RAW

I've got CS3 and you might be able to get this cheaper than the ultra new CS4.

I shoot all my stuff in Raw and the benefits are that good start off with a big image that can be kept as the original. I do this as my techniques do improve as time goes by and reverting to the original raw shot gives you the best starting point to picture editing possible right now. There are many Raw Converters and I've used Paint Shop Pro9 in the past which worked pretty well but Photoshop now is the one I use.

Elements versus Photoshop. The price difference is great but Elemants is a very powerful piece of software and well worth starting off with. You might very well never need to go to a more expensive method. I just bit the bullet and now love using CS3.

Hi Brian,

I shoot mainly in RAW with my 30D, and use the Canon DPP software to process them.   I do have Elements 6, but only use this to correct horizons and other small tweaks that can't be performed in DPP.

Hi Craig,

Hi Sally

Hi everyone, RAW vs  JPEG, I suppose this is a debate that will go on for ever, much like 35mm vs medium format in the film cameras.

I have only been able to shoot in raw for a few months, although I tend to shoot mainly jpegs, one argument for shooting raw is if the lighting situation is difficult the raw file will be easier to correct later as more info is available, what I do in tricky lighting situations is bracket my shots by one or two stops. When I first got my slr I put the camera onto a tripod and took lots of photos on jpeg/raw/ some 10mgp some 6mgp, Then I cropped them 100% and printed to A4 whilst this is not a scientific test I could not see any difference in any of the prints and obviously they all look the same on the screen .My raw shots are about 16mb but 6mp jpegs are about 3mb and 10mp are 5mb so my camera’s card will hold a least 3 times as many jpegs as raw. Having said all that if I see a shot that I think will be exceptional I will switch to raw (just in case). With regards to opening and converting raw files mine open in Picasa 3 this is a free program from Google and for a basic program it is vv good.

Rather than try to save space on the in camera cards, I prefer to carry at least one spare card as I do all my work using RAW. It is more time consuming, but I feel for me it is worth it. When I used 35mm film it was capable of decent quality, but for portraits I used a very simple 120 Yasicamat and the increase in quaility was very obvious under studio lights etc. So, my view for what it's worth is always go for the option that alows for some cropping and the one that delivers the best quality available in what are now sophisticated cameras & lenses. Mick, I really admire your way of working but maybe I just don't trust myself enough to deliver quality images without opting for the methods I use.

Rod.  

Picasa sounds very good and certainly a way of exploring what RAW files can deliver.

Perhaps the question should be----do you want the camera to do the RAW conversion and produce a Jpeg from it, or do you want to do the conversion yourself ? There are instances where Jpegs will be more than adaquate and might be the right way to go for a situation. Perhaps taking continous high speed photos---My D3 will gobble up Jpegs at 9 fps for as long as you like; with RAW, after 20 shots, it slows, taking the time to clear the buffer and write to the card.

But, shooting Jpeg, and you camera does the conversion, it turns photos into 8 bit images and you end up with 256 brightness levels to later work with. With RAW, it could be taking them as 12 bit images with 4,096 brightness levels now avaliable to you. If lighting is on the tricky side, RAW will let you alter the White Balance later on if you wish; with jpeg, that's now fixed, as are highlights, and if they've blown out, with RAW you can often bright detail back into them; like wise shadow areas. A bride's white wedding dress is an example of why I shoot weddings in RAW, plus other reasons too of course.

Here's an example of a RAW shot photo with mixed lighting---sodium street lighting, with incandescent or flouresent interior lighting. Shot at ISO 4000---my normal street scene night setting--- the slight noise in the image was easily reduced.

http://www.picturesofengland.com/England/Berkshire/Newbury/pictures/1105613