Is It Worth It

J

J4MIE_P

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1,727
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Jamie Palmer
Edit My Images
Yes
Well the big question that everyone asks.

Why should I shoot RAW, but this is a litte different.
I have shot RAW since owning my camera, and I'm unsure if it's really worth it.
If I'm shooting things with high ISO's then yes, the RAW is needed for editing.

But yesterday I went to the park for some wildlife shots, and I came home and spend a few hours editing my photos, and all i did to them was boost the clarity slightly and that was about it.

My question is, is it worth shooting in RAW all the time, or just occasionally for paid work, etc.

Cos tbh, I dont see the point as It's just a waste of my time,

Cheers
Jamie
 
Having gone out and spent all that money on Photoshop CS4 it would be criminal not to use it to its full potential.

No?
 
Yes, all that money spent :lol: *cough cough*

But I just dont seem to use RAW to its potential, it's weird
 
J4MIE_P said:
Yes, all that money spent :lol: *cough cough*
Click to expand...

Oh dear. :nono:

RAW has several advantages over a fine JPG, not least because it record and carries more raw data about an image.
 
It's a legit photoshop, it's not a internet cracked thing.

Someone I know back home gets it free from his work and has licence numbers to add it to his computers for work. I just got a number off him and he installed it for me.
 
I believe he may be hinting at the authenticity of your software.

I've just forked out for Photoshop CS4 myself so I too would not be amused.
 
To be only you can answer the question you have asked, do you want to shoot raw all the time?

Having just got my first DSLR I have started shooting raw and find you have much more control than shooting JPG,

And what would you do in the case of shooting JPG and then thinking 'I really should have shot raw'. You can't go back.

IMO there is no harm in shooting raw!
 
crazygeordiegirl said:
And what would you do in the case of shooting JPG and then thinking 'I really should have shot raw'. You can't go back.

IMO there is no harm in shooting raw!
Click to expand...

My thoughts exactly, as long as you have a decent sized memory card it's more of a case of "why not"...
 
Ye i see all your points now.
I see the advantages of RAW that's why I began in the first place.

But i just felt that I dont really do anythin with them, but I guess then if i mess up an important shot, I would be angry for not using RAW to try and rectify it.

Thanks everyone great help :D
Thread Closed :)
 
A thing that I find is that some people can get too used to RAW - and end up making up for their mistakes in Photoshop. IMO it kind of removes a certain skill required for photography - that of correctly exposing a shot. Some people just get into the mentality of "Oh yes, I'll just shoot at 1/1000 in some nice dark woods, I'll fix it on the computer."

*picks up OM1*
 
Shooting in raw and fine tuning in raw is the best without a doubt. :) I personally only shoot in raw.

If you have your images right in camera there isn't a need to over cook in PS unless of course, it is creative work.

J4mie, if you don't use raw, it would be interesting to see an origianl image.
 
I'd say it's worth it. Memory is cheap these days and you never know when that once-in-a-lifetime shot can be perfected just by being able to tweak the exposure because you slightly underexposed it etc.
 
You could shoot in raw + jpeg, if you don't need to edit the shots too much, just delete the raw files from your HD.

Or you could play with the raw files to see if the could come out better than the jpeg's you think are good.
 
I shoot RAW for paid work or for interesting shoots i do, otherwise it's high quality JPEG
 
If you don't do a lot of editing anyway, I'd say forget it. RAW does offer additional flexibility but not everyone needs it.
 
Cheers for all the comments guys :)
I think I might stick to RAW however.

Because if i dont need to edit such photos of general things i'll just batch edit them into JPEG's
But if I do need editing it's there.
 
Sign up for an interesting night course at college, get your student card and buy the student discounted versions.. because as far as I'm concerned I'm not a professonal and I dont use PS 10 hours a day to make money.. so I go down the student route which is what the discounted version was aimed at :) Its £140 compared to nearly £500 and the night class was free for mature students.. the night class is IT related BTW
 
I am a full time pro - I have NEVER owned a copy of photoshop...what do I want that for? That is what picture designers are paid for...if they want to spend their lives buggering about with the pictures, then they can. Me, I just do it in camera.

i shoot RSAW, but then just do the minimal to get a jpeg or TIFF out of it. Any further work is done by the final user.

At home, for your own use, you have the time to fiddle for no other reason than to please yourself. The difference is, shooting a jpeg, you DO shoot a RAW, but then the camera instantly batch processes it into a jpeg, the difference is you use the camera computer fo rone, and your computer for the other.....I would stick to RAW and edit hard.
 
Shock Horror

EVERYONE SHOOTS RAW

The difference is - do you want your camera to process the RAW file on the fly, or do you want to process it yourself?

Your camera may have 3 sharpness settings, your RAW conversion software 256

Your camera may have the ability to load a couple of tone curves, your RAW conversion software has almost infinite options

Your camera may have 5 contrast settings, your RAW conversion software 256

Your camera may have 5 white balance settings and a PRE setting, your RAW conversion software has masive options in comparison

You can adjust the basic camera settings looking at a comparitivly small crappy screen, surrounded by green fields - on your Mac or PC you are potentially looking at a huge colour balanced screen in a well lit neutral environment
 
I shot raw for the first time on Sunday at a bike race, and its awesome! But processing the 400 photos wasn't so awesome. I was talking to someone about doing a car event. What they wanted was a photo of each car whilst out on a run, so they could then print them at ASDA or somewhere in the evening and give them out the next day, but it would be nice to have them in raw so I could process some at a later date. Is there any easy way of shooting in raw, then adjusting one, compressing to a medium jepg, maybe adding a overlay border then batch processing the rest in the same way?

Also what is a .CRW as apposed to a .CR2 file? I can set my G9 to output raw and small Jepgs but the raws are coming out as .CRW files. Canon ZoomBrower EX won't open them.

Cheers
Chris
 
Chris, I dont know if you can do it on a G9 but on some cameras you can set it so it saved a RAW file and a JPEG image at the same time.
 
Yeah the G9 can do that, which will probably work quite well.

I just been trying to use it hacked so it outputs a medium sized jepg rather than wasting space with a full sized jepg, which isn't needed as its only going to be printed 6x4 at ASDA, and anything bigger I will use the raw file. I figured small 4mp jepgs are quicker and easier to work with in a rush in a random campsite than 12mp jepgs. The hacked program is saving the raw file in .CRW format, and then the camera is set to M3 sized jepgs.
 
Correct me if I'm wrong, but a RAW image looks exactly like a jpeg as it comes out of the camera, right? Yet you have more options for future editing/correction with the RAW image. Therefore, if you shoot in RAW and batch convert them to JPEG without even looking at them in Camera RAW (or whatever your program of choice is), you have not really wasted any time, and you have the JPEGs that you wanted. You also have the RAW files, should you want to tweak anything later.

If you don't shoot in RAW, there is no way of going back to your JPEG after the event to make a RAW image...
 
BigDex said:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but a RAW image looks exactly like a jpeg as it comes out of the camera, right? Yet you have more options for future editing/correction with the RAW image. Therefore, if you shoot in RAW and batch convert them to JPEG without even looking at them in Camera RAW (or whatever your program of choice is), you have not really wasted any time, and you have the JPEGs that you wanted. You also have the RAW files, should you want to tweak anything later.

If you don't shoot in RAW, there is no way of going back to your JPEG after the event to make a RAW image...
Click to expand...

Not quite. jpegs show in the lcd display on camera and take into account any in camera processing that has been set in the menus.

The RAW will come out without the processing which is why people often remark that it looked better in the lcd than on the pc straight out of camera.
 
Just think of RAW as a negative from a traditional roll of film.

You will always have what you shot from the camera, no matter how many changes you make to ouput it as a .tiff or .jpg.
 
This is kinda of what I'm asking ... is it better to:

1. Shoot only raw
2. Shoot raw + Large jepg
3. Shoot raw + Small jepg (which I think I can do, once I've worked out if .CRW files are as good as .CR2 files and I can use them)

Bearing in mind the shoot might end at 4pm, and the photos need to be printed that evening, and it would be nice to be able to put a small border with the event logo onto each photo. When I did the bike race I changed everyphoto to the same white balance and adjusted the exposure compensation on some, then processed the lot which took quite a long time on my laptop with the processor maxed out.

Cheers for the help
Chris
 
I am suprised no one has mentioned that jpgs lose quality everytime they are opened? Unless I missed it somewhere!
 
billyd601 said:
I am suprised no one has mentioned that jpgs lose quality everytime they are opened? Unless I missed it somewhere!
Click to expand...
I suspect no-one mentioned it because it is not true

The loose quality every time they are saved
 
thanks fabs and richard for putting me right, am just a bit senile! :bonk:
 
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