Shooting in RAW

[gtsiawd96]

Alright, so I'm at a crossroads of sorts. I always shoot in JPG, but the last couple days I have been shooting in RAW. Trying to see what I can do with RAW) My problem may just be in my computer, but it may not. I shoot with Nikon D60, edit with a 3 year old laptop, ****box Vista, 1g ram, 70g harddrive(with 69.8g filled, lol)

Uploading RAW images and processing them on my computer is damn near impossible, uploading and editing JPG's no real problem unless your editing for hours, than the computer starts to slow. Try to edit RAW the PC freezes for minutes at a time. I'm looking at picking up a new Imac or Macbookpro.. very soon. I use Lightroom 2 and CS4. Photos are .NEF files, Do I have to do anything to the photos before editing them in Lightroom?

When I'm going through my photos and loading the .NEF files into Lightroom, The picture pops up for a couple seconds looks normal like a JPG and then a couple seconds later all the image settings change and they just look very very flat.

I'm new to RAW and I know it captures the true white balance, saturation, contrast levels, etc. But too me these photos don't seem better quality too me. Even with adjusting WB, Saturation, Clarity everything I usually adjust with JPG. Maybe I'm just doing it wrong. lol.

Do you guys have any good articles, write-ups, or personal experience with RAW photos taking and editing to help me out?

Thanks fellow photog's.

James

[jspek]

yea using lr2 and raw files is gonna eat your memory fast. i upgraded my ram when i started using lr2. i personally shoot raw+jpg incase i get lazy and dont want to edit as much. with raw you can do a lot more changes than with a jpg file. fixing a wb issue is so much easier in raw. i could go on and on about it but you seem to have the basic knowledge of what it can do. if all your work has been jpg id love to know what youd do with raw files.

quick google
http://digital-photography-school.com/raw-vs-jpeg

[Blue_gsx23]

Lightroom automatically adds brightness and contrast to raw files for some reason. It also adds a little bit of noise reduction. I really don't know why but it also pisses me off sometimes as well. I find myself shooting raw whenever I'm taking night shots just to be able to correct the white balance alot easier. You need to keep in mind that the camera doesn't add any sharpness, saturation or contrast as it does to a jpeg depending on what adjustmnts you have on your camera. I find myself adding alot more sharpness to raw files to make my shots look better.

[RichK]

I shoot everything in RAW. I also use NX2 for editing, as every time I tried LR, I felt that the colors never looked "right". However, I must say that NX2 is kinda slow. Even though I built and use my computer ( overclocked i920, 24GB RAM, Raptor HDDs with a SS scratch disk) for just pictures. I would download a trial version of NX2 and try it. As others have said, there are definite advantages of shooting RAW. The main 2 reasons for me are WB and exposure correction. I don't adjust them often, but I like having the ability to do so.

[gtsiawd96]

Originally Posted by jspek

yea using lr2 and raw files is gonna eat your memory fast. i upgraded my ram when i started using lr2. i personally shoot raw+jpg incase i get lazy and dont want to edit as much. with raw you can do a lot more changes than with a jpg file. fixing a wb issue is so much easier in raw. i could go on and on about it but you seem to have the basic knowledge of what it can do. if all your work has been jpg id love to know what youd do with raw files.

quick google
http://digital-photography-school.com/raw-vs-jpeg

Thanks, good article. I guess I'm really just going to need alot more experience with different shooting situations too really take advantage of all the adjustments possible.

Originally Posted by Blue_gsx23

Lightroom automatically adds brightness and contrast to raw files for some reason. It also adds a little bit of noise reduction. I really don't know why but it also pisses me off sometimes as well. I find myself shooting raw whenever I'm taking night shots just to be able to correct the white balance alot easier. You need to keep in mind that the camera doesn't add any sharpness, saturation or contrast as it does to a jpeg depending on what adjustmnts you have on your camera. I find myself adding alot more sharpness to raw files to make my shots look better.

Well I also noticed I had Active D-lighting off when I was shooting Raw for some dumb reason, the D-lighting on seemed to bring back some more contrast into the photos. Its just good to know I'm not completetly crazy and some of you guys have noticed kind of the same things

Originally Posted by RichK

I shoot everything in RAW. I also use NX2 for editing, as every time I tried LR, I felt that the colors never looked "right". However, I must say that NX2 is kinda slow. Even though I built and use my computer ( overclocked i920, 24GB RAM, Raptor HDDs with a SS scratch disk) for just pictures. I would download a trial version of NX2 and try it. As others have said, there are definite advantages of shooting RAW. The main 2 reasons for me are WB and exposure correction. I don't adjust them often, but I like having the ability to do so.

24g or (2)4g's of ram?? haha.. I have never even heard of that much ever being used.

Thanks for the tips I'm going to check out the NX2 and I'll report back.

[djb5118]

NX2 was extremely slow when I used it, but it gave me the best results to date.

[RichK]

Yep, 24G ( 6 4GB sticks). I started out with 12, but decided to max out the MB with 24. I sometimes have 4 editors open at a time and it really helps having as much memory as possible so the computer doesn't get bogged down.

[knochgoon24]

Don't know if you've bought a new computer yet, but try keeping at least 15% of your hard drive open. That way, your disk defragmenter can run efficiently, and I do suggest running it. It also gives you some hard drive space to use as virtual memory when you run out of RAM.

The combination of the two should help improve your performance greatly.

On nice way to clean up some disk space quick is to run the "Disk Cleanup" tool. It's found under the Start-> Accessories-> System Tools -> Disk Cleanup.
It will delete a lot of the crap you don't even know is on your computer,like temporary internet files.

Hope that helps.

[TheFlash42]

+1 on more ram but also proper graphics card and processor help greatly

I'm running my laptop with intel i7 and Nvidia geforce with only 3GB of ram and i can edit HD video no problem

[YellowMSP]

RAW is overrated and an unnecessary extra step haha. I shoot about 95% in jpeg only since i usually just do a sharpen and curves

[Fujito]

I shoot in RAW2. Normal RAW files are huge.

You'd have to have a really good eye to spot the difference between RAW and JPEG. RAW should technically produce better pictures because JPEG files are compressed.

I love shooting in RAW. I sometimes go back to pictures from months ago and reedit them. Being able to change the WB is great because it can completely change the mood of a picture. And I'd rather spend the time adjusting the WB later than while shooting.

[TheFlash42]

My camera has a raw+Jpeg mode so I usually shoot both with a 16 gb card so I don't run out of space.

[RichK]

Originally Posted by YellowMSP

RAW is overrated and an unnecessary extra step haha. I shoot about 95% in jpeg only since i usually just do a sharpen and curves

It all depends on what you shoot. If you make a living from your work, I think RAW is the only way to go as it allows more control over the finished product. Of course, you can always shoot RAW+jpeg (as I do) if you want to save time in processing. For me, if I can't process an image in ~5 minutes, it gets trashed. That doesn't included cloning out items (when necessary), but I charge extra for that.

[Supersprynt]

Depends on if you need a real quick turnaround. I was working for someone recently and he told me to take it off RAW because they needed them turned around quickly.

[grimm]

Raw if you plan to go to print, jpeg if you plan to keep it in the digital domain. Having RAW files of photos that all you plan to do is post on facebook or flikr are a waste of time and space IMHO.

I agree with rich that if it is a paid gig then RAW would be my choice. But I've switched to jpeg for most of my work lately.

[gtsiawd96]

Cool guys, thanks for all the input on this. Its nice to see others thought process. I'm shooting jpeg now. Still waiting to pic up a new the desktop, haven't saved up enough yet for the one I would really like. When I do pick it up and have 15x more disk space, I'll will shoot RAW+Jpeg.