# Why shoot in raw?



## Gary (May 21, 2004)

Is the IQ better, or does it just give you more options in PP? The reason I ask is, is because my current PP software doesn't work with raw, Microsoft Digital Image Suite anniversary edition. It's really easy to work with and does about everything I want to do.

Just wondering if it's time to upgrade on software and if there is any advantage of shooting in raw and if it improves IQ over shooting in JPEG.

BTW, I doubt Ill be doing anything radical.

Thanks in advance.


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## Pocketfisherman (May 30, 2005)

More data captured at the original bit depth the camera is capable of producing allows you more leeway in post processing when making extreme adjustments in tone, saturation, or hue. Do large adjustments to a JPEG and the histogram will start to look like a comb from the gaps in the data which manifests itself as banding or hue shifts in the image. You can often recover detail from shadows or blown highlights with a RAW file from data that just does not exist anymore once it's converted to JPEG. Also, you have no file compression and the associated artifacts or compression losses. If you're getting your exposure right, and you are "on" with your color balance, the largest size JPEG your camera can do will likely look as good as the RAW unless you're printing billboards.


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## stargazer (May 24, 2004)

Gary, you can process RAW. The software that came with the camera will do raw.
Under the tools tab in DPP there is a command to open the tools pallet, open that and you can make adjustments to the image.


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## Pocketfisherman (May 30, 2005)

stargazer said:


> Gary, you can process RAW. The software that came with the camera will do raw.
> Under the tools tab in DPP there is a command to open the tools pallet, open that and you can make adjustments to the image.


True, and you can then send the file losslessly from DPP to Photoshop or convert it and save it as a lossless TIFF should you want to process it some time later. This eliminates any compression artifacts or data lost from the conversoin to jpg.


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## MT Stringer (May 21, 2004)

I saved a couple of badly overexposed images from a golf tournament. fortunately I had shot RAW for the awards ceremony and I was able to save the images using the DPP program. I recently discovered the latest version of DPP also allows you to tweak jpg images also by adjusting the exposure, brightness, contrast and sturation. That is a great improvement over previous versions.


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## fishphoto (Mar 3, 2005)

Lightroom is really handy if you are going to shoot a lot in RAW.


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## Gary (May 21, 2004)

Thanks for the help guys, but I have several issues. DPP doesnt do 25% of what my current PP software does and it wont allow me to save RAW images as JPEGs so I can further fine tune my images in my current $150 software.

I know Lightroom is fairly cheap but I was chilling out with MadF1man one day while he was working in Lightroom, and I noticed what I have right now is better! Too bad it wont accept RAW.

So I'm in a delima, and a budget. I don't want to buy a full blown version CS3-4 or 5 just to shoot in RAW when I should spend that kind of money on glass.

Is there a cheap, or free software where I can take RAW files and convert them to JPEGs for final touch up with the software I'm allready familiar with?

Thanks guys!


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## Slip (Jul 25, 2006)

Also, with Raw files, you cannot alter the original other than delete, so it is like a negative. Any changes to the Raw are saved with another additional file extension that contains the changes, but the original is still there, so you can come back later and get the original file with not changes if you like.


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## Gary (May 21, 2004)

slip knot said:


> Also, with Raw files, you cannot alter the original other than delete, so it is like a negative. Any changes to the Raw are saved with another additional file extension that contains the changes, but the original is still there, so you can come back later and get the original file with not changes if you like.


Please re-read my last post.

Thanks.


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## Pocketfisherman (May 30, 2005)

DPP will certainly save files as JPEGS, TIFFS, or whatever else you want. File - Convert and Save - and set the extension appropriately. You can also do a batch execution. If it won't work with your particular camera RAW's you need to upgrade to the latest version of DPP from the Canon website. Go to the suport section for cameras and look under "Downloads" for your camera.


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## MT Stringer (May 21, 2004)

Pocketfisherman said:


> DPP will certainly save files as JPEGS, TIFFS, or whatever else you want. File - Convert and Save - and set the extension appropriately. You can also do a batch execution. If it won't work with your particular camera RAW's you need to upgrade to the latest version of DPP from the Canon website. Go to the suport section for cameras and look under "Downloads" for your camera.


Yeppirs. What he said. I have bben converting RAW images into jpeg's for years, ever since the first digital Rebel a few years ago.

I use Photoshop Elements. I can't afford Photoshop and it would most likely be a waste of time for me. The learning curve is too steep. I hav tried the trial twice. Same for Lightroom. I couldn't figure out what it would do and how to do it.

Since most of what I do is sports related, all I need to do is adjust exposure, levels, saturation, contrast and a little sharpening thrown in. I don't have the expertise to master layers, masking, etc. Maybe some day I will.


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## sandybottom (Jun 1, 2005)

Gary, I had the same issues so I got Photoshop Elements 8. It processes RAW pictures just fine. You can recover pictures that are under or over exposed and many other options.
I got mine for 69.00 with a 20.00 rebate at Fry's Electronics. Can't go wrong!


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## Gary (May 21, 2004)

Oh, ok!  Thanks guys

I just back home from Wallyworld. My old shadowbox sheet needed changing and I picked up some junk to shoot at. And a case of beer 

Got my day planned! :slimer:


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## Gary (May 21, 2004)

Another question and I thank yall for your help. Should I do as much PP in RAW as possible before converting to JPEG? Or, if I took a RAW image and converted to a JPEG and did all my PP in JPEG, am I wasting my time shooting in RAW?


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## Pocketfisherman (May 30, 2005)

Do as much in RAW as possible to avoid banding and pixelation. I usually save sharpening for Photoshop because it has a much more flexible interface and options than DPP. If there is something you'd rather not do in DPP, convert the file to a 16bit lossless TIFF format and deal with it in your other editing software, and then convert and save as JPEG.


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## Gary (May 21, 2004)

For two weeks now I have been trying to gather all this info and put it all together in my head and just couldnt do it. 

Now I understand. 

Thanks guys. RaW from now on!


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## Gary (May 21, 2004)

Just noticed how much bigger the files are. My 4 gig card will only five me 185 shots so I just ordered an SanDisk Ultra 8gb 30MBs.


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## sandybottom (Jun 1, 2005)

Bigger files but better outcome, Gary. I have around 4 cards. 4g, 2-8g's, 16g.


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## MT Stringer (May 21, 2004)

Gary, I have started using 16GB cards to go with the 8gb I already have. The 4gb'ers are carried along for emergency use only. The 7D makes large files (even in jpeg) and eats up my card. With a 16g card, I can get 2 softball games on it...just barely. 
2275 for two games. Since it was the state tournament, I shot a lot of short bursts and didn't chimp because a) it was hard to see my LCD screen and b) conserve battery power by not viewing the LCS so much.
Mike


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## Pocketfisherman (May 30, 2005)

MT Stringer said:


> Gary, I have started using 16GB cards to go with the 8gb I already have. The 4gb'ers are carried along for emergency use only. The 7D makes large files (even in jpeg) and eats up my card. With a 16g card, I can get 2 softball games on it...just barely.
> 2275 for two games. Since it was the state tournament, I shot a lot of short bursts and didn't chimp because a) it was hard to see my LCD screen and b) conserve battery power by not viewing the LCS so much.
> Mike


Same here, 16GB cards on my 7D. I find them at Fry's for $39 for a 266X card.


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## Gary (May 21, 2004)

Well, besides goofing around indoors shooting in RAW, with little success, I took my gear to work today to play around at lunch, high noon and all along the railroad tracks running along 290. And even though I have been in and out of photography for several years, I have about a total of 6 months experiance. 

But I have eyes! 

RAW is better! :dance:

Excuse the subject matter and the blown out shot of the train. It snuck up on me, I was in manual and only had a second to read my meter. Lens was my $94 Canon 50mm 1.8 mkII. The shots are straight out of the camera with no PP whatsoever. In DPP I did the convert and save to JPG and in my other software I cropped and resized these two shots since I either havent figured out how to do that right, or I prefer my current software for that duty.

Im a JPG to a RAW convert for life. :biggrin:

These have no PP, not even sharpening.

And again, sorry for the poor subject matter and attention to detail, this was practice.


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## Pocketfisherman (May 30, 2005)

It has been my experience that RAW right out of the camera seldom to never looks better than a processed JPEG from the camera. But, when post process is applied to the RAW, you can make it look better than the JPEG. I shoot RAW under the assumption that each shot is going to require postprocessing for contrast, sharpening, and saturation, maybe white balance, it is RAW afterall.

The biggest factor here is the antialias filter on the front of every DSLR sensor that intentionally blurs an image to prevent artifacts on hard diagonal lines, and prevent moire patterns in the image. The selective area sharpening, and types of sharpening you can apply to a RAW will always look better than the generic sharpening a camera applies during JPEG generation.

One thing to remember shooting rAW, the histogram the camera shows is the result of an internally generated JPEG, and not from the RAW data itself. To get the best possible dynamic range in the data capture on a RAW, turn your cameras image options (Picture Styles on a Canon) such that sharpening, contrast, and saturation are at minimums. This will prevent the internally generated histogram jpeg from showing blown highlights or shadows before the RAW data is actually clipping. If you're going to crop an image, cropping in the RAW processor will yield much better remaining resolution than the JPEG.


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## Gary (May 21, 2004)

Humm. Good stuff!


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## Pocketfisherman (May 30, 2005)

Gary said:


> Humm. Good stuff!


There's a great family of books that will really help you understand RAW, even if you don't use Photoshop. They're called "Camera RAW with Adobe Photoshop CS_x_"

They go into a lot of detail on the data capture, what edits do to the data, and the JPEG conversion process.


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## Gary (May 21, 2004)

Pocketfisherman said:


> It has been my experience that RAW right out of the camera seldom to never looks better than a processed JPEG from the camera. But, when post process is applied to the RAW, you can make it look better than the JPEG. I shoot RAW under the assumption that each shot is going to require postprocessing for contrast, sharpening, and saturation, maybe white balance, it is RAW afterall.
> 
> The biggest factor here is the antialias filter on the front of every DSLR sensor that intentionally blurs an image to prevent artifacts on hard diagonal lines, and prevent moire patterns in the image. The selective area sharpening, and types of sharpening you can apply to a RAW will always look better than the generic sharpening a camera applies during JPEG generation.
> 
> One thing to remember shooting rAW, the histogram the camera shows is the result of an internally generated JPEG, and not from the RAW data itself. To get the best possible dynamic range in the data capture on a RAW, turn your cameras image options (Picture Styles on a Canon) such that sharpening, contrast, and saturation are at minimums. This will prevent the internally generated histogram jpeg from showing blown highlights or shadows before the RAW data is actually clipping. If you're going to crop an image, cropping in the RAW processor will yield much better remaining resolution than the JPEG.


Thanks for you help. I read your post earlier at work today but didn't have the time to let it sink in. I did however figure out how crop and resize my images using DPP in RAW. It was so simple, it took me an hour to figure it out. :headknock

Another question if you don't mind. You mentioned picture styles and the internal processes I can dial in on the body. So, if I have the contrast, sharpness etc cranked up within the camera, that antialias filter thing gets in the way of a true RAW image? And would that hold true for all internal image enhancements within the body like NR etc?

Thanks. With yalls help, I'm learning quickly.


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## b0xii (Sep 1, 2009)

For work I shoot sports, so in order to keep the buffer in line and to save on disk space (i'm shooting 100s per game) I shoot jpg. Everything else is done in raw, however. If you opt for jpg just make sure you've got your WB set correctly.


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## stargazer (May 24, 2004)

Just remember that when shooting RAW all the incamera settings (sharpness, contrast, ect....) dont apply. I personally, dont use NR incamera. If you get the exposure correct, you shouldnt need it ....so thats why I use Noiseware. :biggrin: Althou, DPPs NR tool isnt too bad at all.
Shooting RAW is a whole new ballgame. You have to input sharpen (perferably after you resize to what ever size you want) and then at the end (Post sharpen) for what I am going to do with the image, Print vs Web.

General sharpen (unsharpen mask layer) 125/ 0.3/0
web sharpen 400/ 3/ 1

As for the filter, as I understand, that is one of the reasons for all the incamera controls. The filter will effect the image so if shooting JPEG thats the reason for internal sharpen, contrast etc, when raw is used, you have to compensate for the filter in post processing.
Noise is a product of the sensor not the filter.


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## Gary (May 21, 2004)

stargazer said:


> Just remember that when shooting RAW all the incamera settings (sharpness, contrast, ect....) dont apply. I personally, dont use NR incamera. If you get the exposure correct, you shouldnt need it ....so thats why I use Noiseware. :biggrin: Althou, DPPs NR tool isnt too bad at all.
> Shooting RAW is a whole new ballgame. You have to input sharpen (perferably after you resize to what ever size you want) and then at the end (Post sharpen) for what I am going to do with the image, Print vs Web.
> 
> General sharpen (unsharpen mask layer) 125/ 0.3/0
> web sharpen 400/ 3/ 1


Thats what I was thinking Fred. I thought when shooting in RAW all those settings were ignored. I turned off my NR right off the bat. I read it on another forum. lol


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## Pocketfisherman (May 30, 2005)

The in camera settings (Sharpness, contrast, saturation, Auto light Optimizer, highlight tone priority) all effect the rendered JPEG and do nothing for RAW EXCEPT Highlight Tone Priority which forces an underexposure of an image and then boosts the exposure in the JPEG conversion. So, if you want the histogram (which is generated from an incamera JPEG render) to most closely reflect reality, turn down all the options, and then adjust them later when you process the RAW. Stargazer is correct in that these settings don't affect the RAW date. BUT, they do affect the histogram which influences your exposure level of the RAW. Most people have Sharpness, Contrast, and Saturation turned up a couple of clicks which makes the histogram show clipping (especially the red channel) before it is actually clipping RAW data. If you try to follow digital best practices and expose to the right, and then correct levels in post, this can cause you to not take full advantage of the right side of the histogram and slightly underexpose when you could have gone brighter without really clipping. The advantage here is minimizing noise in the shadows and when you bump the exposure down in post processing, your shadows will be nice and clean.

The antialias filter affects all images the camera takes. But, the camera generated JPEG has sharpening applied across the entire image in a generic manner. When you sharpen in post processing, you have a lot more control over how sharpening is applied to the RAW. Depending on what tool you use, you can control the sharpening radius, level, and degree of masking to not sharpen certain areas. CS4 and up have really improved with their RAW process because you now even have the option of a brush to selectively apply your changes to certain parts of the RAW and leave other parts totally unchanged, or changed at a different level than other parts.


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## stargazer (May 24, 2004)

Pocketfisherman said:


> Stargazer is correct in that these settings don't affect the RAW date. BUT, they do affect the histogram which influences your exposure level of the RAW.
> 
> Yep forgot to add that. Learned it the hard way. Then found out it was common knowledge:spineyes:


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## Gary (May 21, 2004)

Gotcha guys. Thanks.


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## Gary (May 21, 2004)

I'm starting to pixel peek with DPP. Arggg!

This isn't as easy as I thought. lol


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