Digital Shutters

Let’s face it: most of us were reared in the image format of JPEG, mostly JPEG. Well, perhaps, some GIF here, some TIFF there, maybe even the occasional PNG. But mostly, we shoot our pictures in JPEG, email our pictures in JPEG, almost everything else in JPEG. And most of the time, that’s just fine, because JPEG even with its lossy quality, is a very friendly format.

Now, comes RAW. With the more capable digital cameras, which have the ability to shoot in the RAW image format, becoming more affordable these days the prospect of eventually shooting in RAW looms large before us.

Just what is RAW? And why is it so compelling? In two words: easier, richer.

Let’s tackle the richer part first: RAW is an image file that contains the complete unprocessed metadata of a picture needed by an image editing software. It is of a higher quality, digitally speaking, than a JPEG file. While JPEG loses some fine details of an image, RAW keeps it all; the metadata is intact so that more information is available. With RAW, finer control is possible for image enhancement, plus you can choose whatever working color space you desire. Thus, it is richer.

The easier part is discussed convincingly by Scott Kelby, editor of Layers magazine (among his many hats). Scott says “you should start shooting in RAW because it’s easier. Not just a little easier—much easier.â€?

“If you shoot in RAW and use Photoshop CS2’s Camera Raw, you will get dramatically better-looking, better-balanced, and better color-corrected images every time. One of the main reasons it’s so easy is because you do all your corrections in one window. You adjust everything tonal—exposure, brightness, shadow, contrast—all within one window. Plus, you don’t have to use Levels or Curves; you’re just dragging sliders, and the adjustments have names that make sense to photographers, such as Exposure and White Balance. Think about it—it’s all in one nice big window—with a better histogram than you can get anyplace else in Photoshop. When you’re in Photoshop itself, you’re using all kinds of different tools—Curves, Levels, Hue/Saturation, filters, etc.—but in Camera Raw, it’s all there, right at your fingertips. And in most cases when you make your adjustments in Camera Raw, you don’t need to make any further tonal adjustments in Photoshop, unless you want to create some artistic effects,” Scott wrote.

Scott’s article is more than a year old, mind you, but it’s still as current as today’s Nikon D40. You can read it here.

The only drawback to shooting in RAW, which is you get files that are 2-6 times larger (because of all the pixel data in there), is no longer a concern. It has been solved by the availability of the larger and cheaper storage space nowadays in memory cards and hard disks.

So, next time you shoot, try RAW. And upgrade that Photoshop to CS2. If you don’t have it, try Adobe’s free Lightroom, or some other image editor that support RAW processing. You’ll find that RAW is indeed easier and richer.

[Via: LayersMagazine]

raw, image, format, processing, photoshop, cs2, lilghtroom. kelby