RAW

www.kenrockwell.com/tech/raw.htm

Picture by Mick Carver

 

Hi all, Nice to see so much interest and info in this thread. After just over a year of taking images in RAW I would not now take JPG except for grab shots and family snaps.

There seems to be much interest in post camera processing so I would like to throw the following into the pot. Together with my new camera I obtained photoshop CS3 Ext which is great, however for my birthday I was given a copy of Lightroom, now I use Lightroom for most things only resorting to photoshop if I need layers and/or indepth processing options.

I have tried and recommended Picasa but its limitations frustrated me,  there is however another piece of freeware available which is almost as good photoshop and that is GIMP. This is a processing package originally created for Linux users but is now available for Windows systems. If anyone is interest go to www.gimp.org and select downloads.

Paul, your picture of Newbury is stunning and I also like Mick's. Ken's piece on Raw versus Jpeg is good reading and he hints at trying to obtain the perfectly exposed image at the point of taking. True, we should all strive to do that but sometimes we don't and I prefer to "hedge my bets". As for reducing the image quality to less than "Fine" will according to Ken's article provide images every bit as good to look at as those set to "Fine". Having shared a wedding job with a chum of mine recently I do have a slight issue with that. My friend always uses "Jpeg Normal". We used similar cameras, mine a Nikon D70 and he a Nikon D70s. When it came to compiling the album, I have to say that the "Normal" shots were truly not as good as the ones I'd shot in Raw when it came to full page shots or those we decided needed cropping. So, I think I'll stick to the belt & braces approach.

Sally, I've tried using Lightroom on a months trial but "things" at the time got in the way and I never really gave it the time needed to come to any judgements. CS3 which I use is a vast tool and after a 30 week course there is still a lot for me to learn, let alone have instinctive working practise which may in part be down to my fuddled, ever ageing brain. However I can use to to cover most intances when editing & creating is desired. Another pal of mine recently gave me a copy of Lightroom 2 to play with and I will soon. The current weather certainly is a good reason for retreating to the study. An American friend has been using GIMP for quite a while an his images always look good to me.

Must read Ken's piece again as there is quite a bit to take in.

This is a really interesting thread.

Mick---i've certainly enjoyed going through your photos and, above, is typical of your shots I really like. Rod---I bought a D70 back in 2004 and you'll see it in my selections from time to time on the site here.One of my more popular photos on Poe was taken with the D70. I did a wedding with it and the groom's dad liked the photos so much, he bought the camera too ! I then missed it, I bought a D70s; upgrading the firmware to a D70 makes it very close to the D70s.

I also have a Yashica 124G; the silliest thing I did years ago was selling my Rollifelex 3.5E. My own wedding was shot with a 124G and superb photos from it, albeit, in those days I'd shoot 24 photos at a wedding and that was it; today its typically 300-400 with 100 chosen for the albums. The D3 is also set to under-expose 1/6th stop to keep the highlights a shade better. A friend has his Canon 5D MK II under-exposing 1/3rd  of a stop for the same reason. The files sizes of his RAW images off it are typically 35 megs each, though he does supply a major photo library who require at least 50 meg file sizes.

Certainly, you'd still want to get the exposure right with RAW to get the best out of it. On my D3, doing weddings, I use a custom colour profile so it mimics the colurs of the earleir D2x which I like and makes for nice skin tones, and always shoot in Neutral, both with my Nikons and Canons.

With flash indoors, my standard setting to keep the interior lights looking as they should, is ISO 800; 1/60th, at F4. A recent wedding had a lot of candlelabras and that setting kept them looking nice while the subjects were exposed for, and they came out nice too. RAW allowed a minor bit of tweeking so the glow of the candles in the background looked good. Experimenting?  Around twilight doing portraits outside, try over exposing the flash by 2 stops and under exposing the ambient light by 2 stops; it can make for some nice lighting effects.

There's no way I could take part in this conversation because I'm such a rank amateur when it comes to photography, but I just wanted to say to you - Sally, Paul, Rod and Mick - you are all BRILLIANT photographers!  Your work has brought me and countless others much enjoyment and so I say a big THANK YOU!

For such "a rank amateur" Ruth, you take some very good pictures of England! Thank you for the kind remarks.

Thanks also to Mick, Paul & Sally for plenty of food for thought.  Ken Rockwell's views on RAW are very interesting and his pictures have great quality. 

How nice of you to say, Rod.  Thank you!!  xx

Hi David---Photoshop's normal image editing you're probably refering to can't open RAW files; they have to be opened with a RAW converter of which Photoshop usually includes, but not familar with PS6 wich must go back to 2002/3?  PS7 will open them.

 Canon's own software will open them and you can download it for free if you don't have a CD of it, off their site.  Takes awhile though.

Then, the RAW file you have to convert to Jpeg/TIFF wwich will open in your PS6.

Apart from Adobe trying to standardise their DNG RAW file, the snag has always been there's no standard for RAW files---as Jpg/TIFFs----and they are different between makes and models of cameras and Adobe doesn't keep older verisons of Photoshop updated with newer ACR ( Adobe Camera RAW) files to open later cameras. For example, my RAW converter with CS 3 won't open Raw files from Canon 5D MK II onwards, nor models after that similar time too. 

Google's free Picasa seem to be able to open them as well. 

David---you might find this Adobe page of help too

http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/cameraraw.html

CS 4 is the only one-----plus Elements and Lightroom---, that is having their plug in file updated for new cameras as they get released. Its a file you have to download and replace in PS's plug-ins folder in CS 4. If I recall right, Nikon's D3/D300 were the last of their range that CS3 got updated for, and then newer Nikon's were only being updated for use with CS4.   

 If you know anyone with a Canon DSLR of more recent vintage---say from 2005 onwards, loading their CD with Canon's software should allow you to open your RAW files off the 300D. Canon files end with CR2, but earlier cameras like yours had a different RAW file suffix I forget what it was. CAW maybe?