Should I shoot in Jpeg of RAW?

Kendra Bay, Moidart
Originally uploaded by thefatcat44

The simple answer? RAW.

Why? Because RAW gives you massively more control over your images, it allows for much higher quality Jpegs to be created for printing, it allows for a much wider spectrum of colours to exist in the image so let's face it, why shoot in a format that gives you poorer quality final images? Why pay for a camera designed to work in RAW and not use it's full potential?

The main reason, is most photographers are a bit frightened of it. While they understand jpeg's, RAW sounds wierd, ferocious and complicated. After you have worked in it once or twice, you will realise this is not the case.

Some worry about hard drive space and memory card space because RAW files are bigger. But really, in a world where a 4Gig SD card costs just a few pounds/dollars/yen and when hard drives are enormous and a terabyte (that's a THOUSAND gigabytes!!!) drive can be had for less than a hundred pounds/dollars should space really be a worry?

You also need an additional piece of software to open RAW files to process them before you finish them off in Photoshop or Elements. This seems to put some off but it is just this piece of software that gives you incredible power over the image.

The software to read RAW files is provided on a CD with your camera. You can also use programs like Adobe Lightroom or Apple's Aperture to work on them but I would recommend experimenting with the free manufacturers software first.

So what is a RAW file? A RAW file is simply a file that contains every single bit of information your camera captured when the shutter opened and closed. It truly is a digital negative. It is a 'lossless' format - it never loses any information the camera captured. In contrast, a Jpeg contains just a fraction of that information. For a start, it throws away half of the colours! That's why the files are smaller. Jpegs are a 'lossy' format. Every time you open a Jpeg and change something some more information is thrown away - the file gets smaller and smaller and the quality is reducing every time you work on it. Frightening!

As a RAW file has all this information embedded in it the software is then able to change the image in ways you can't change Jpegs. You can adjust the exposure by around 3 stops either way, for example - very useful if you under or over-exposed. It can help in pulling back detail in over-exposed areas. You can improve the colours selectively without over-saturating the image.

In addition to this, nothing you do to a RAW file can't be reveresed. In actual fact a RAW can't be changed. The changes you make are just recorded in the file and applied to it when you look at it. So any time you want to undo changes it can be done at a click of a button. Change a Jpeg and save the changes and it is impossible to go back.

So if you shoot in RAW you then process the image in the RAW software. Once happy you send it to Photoshop, Elements or your favorite image processor and make any final changes. You then save a copy of that image as a .psd or Jpeg ready to print, upload to the web or do whatever you want to do with it. The RAW file remains your digital negative you can go back to at any time - may be to make a black and white version for example.

So why not have a go. Load up the RAW conversion software Canon or Nikon gave you and do a shoot in RAW, then play. I guarantee you won't go back to Jpeg.

As a follow up to this, I am planning a series of blog posts on 'workflow'. This is the steps to follow from when you get home with that memory card bulging with wonderful images through downloading them, processing them, backing them up safely and printing them or uploading them to the web. Many photographers seem to struggle to get a workflow organised so I am going to talk through my workflow to see if this helps get you started.

Just a reminder too, I have launched my fully updated website at www.dougchinnery.co.uk and would welcome your feedback if you get a minute or two to have a look. Many thanks in anticipation