom doesn't make the slightest difference except that you get more tools at your disposal if you so wish to use them.
Click to expand...

Well first you have to ingest RAW files into the computer which will be bigger and take longer than JPG. Then you have to make your selections and LR will definitely be a little slower running through RAW files as it applies your import settings and renders the previews. Then you have to export your picks as jpg which will take time.

Like I said I'm a RAW shooter, but if you are in a hurry and doing this on a laptop on site I can see where jpg would save time.
 
lensflair said:
Well first you have to ingest RAW files into the computer which will be bigger and take longer than JPG. Then you have to make your selections and LR will definitely be a little slower running through RAW files as it applies your import settings and renders the previews. Then you have to export your picks as jpg which will take time.

Like I said I'm a RAW shooter, but if you are in a hurry and doing this on a laptop on site I can see where jpg would save time.
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Clutching straws I would say, don't know about lightroom but in Aperture you can start your work whilst the import is active. Perhaps on a PC this is different but on my mac there just isn't a difference in time. Expecially not on an SSD, i7 with decent graphics card equipped machine. :D
 
dejongj said:
Clutching straws I would say, don't know about lightroom but in Aperture you can start your work whilst the import is active. Perhaps on a PC this is different but on my mac there just isn't a difference in time. Expecially not on an SSD, i7 with decent graphics card equipped machine. :D
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Same on a PC. :) You can start as soon as the first image is downloaded - If shooting 1000 images though, to get done in less than an hour, I'd kjust be batch processing all and should be done in not much longer than it takes to import all the images and export them at the required size.

Regards RAW size, sRAW can be your friend (unless you need big files).!
 
dejongj said:
Clutching straws I would say, don't know about lightroom but in Aperture you can start your work whilst the import is active. Perhaps on a PC this is different but on my mac there just isn't a difference in time. Expecially not on an SSD, i7 with decent graphics card equipped machine. :D
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LOL. Look I don't shoot jpg EVER. I use a mac and I know a desktop machine is fast but people who are sending files this quickly are probably using a laptop or notepad and it takes time to do the extra work. Even exporting the jpgs takes time. It could all add up to 10 minutes extra but if you need your images to go from your camera to a picture desk almost as quick as you take them there would be little point shooting RAW because you are not going to have time to make any adjustments. What work exactly would these people be doing besides picking which ones get sent? I don't care how fast your computer is, the import will be slower as the files are bigger. Pro bodies like the D3 have 2 CF card slots and you can have the camera save as jpgs on one and RAW on the other, that way they can get the files out to wherever quickly and still have RAW versions if they need them later.

Like I said, I only shoot RAW because I don't do that type if work, but I wouldn't rule out jpg if I needed to.
 
lensflair said:
LOL. Look I don't shoot jpg EVER. I use a mac and I know a desktop machine is fast but people who are sending files this quickly are probably using a laptop or notepad and it takes time to do the extra work. Even exporting the jpgs takes time. It could all add up to 10 minutes extra but if you need your images to go from your camera to a picture desk almost as quick as you take them there would be little point shooting RAW because you are not going to have time to make any adjustments. What work exactly would these people be doing besides picking which ones get sent? I don't care how fast your computer is, the import will be slower as the files are bigger. Pro bodies like the D3 have 2 CF card slots and you can have the camera save as jpgs on one and RAW on the other, that way they can get the files out to wherever quickly and still have RAW versions if they need them later.

Like I said, I only shoot RAW because I don't do that type if work, but I wouldn't rule out jpg if I needed to.
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I agree what you say - It is quicker. - I've shot RAW though at events and didn't need to convert. Just printed straight from the RAW in Lr (although I appreciate it does a conversion). Was still pretty quick.
 
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