Shooting RAW
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Can anyone help explain what shooting RAW is and how to do it ? Is it just a setting on the camera ? And also, what is the trick to fine tuning it on the computer ?
Flyreds,
If your camera offers that option (almost all, if not all DSLRs do) there is a proprietary format for RAW capture for each camera manufacturer. NEF for Nikon, CRW for Canon, etc. This is what you would choose instead of a formal file format such as jpeg or tiff.
This makes camera functions such as WB, saturation, sharpening, contrast curve, etc. irrelevant. RAW captures ALL options – only to be decided later (by you) during the conversion process – ideally at home or office on a calibrated computer monitor.
Without using RAW, you only capture the info thats set on your camera or your camera’s processor deems relevant. All other info is discarded, lost forever. With a jpeg capture, the processor has to edit further, compressing the image to the jpeg format and discarding yet more info.
RAW captures EVERYTHING and ALL possible editing options.
You will need a RAW converter. Nikon and Canon offer them, as does Adobe and several other independants. Your computer will not recognize your NEF or CRW file like it will a jpeg or tiff. Only your RAW converter will – or Adobe Bridge, if you use ACR.
Once you open the file in the converter, you can choose the file size – with uprezing up to 250% without image or pixel destruction. You can fine-tune WB, Tint, Exposure, Brightness, Contrast, Shadow Detail, Saturation, Sharpness, Noise Reduction, Chromatic Aberation, Vignetting, Curves, and individual Color Channels.
Normally, if these adjustments were done on a jpeg or tiff file in Photoshop, they would be pixel-destructive, limiting color options, tonal gradiation, and uprezing ability. The fact that these adjustments were made prior to the file even becoming a jpeg or tiff, the file is clean, complete, without damage. Its also 16-bit (really closer to 12-bit) which gives you much more editing headroom than a vulnerable 8-bit file.
When you are done, you can save the file as a jpeg, tiff, dng, oropen straight to Photoshop for final tweaking and cloning, etc.
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