Grant
January 24th, 2006, 05:32 PM
As I mentioned to Chuck I have decide to give raw a try.
Being an old film photographer and realizing digital is more like slide than negative film I expose for the highlight and print for the shadows. So the following "test" is based on this method of exposure.
What I am now going is shooting all my images in RAW and JPG, my camera allows for this option. I then import all my image using ACDSee. I have my have ACDSee set up so that all images are viewed with the JPG on the left side of the screen and the RAW on the right therefore I can then scroll throw them very quickly. So far all images come out of the camera look much better in JPG. In fact all images in RAW appear almost 2/3 of a stop under exposed.
Next I tried all my skills to get the best possible image from JPG and then RAW. When I did all that I could with a combination of RAW file manipulation then fine tuning with Adobe I could get better images using RAW. I should point out that all images looked good, but the RAW ones looked better. How much better? I suspect you would have to do an A/B test to be able to pick out one over the other. RAW did shine with images that had extremes.
Now for the conclusion on this part of the exercise. The final image can be better if you use RAW. The amount of time to do this for each image is considerable. The amount of knowledge to get this image is also considerable but the same can be said of a good image from JPG. The most striking differences were when you had a very wide dynamic range i.e. a bride's white dress against a man's black tuxedo, RAW was better. For well exposed images with less dynamic ranges there seems to be less need to use RAW. So when should you use RAW? If you have to ask this question you are probably better off sticking with JPG. If you are really comfortable in making proper exposures and have a working knowledgeable with getting the most out of your image with programs like Elements or Photoshop then consider RAW for your most crucial images.
Grant
Being an old film photographer and realizing digital is more like slide than negative film I expose for the highlight and print for the shadows. So the following "test" is based on this method of exposure.
What I am now going is shooting all my images in RAW and JPG, my camera allows for this option. I then import all my image using ACDSee. I have my have ACDSee set up so that all images are viewed with the JPG on the left side of the screen and the RAW on the right therefore I can then scroll throw them very quickly. So far all images come out of the camera look much better in JPG. In fact all images in RAW appear almost 2/3 of a stop under exposed.
Next I tried all my skills to get the best possible image from JPG and then RAW. When I did all that I could with a combination of RAW file manipulation then fine tuning with Adobe I could get better images using RAW. I should point out that all images looked good, but the RAW ones looked better. How much better? I suspect you would have to do an A/B test to be able to pick out one over the other. RAW did shine with images that had extremes.
Now for the conclusion on this part of the exercise. The final image can be better if you use RAW. The amount of time to do this for each image is considerable. The amount of knowledge to get this image is also considerable but the same can be said of a good image from JPG. The most striking differences were when you had a very wide dynamic range i.e. a bride's white dress against a man's black tuxedo, RAW was better. For well exposed images with less dynamic ranges there seems to be less need to use RAW. So when should you use RAW? If you have to ask this question you are probably better off sticking with JPG. If you are really comfortable in making proper exposures and have a working knowledgeable with getting the most out of your image with programs like Elements or Photoshop then consider RAW for your most crucial images.
Grant