Cache directory "/mnt/local/home/digitalphotographyformoms/digitalphotographyformoms.net/wp-content/plugins/ttftitles/cache" is not writable.Record Digital Images in Raw for More Adjusting Power
Do you shoot your digital photos in Raw? You’d know it it you did. Working with Raw images gives you much more power to correct photographic mistakes. Was the exposure way off on an otherwise great picture? Raw can help you fix it. Is there a severe color tint due to improper white balance settings? Raw can help with that too.
Most camera give you several options for the format in which to record your images. The most common are JPEG and Raw. Here are the differences between the two:
JPEGs definitely require less work. If your camera is set to record images in JPEG, it will make certain on-camera processing adjustments, such as:
- Sharpening
- White balance
- Color processing
- Contrast adjustments
Most cameras will let you set the amount of these adjustments that will be applied on camera before you shoot. For instance, when I do shoot in JPEG, my camera will let me specify whether to make the colors more vivid or more natural. That’s a handy setting. Same for sharpness, contrast and white balance.
However, sometimes you don’t know which adjustments you want to apply to a photo until after the fact. Sometimes cameras make incorrect assumptions about the shooting conditions. If you shoot in Raw, no on-camera processing happens to your images, and you guide all these adjustments yourself in Adobe Camera Raw.
Adobe Camera Raw (ACR), by the way, comes with Photoshop and Photoshop Elements. No new software to purchase to use the great features included! Now, if you want to purchase Lightroom, it does everything that Raw does and much more.
But that’s a whole ‘nother post.
Are there any downsides to shooting in Raw? Only two that I can think of. First off, processing your images requires an extra step. But you might find that after you do the work in ACR, you won’t need to do any Levels, Curves, or Color Correction in Photoshop.
Also, Raw files are HUGE. They take up massive amounts of hard drive space. Like 8 mb per picture or more. So you definitely need to make sure that your computer can handle that before you switch over.
When you try to open a picture recorded in Raw from Photoshop Elements, ACR will open over your normal PSE workspace. It looks something like this:
I know it’s a small picture, but can you read all the sliders on the right? Those are all the different adjustments you can make. Sharpening adjustments are on the next tab. Many of these adjustments can’t be made in Photoshop or Elements.
Now, of course ACR won’t be able to fix a terrible picture. If the highlights are blown out, for instance, there is nothing you can do to recover them.
My next post in this series on shooting in Raw will cover how to use those sliders to adjust your photo and make it great.
Until then, I’m curious. How many of you shoot in Raw currently? I’ve used Raw almost exclusively for maybe a year now, and I find it to be not much extra work at all.
Have a good day! And thanks for reading.
Erin
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I started shooting in RAW a few months ago, but really got the hang of the workflow just recently. I love being able to delete and rate within ACR.
I found it the most beneficial for being able to shoot indoors without a flash. Sometimes I still need to reduce the noise with ACR or with NoiseWare, but its saved a lot of photos that would have otherwise been unusable.
Also, it makes spontaneous photography a little easier as I’m can choose not to fiddle with the manual settings so that I get the perfect image SOOC.
Recently I shot a ‘roll’ of a day in Chicago. I never realized how flat even outdoor photos on a nice day can look until you boost them with some editing.
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I have always shot in Jpeg – recently considered switching to RAW. I have Elements7 and you can open a Jpeg in RAW, and I love it!
Thanks for your info!
I shoot in Raw and have had much frustration with ACR for Photoshop elements 5. As far as I can tell, ACR does not support my camera yet, a Nikon D40, on PSE 5. I do an extra step in the Nikon software to convert all of my raw files into .tiff before working on those photos in PSE. I love the flexibility raw gives me, but it’s a pain.
Hey Liz,
I’m curious. Did you check out the site that Traci referred to below? I would be a shame if you couldn’t get ACR to support that D40!
Erin
I have not made the switch yet…for some reason it terrifies me…maybe it is the sheer size of the photos and the fact that I don’t want to run out of room on my memory card or my hard drive. But the fact that you can adjust things a little more is extremely appealing.
Great post!!
I just started shooting in Raw about a month ago. I was with Melinda- it totally terrified me and I was overwhelmed just thinking about it. One of my photographer friends finally convinced me to give it a go and now I will NEVER go back! It’s wonderful!!
I see a lifetime of external hard drives in my future, lol.
I do sports/action photography. Starting in late fall I moved inside to do basketball, swimming, volleyball, etc. I started using RAW at that time to help with all the bad lighting in old gyms/pools. It’s helped a lot. I think I will go back to jpeg for outdoor shots though because of the file sizes and it taking longer to download.
I’ve shot in RAW for some time now…and will never go back. It gives me so much flexibility…and ultimately cuts down on the amount of work I need to do in Photoshop.
Liz Pickett….check the Adobe site…I think the current RAW update covers your camera.
I’ve always shot in RAW. Unless my camera is set to auto mode they come in jpeg format – but most of the time they are RAW.
I use the program (DPP) that came on my canon utilities disc when I bought my canon xt. I LOVE DPP!!! IT is so easy to view, edit and save huge batches of RAW files. I save them in jpeg and then I can open them up in CS and run actions or add frames etc.. there.
Recently my photographer uncle convinced me to try RAW. I really like it and want to do more…it took me a while to be ready to do that since I was learning SO many different things about my camera and software. It does take more time and hard drive space but it’s so nice to know the data is there if you need it. I got an 8 GB SDHC card for my camera to make sure I had plenty of room on there to shoot. I think it gives me about 650 RAW images. Those cards keep getting cheaper and cheaper. I got mine on sale at Office Depot for $15.
I really need an 8GB card. Thanks for the tip on where to find a good buy.
If there is anything I learned in my first two “professional” photo sessions, it was that I either needed to go back to JPEG or get a bigger memory card!
Erin
I’ve been shooting RAW for 4 or 5 years now. I use Apple’s Aperture instead of Lightroom and I love it. I’ve recovered many photos and the extra flexibility with exposure, white balance and sharpness has been great. I seem to have a greater flexibility with contrast, too.
I’ve heard such good things about Aperture. One of these days I’ll have to try an Apple. It just might reduce some of the computer frustration I’m so used to.
I shoot in RAW and have been doing it for years. And I am just getting into Lightroom and liking it!
[...] maybe you read my post last week about the pros and cons of shooting your digital photos in RAW? And now I’ll tell you about what I do to process those RAW images, once I open them in Adobe [...]
[...] posted about RAW processing a couple of times lately. The first article discussed why to shoot in Raw and the 2nd, how to adjust a photo’s white balance. Now for the next installment: how to [...]
[...] posted about RAW processing a couple of times lately. The first article discussed why to shoot in Raw and the 2nd, how to adjust a photo’s white balance. Now for the next installment: how to [...]
[...] Why shoot in Raw? [...]