Got the camera. What next?
Tuesday, 5 February 2008
This week I'm looking at RAW vs JPG shooting modes.
In this post I'll discuss RAW mode and how it differs from JPG mode...
Has the following ever happened to you?
You find yourself and your camera faced with a scene full of different colours and tones so you shoot away excited about how fantastic this vista will look framed on your wall. However, you get home and upload your photos only to find that the scene you remember just isn't quite as spectacular. I know I have found myself in this situation. It's quite a disappointment!
Assuming that you composed the shot well and your subject is in focus, it's likely that the blandness of your photo is due to a combination of incorrect exposure and/or white balance. If you've taken the photo in JPG only mode, this can be fixed to some extent in Photoshop using a combination of adjustment layers (curves is a good place to start) and after quite a bit of work you can usually come up a fairly decent result.
In Part 2 I'll put the life back into this well composed but bland coloured photo of a swan
However, you give yourself a much better chance (and will come out with a noticably better result) if you've taken the photo in RAW format.
Let's briefly look at why...
When you shoot in JPG only mode, you are actually shooting in RAW mode as well. A RAW file just holds all the information about what your camera's sensor saw when you pressed the shutter button. In JPG only mode, your camera takes this picture information and makes a decision about how to process into an image. It takes the data from the sensor and makes decisions (some based on your input and some based on camera presets) about white balance, sharpness, colour saturation, contrast and other things and then compresses the picture into the lossy JPG format and throws away the original RAW information. This is often fine and the camera will usually make good decisions and produce very acceptable results.
But wait - was there any useful information in that RAW data that the camera just threw away?
Well the fact that the RAW option exists is a give away that there is! When you shoot RAW, you keep all the information about what the camera sensor saw and you get to make the decisions about white balance, colour saturation, sharpness etc and since you're the photographer and, unlike the camera, you have a sense of aesthetics and an idea about the mood of the scene when you shot it, often you'll come up with something better.
In Part 2 I look at a practical example and greatly improve a well composed but bland photo of a swan using just a few simple RAW processing adjustments.
In this post I'll discuss RAW mode and how it differs from JPG mode...
Has the following ever happened to you?
You find yourself and your camera faced with a scene full of different colours and tones so you shoot away excited about how fantastic this vista will look framed on your wall. However, you get home and upload your photos only to find that the scene you remember just isn't quite as spectacular. I know I have found myself in this situation. It's quite a disappointment!
Assuming that you composed the shot well and your subject is in focus, it's likely that the blandness of your photo is due to a combination of incorrect exposure and/or white balance. If you've taken the photo in JPG only mode, this can be fixed to some extent in Photoshop using a combination of adjustment layers (curves is a good place to start) and after quite a bit of work you can usually come up a fairly decent result.
In Part 2 I'll put the life back into this well composed but bland coloured photo of a swanLet's briefly look at why...
When you shoot in JPG only mode, you are actually shooting in RAW mode as well. A RAW file just holds all the information about what your camera's sensor saw when you pressed the shutter button. In JPG only mode, your camera takes this picture information and makes a decision about how to process into an image. It takes the data from the sensor and makes decisions (some based on your input and some based on camera presets) about white balance, sharpness, colour saturation, contrast and other things and then compresses the picture into the lossy JPG format and throws away the original RAW information. This is often fine and the camera will usually make good decisions and produce very acceptable results.
But wait - was there any useful information in that RAW data that the camera just threw away?
Well the fact that the RAW option exists is a give away that there is! When you shoot RAW, you keep all the information about what the camera sensor saw and you get to make the decisions about white balance, colour saturation, sharpness etc and since you're the photographer and, unlike the camera, you have a sense of aesthetics and an idea about the mood of the scene when you shot it, often you'll come up with something better.
In Part 2 I look at a practical example and greatly improve a well composed but bland photo of a swan using just a few simple RAW processing adjustments.
Posted at
21:00
1 Comments:
Nice post with good illustrations. It is indeed such a disappointment to get home and see that your shots aren't quite all they could be.
RAW is the way to go, I almost never shoot anything but RAW now, I love it.
I put some more example shots and diagrams here for your readers to look at.
http://blogs.adamparkerphotography.com/blog/Make-your-pictures-happy-shoot-in-RAW/18/
Thanks for the post.
Post a Comment
<< Home