Beginner RAW'ness

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Don
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Hey guys,
Found loads of helpful stuff on here recently with your help.

So everyone says shoot Raw, however - when I convert the Raw to Jpeg, the Jpeg seems much sharper. Is this the aim for optimum quality; shoot in Raw first THEN convert to Jpeg, or keep yer image Raw?
BTW, I'm coming from the perspective of non post-production as that is a bit off my reach yet.

Appreciate this is probably rudimentary for most, but I'm easily confuzzled.

Thanks!
 
Raw image is unprocessed. Jpeg would have some processing, including sharpening, which would make it "appear" sharper. The beauty with the raw file, is that you can take control of everything processing wise, then export to whatever format you require, e.g. jpeg, tiff, etc.
 
Ta, John.
So the Raw eventually gets converted to Jpeg anyway, for the purpose of us viewing/upping online, etc and so
 
Ta, John.
So the Raw eventually gets converted to Jpeg anyway, for the purpose of us viewing/upping online, etc and so
The RAW is not really a viewable image format. It's a data file. It MUST be converted to something like a jpg before you can even look at it. The image you see when looking at the RAW file on the back of your camera or in software on your PC is a jpg preview. The advantage of using RAW is that it holds much, much more information than a jpg so you have far greater latitude for processing to your own tastes.
A RAW file is sort of analogous to unprocessed film.

Your camera always shoots in RAW anyway. It's just that when you choose to shoot jpg the camera makes the processing decisions for you (sharpness, contrast, saturation, etc) and discards the extra information. The advantage being that you use less memory and have an instantly usable picture.
 
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Appreciate this is probably rudimentary for most, but I'm easily confuzzled.Thanks!

You should be be to get at least slightly better results by shooting raw and you will probably have the option of saving TIFF files instead of JPEG's.

For help with processing raws you could Google for good settings with your software and camera, something like...
"Best Canon 5D raw settings for Lightroom." There will probably be something on Youtube :D

Or if you have a free evening you can just sit and read the help files and play with the settings and see what gives you the best result.
 
Hey guys,
Found loads of helpful stuff on here recently with your help.

So everyone says shoot Raw, however - when I convert the Raw to Jpeg, the Jpeg seems much sharper. Is this the aim for optimum quality; shoot in Raw first THEN convert to Jpeg, or keep yer image Raw?
BTW, I'm coming from the perspective of non post-production as that is a bit off my reach yet.

Appreciate this is probably rudimentary for most, but I'm easily confuzzled.

Thanks!


Even if you're not doing any post production on the image, shooting raw is still advisable, because one day, you might want to. Also, JPEG is a compressed format that loses data in order to make it smaller. There's nothing wrong with JPEG and indeed you need it to show images online etc, but don't shoot in it. Always shoot in raw, and then save these as your "digital negative".

If your JPEGs are sharper, then at some point in the conversion you are making them sharper, or rather whatever software you are using is. Just be aware, that you can't actually make an image sharper; all you're ever doing is altering edge contrast to give the impression of sharpness.
 
Its like cookery.

RAW - this is the ingredients locked in a cupboard

Processing - this is viewing them out of the cupboard and can be mixed in different ways.

Jpeg - The finished cake or meal (which appears differently depending on the way you mix and cook)
 
Its like cookery.

RAW - this is the ingredients locked in a cupboard

Processing - this is viewing them out of the cupboard and can be mixed in different ways.

Jpeg - The finished cake or meal (which appears differently depending on the way you mix and cook)
This^
And a JPEG straight out of the camera is like a ready meal, some people are happy to live on them, but anyone serious about food sees them as a joke :)
 
One of the best ways whilst still learning is to shoot JPEG and RAW together (if your camera can). That way you still use the Jpegs out of camera as you have been (your camera has applied some processing to the Jpegs) and RAW files for you to have a play with later on.

On processing software I would recommend Lightroom, it does most things that most people want it to. This is a good tutorial (17hrs of videos!) most of which is relevant to LR5 and LR6. Depending on which camera you have you may get away for an older version of Lightroom, there isn't too much difference between LR4-5-6.

http://en.elephorm.com/tuto-lightroom-4-complete-training/lightroom-4-introduction.html
 
Cheers!

I'm seeing post -production with RAW files brings life to otherwise flat originals. A lot to consider.

Looking at the great images upped by users on here, I assume most are touched with a processing tool.

Thanks
 
I gave up shooting in JPEG a couple of months ago. I now shoot mainly in raw and sometimes raw and jpeg (for when the wife can't wait for me to process the raw files). I didn't think I would like messing about with processing, but I actually quite like it. You do need to be careful that you don't get carried away with all of the different sliders and features in whatever software you use. It's tempting to push things like sharpening much to far, thinking it'll make a slightly out of focus image, look pin sharp (it doesn't).
Shooting in raw is also good when you want to reduce noise and the de-haze feature in lightroom is amazing.
 
I once overheard a bloke whilst at Yellowstone with his big expensive Hasselblad telling his photography class to always shoot JPEG! Worst advice I've ever heard!
Most of my photography is traveling and capturing images of places I may never revisit. If I get home and I'm not 100% happy with the shot, I am restricted with a JPEG what can be done afterwards to sort it...... I cannot go back and retake the shot and so for this reason I ALWAYS shoot raw. It gives me post processing freedom and additional piece of mind.
 
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RAW does have the benefit of being able to make more alterations if you would like to. White Balance is probably the biggest advantage, being able to alter that if you got it slightly wrongs camera can be very useful.
 
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