Use of RAW

jonathan_ed

jonathan_ed

Suspended / Banned
Messages
1,110
Name
Jonathan
Edit My Images
Yes
Hi all

No please be gentle and i know this is going to be so very very VERY obvious to the majority of you, and if you have nothing helpful to say i'd rather you skipped over it, i'm looking for help not shooting down.

OK, so....shooting in RAW...why?

I have shot a couple in RAW then found that i can't open them in photoshop (CS2) it says that its an uncompatible file or something. Maybe its that version of photoshop, although i have got a copy of CS3 on it may apparently.
I understand that you are able to do more processing of the image.....but you can do that with a jpeg can't you? Or is it a case of you can, but only to a certain extent?

Any help or pointers would be appreciated, thanks people
 
Raw basically captures a digital negative of your shot, so you are seeing a true picture. This allows you to process a file as you would have done a negative in the films days, so you can adjust exposure, adjust white balances etc without losing quality from your shot.

You need to update the bridge software in Cs2 I would have thought, to process 1000D Raw files - check the Adobe website. Failing that, you can process raw files with the bundled Canon software and export them into photoshop that way?? :)
 
You need the RAW plug-in. Go to Adobe.com and download the version you need for your camera.

Once installed the software opens prior to Photoshop and lets you adjust things more precisely. Increasing or decreasing things like the exposure is much better as it acts like it would do in camera.
 
Thanks for that guys, much appreciated...its a meter of quality then i assume, i.e. you don't loose it when you edit a raw as oppose to a jpeg
 
Jpegs are sampled and in-camera processed pics, whereas a Raw file will not have lost any pixels, but will need processed and sharpened before they will look anything like as good as the jpeg equivalent. In terms of 'loosing it', if you had underexposed shot, you might be able to recover a stop easily in camera raw without any noise or pixelation using a RAW shot, whereas you might notice a deterioration in quality if you tried the same exercise in PS using a jpeg! :)
 
Why RAW - The original picture data is saved together with info on the camera settings. If you change the setting later on your computer you are not changing the picture data only the settings that will be applied to it. You can always go back to the original picture data and try different changes.

RAW has more data than JPEG as it is not compressed, this means that it is more flexible when processing on the computer. If the exposure is wrong, for example, you can make adjustments more effectively in RAW than in the compressed JPEG.

RAW can not normally be used straight from the camera but requires processing on the computer.

RAW and High Quality/Fine JPEG are not that different in quality, the final print, up to say A4, or a picture on the screen will be hard to tell apart.

If you get to know your camera you will be able to set the JPEG processing parameters to suit your needs - for example increase sharpness for certain shots, vivid colours or chroma for others. This will enable you to shoot JPEG, apply just a little bit of PP and get a good result without ages on the computer.

Continually changing and resaving a JPEG will lead to a drop in quality as compression is used, although at the highest quality setting it is not really noticeable unless you save lots of times.

RAW takes up more memory and takes longer to write to the card and can lead to the buffer becoming full when shooting continuously. A pain when shooting fast action sports or animals.

There is less noise with RAW, particularly when using long exposures.
etc etc

So is RAW better than JPEG? No
Is JPEG better than RAW? No
Is one more suitable than the other under certain circumstances? Yes

You will find lots of info in TP and on the web, just remember to apply some common sense to what some people say.:)
 
Could I ask something about RAW
Many people, including post #5 say that RAW files are not as sharp as a JPEG equivelent.

How do I sharpen my images in Photoshop CS4
Please could you give a step-by-step approach as I dont know much about photoshop.
Also what all the different sliders/controls do :D

Many Thanks
Jamie
 
J4MIE_P said:
Could I ask something about RAW
Many people, including post #5 say that RAW files are not as sharp as a JPEG equivelent.

How do I sharpen my images in Photoshop CS4
Please could you give a step-by-step approach as I dont know much about photoshop.
Also what all the different sliders/controls do :D

Many Thanks
Jamie
Click to expand...


I do all the exposure/contrast/saturation/cropping etc gubbins in Camera Raw, then open the image in photoshop CS3 (I'm assuming this is the same in CS4). Then go to Fliters - Sharpen - Unsharp Mask. There are three sliders in the dialog box that appears. Move them around until you're happy with the shot, click OK, and job done.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top