RAW Pics

I have newbie questions that hopefully some one with more experience will be able to answer for me. I have been working on my pictures in Photoshop and am wondering why you need to take pictures in RAW format if you are able to alter everything using Curves, Levels and other layers? Thanks in advance for any answers and/or pointing me in the right directions.

Brad - RAW just lets yo have more latitude in image adjustment. In more extreme conditions it will allow more adjust than a jpg image. The compression of image for jpg makes many of the adjustments very difficult.

RAW format is waaaaaay better than .jpg format because it is a non-compressed format. When you compress a file you lose alot of the quality. You can think of RAW as the digita equivalent to a film negative. You maintain more quality when you adjust in raw first, and then save to an uncompressed workable file format (PSD, TIFF, etc).

The best way to think of your RAW files is as a digital negative. RAW contains more information than other file formats and can be manipulated using your RAW converter to do such things as adjust exposure, contrast, saturation and, very importantly, white balance AFTER the image has been made in the field.

There are advantages to using RAW to create the image, too. For instance, you needn't be bothered with using the correct white balance. Also, you have more flexibility with your exposure. There are other advantages but I'll leave it at this for now.

Hope it helps!

Since this is a "basics" thread, I'd add that when you expose for RAW, unlike slides, bias the exposure closer to over-exposure than under-exposure, without clipping the highlights. For most images, if you bias the pixels toward the highlight end of the histogram, there are many, many multiples more of adjustability than in the darker pixels.

Thanks for the info guys. I appreciate the quick responses and the information that you provided.

Thanks again and good shooting!

To add to what others have said, RAW also can be a "lossless" edit. Meaning if you edit using Adobe CameraRAW, the changes you make can be saved seperate from your RAW File. Its kind of like saving your JPEG as a seperate file, but you cant accidentially overwrite the original.

I have been recently reading Bruce Fraser's "Real World Camera Raw with Adobe Photoshop CS2" and it is an excellent read. He takes you through the advantages of shooting RAW, and examples of how to edit RAW images.

Just my .02

In addition, RAW uses more "bits" of information. This allows finer gradation between colors and avoids posterization.

Ken

Nuff Said, the advice you've been given here is spot on!

I have digested several books on the "Raw" subject. The latest on is the best, and I
recommend it to you:

Adobe Camera Raw for Digital Photographers Only
by Rob Shepherd

Art Lund