Photography in the Raw - See the Light
If you have a digital SLR camera, and you have explored its functions beyond auto and program mode, you may have noticed an option to take shots in RAW format as well as the ubiquitous JPG, or jay-peg, as we pronounce it.
To understand why you should select RAW instead of JPG, you need to understand the characteristics of both formats.
JPG is the standard format for digital cameras because of the smaller file sizes but it is a lossy format.
What that means is that the exposure data is compressed to an extent that the original detail is lost and cannot be recovered.
Furthermore, re-saving the JPG file over and over introduces more losses each time it is saved.
The compression is intentional, and for a reason.
It keeps the file size small which is important with many digital cameras, but even if you select to shoot at the largest size JPG you will still suffer some loss in detail.
Taking a JPG file into a post processing application will allow you to adjust some basic parameters but the options are limited.
There are some non-lossy compression formats, and these include TIF, PNG, GIF, and BMP, but most cameras do not offer these formats as options.
There is however a loss-less format that is generally offered in digital SLR cameras, and that is RAW.
As the name implies, what you get is exactly what the camera saw - no compression - just raw exposure data.
What this means is that in post-processing you have full control of the image without appreciable loss.
Image exposure can be easily changed; white balance adjusted to preference; colour saturation and hue manipulated;and many more options.
You may have read an article of mine on HDR photography.
Generally this requires multiple shots, but with RAW format you CAN produce an HDR image by changing the image exposure in post processing and save it as multiple files which you can then use to generate the HDR image.
Her are examples of file sizes when shooting in various modes ( Canon Rebel 350D as example): Large Fine JPG - Approx 3.
3 MByte size Medium Fine - Approx 2.
0 MByte size Small Fine - Approx 1.
2 MByte size RAW - Approx 8.
3 MByte size See the convenience of JPG? But imagine the extra detail available with RAW.
So, turn off the auto setting on your camera, switch the format to RAW and get hold of some post processing software such as Lightroom or Photoshop.
The next step will be moving away from auto exposure to manual exposure; and auto focus to manual focus - understanding how to control your exposures and get those sharp foreground images against the de-focused background.
But that will be for another article.
To understand why you should select RAW instead of JPG, you need to understand the characteristics of both formats.
JPG is the standard format for digital cameras because of the smaller file sizes but it is a lossy format.
What that means is that the exposure data is compressed to an extent that the original detail is lost and cannot be recovered.
Furthermore, re-saving the JPG file over and over introduces more losses each time it is saved.
The compression is intentional, and for a reason.
It keeps the file size small which is important with many digital cameras, but even if you select to shoot at the largest size JPG you will still suffer some loss in detail.
Taking a JPG file into a post processing application will allow you to adjust some basic parameters but the options are limited.
There are some non-lossy compression formats, and these include TIF, PNG, GIF, and BMP, but most cameras do not offer these formats as options.
There is however a loss-less format that is generally offered in digital SLR cameras, and that is RAW.
As the name implies, what you get is exactly what the camera saw - no compression - just raw exposure data.
What this means is that in post-processing you have full control of the image without appreciable loss.
Image exposure can be easily changed; white balance adjusted to preference; colour saturation and hue manipulated;and many more options.
You may have read an article of mine on HDR photography.
Generally this requires multiple shots, but with RAW format you CAN produce an HDR image by changing the image exposure in post processing and save it as multiple files which you can then use to generate the HDR image.
Her are examples of file sizes when shooting in various modes ( Canon Rebel 350D as example): Large Fine JPG - Approx 3.
3 MByte size Medium Fine - Approx 2.
0 MByte size Small Fine - Approx 1.
2 MByte size RAW - Approx 8.
3 MByte size See the convenience of JPG? But imagine the extra detail available with RAW.
So, turn off the auto setting on your camera, switch the format to RAW and get hold of some post processing software such as Lightroom or Photoshop.
The next step will be moving away from auto exposure to manual exposure; and auto focus to manual focus - understanding how to control your exposures and get those sharp foreground images against the de-focused background.
But that will be for another article.
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