do you shoot raw?

[bama--gal]

I have a Nikon D70, but have never shot in raw. Just wondering what you shoot in and what is the advantage of shooting in raw. I know you have more control over the image but is it really that much better or ..... should you use it for all the creative images you shoot, but keep shooting in jpeg for all the like, family outings and just quick grab shots.

I can already see this will be a daily hangout for me woo-hoo!

Glenda

[kimh]

Glenda, welcome to the forum.
I just started shooting in 'raw' and have the same questions as you. I guess raw gives more control of shadows, highlights etc. I saw a book on raw 'work flow' while I was out today but had already bought 2 books.
Someone will be along shortly to answer your questions I'm sure
Kimh

[baycruisers]

I just started shooting RAW. You do have a lot more control and since your changes to the RAW file are non-destructive there's little risk involved. There's a lot of power in ACR 4.1.

[jo]

I've been shooting raw for a few months now, but with my XT I use raw+jpg. I can't quite give up on jpg although I really like the raw and those are the images I process.

However...

For shooting in bursts (especially small children doing what small children do) I set it to jpg because I can capture more quick shots all at once. Raw slows down the save.

[dj_paige]

Here is a long thread, and I jumped in somewhere in the middle, but I did quite a bit of experimentation and decided to keep shooting JPG instead of RAW.

I believe that Adobe Photoshop Elements 5.0 + Adobe Camera Raw 4.1 (now 4.2) is somewhat limited in what it can do with RAW files, and that if I had more powerful software, I might consider switching to RAW. Some of the limitations in PSE5 and ACR4.1: no cropping; inability to display grain reduction (in other words, ACR 4.1 has a function to reduce the grain, but the PSE5 organizer cannot display this reduced grain -- it displays the grainy photo, and when PSE5 prints such a photo, it prints it with the grain, it cannot print the reduced grain RAW photo); limited color control ability (you can't simultaneously increase green and red).

Now, some people have told me I can shoot RAW, then switch to JPG or PSD formats to do additional editing that cannot be done on the RAW photo. While this is certainly true, I felt that I didn't want a solution that forced me to switch formats in the middle of a workflow to obtain the desired results. It is just one more complication that I didn't want, one more step in the process that I didn't need, and not being a professional photographer, my conclusion was that JPG was good enough for me 99% of the time.

[jmikelewis]

I have been shooting almost exclusively RAW for a few months now. Try it and you will like it seems to be the expression. Actually it has advantages but one of the big disadvatages is that it takes a lot more of your time editing each and every shot you take. If you are like me, retired and have the time and want all the detail you can get in a shot it is definetly worth it.
You are shooting with a Nikon, so there may be a little bit of a noise issue that it won't edit out. From what I have gathered so far and if I am correct a technical issue with the manufacturers causes Nikon noise issues and Canon sharpness issues. I am using a Canon D-30 and normally seek more sharpness for my images.

Give it a try, your camera like mine, may be able to shoot Jpg and RAW at the same time, makes for easy comparison.
Mike

[genevh]

I shoot with a Nikon D70s and shoot probably 99% of my pictures in RAW. However, I am using LR to complete my basic processing, and then use PSE5 to finish them off. LR gives me full control of my RAW files. ACR within PSE5 only allows limited control, but is still pretty powerful overall.

As I mentioned in the thread linked by Paige, the reason I shoot RAW is that it also forces me to pay more attention to how I take my photographs since RAW does not do any of the processing in-camera that taking a JPG shot does. The better I can get the shot correct shooting RAW, the better results I get when I am finished processing the file and outputting my JPG or PSD files. And I like having that control over my files that RAW gives me that JPG doesn't. (Yeah, there are times I can be a control freak! )

It is true that PSE5 with ACR does not give you all the options for processing your RAW files that LR and CS3 do, but it will allow you to get a lot of the basic stuff done before moving into PSE. I think ACR is integrated into CS3 more like it is LR so you should have full access to all the RAW tools there. But even then, and this depends on what you want to do with your work, ACR with PSE still allows you to complete a lot before you have to move over.

If you want complete control of your RAW processing but don't want to spend the money on CS3 yet, take a look at LR. It will allow you to fully process a photo in every way you want to with the exception of the artistic stuff. LR was not designed for that, whereas PSE and CS were.

Hope this helps.

[Codebreaker]

The most fundamental difference of RAW v JPEG is where the processing gets done.

JPEG images start out as RAW and are then processed in camera. This means you leave all the decisions about how this is done to the guys who designed camera.

With RAW you have to process the image using a suitable program. This involves time spent in front of the computer and in my opinion if you are taking a lot of RAW images then using Elements for this is going to be tedious and could quite easily turn you off. It also lacks several degrees of control that you'll find in other programs.

A program like Adobe Photoshop Lightroom is far more efficient at processing RAW images. There are others like Bibble and Phase one.

Personally, I've never seen the point in shooting RAW+JPEG. The two images will be processed differently and its not that hard to batch convert all your processed RAW files to JPEGs anyway.

Colin