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RAW Shooters, how much processing do you do?

glocke12 said:
A I usually only shoot RAW with my D90, but once in a while I will shoot both RAW and JPEG just to compare.

The JPEGS I get from this camera usually look over processed, colors look too saturated, etc. The RAW files I get usually have a more natural look to them. Usually I dont have to do anything to my RAW photos at all. The only exception is if there is a photo that I really like I will go into CS5 and do some sharpening, but thats basically it.
Click to expand...

Besides the basic JPEG settings that you can use to desaturate the image, etc., the D90 allows you to enter your own tonal curves:

http://www.clcarder.com/Tutorials/NikonCurveInstallationInstructions.html

I sharpen and adjust three or four things on all my raw images- but depending on the converter you're using, that can be built-in or set as a default.

Paul
 
I always shoot RAW & use Lightroom 3 for post-prod & management.

97% of images that are worth keeping get the following three step treatment, which brings them up to "good enough" level:

  • crop & rotate, when necessary
  • set white balance
I then apply one of about five presets I've made to set the tone curve & ballpark exposure (I should point out that I almost always shoot exposed to the right). These presets also set useful levels for clarity, vibrance, sharpening, and noise reduction. During this first pass, sometimes I'll let myself spend a few seconds tweaking the values set by the presets if the changes needed are obvious. I've also got another couple of channel mixer presets that I try out for black & white conversion on the first pass if I think the image will work better that way.

Basically I'll crank through a batch of images, first deleting duplicates & duds, then spending a very short time on each image to do the three steps I mention above on the "keepers". After that's done, I move on to the really good ones and improve them manually.

These days I try to do everything with tone curves, especially now that custom point curves are available. All the normal "basic" controls (brightness, contrast, blacks, etc) stay "flat" unless I'm curious or lazy. The "basic" control I probably use the most is recovery.

I'll also occasionally try a different color profile to see if I prefer the results. I find trying different color profiles most useful when I can't get a portrait or other image with flesh tones to look "right".
 
Some folks here have mentioned better dynamic range as a good reason to shoot RAW. Another good reason that doesn't get much lip service is gamut. Put simply, gamut is the range of colors that a device can reliably reproduce.

Most imaging devices bake jpegs into the sRGB color space, which is sort of the least-common-denominator for color reproduction between digital devices. The range of colors it describes is quite limited compared to what a camera sensor records.

Higher-end digital cameras can also squeeze jpegs into Adobe RGB, which is sort of a standard "better" working space. It's not too bad, but (like everything else when shooting jpeg) you're limited to the particular tone curve your camera used to squeeze its native sensor data into Adobe RGB at the time of the shot. If Adobe RGB can't describe a color at the time the image is made (& I should add, with the camera's white balance setting at the time), then it will be dealt with in whichever way the camera deals with out-of-gamut colors (my guess is that it's probably perceptual which means that there's not a lot of clipping going on, but also that color reproduction isn't particularly accurate. I've certainly never seen a camera jpeg engine with selectable rendering intent...).

Most RAW converters (including Adobe) use ProPhoto RGB as their native working space. This means that *all* the color data from the camera sensor can be accessed & manipulated by the RAW converter, and you can choose your preferred rendering intent to squeeze the gamut down to the profile of the destination medium (usually the profile of your printer/ink/paper combination, or sRGB for the web). Adobe has a feature that lets you check for out-of-gamut color clipping for the target profile with your selected rendering intent so you can adjust accordingly.

Basically what all this means is that if you're not shooting RAW, the jpeg engine in your camera is throwing away color data.

BTW, if you're interested in learning more about color management beyond the links above, Bruce Fraser's Real World Color Management was the book that taught me what I know & how to put it to use. It's considered to be the authoritative guide on this stuff by a lot of professional photographers.
 
trjwv said:
Raw shooters:
Do you shoot in Raw only or Raw + jpeg?
and why?
Thanks....
Click to expand...

I shoot in both (and it seems from this thread that I'm the only one!).

I use RAW myself for all my processing in Lightroom (usually limited to crop & straighten, sometimes white balance & exposure tweaks) but I find it useful sometimes to have the JPG on the CF card also...

For example, I can show people the pictures right away - using the camera's built-in adjustments, so they're sharpened & saturated 'acceptably'(*). I've done a few shots of people's kids before now, and being able to plug the card into a reader and show them on the huge TV right there, means they can ooh and ahh in front of me, rather than days later ;) Also they can pick & choose some favourites for me to process first, so they get great images back right away.

Mark

(*) On Canon, and I assume Nikon, any 'in camera' tweaks you apply to saturation, sharpening, colour balance, etc only affect the preview on the back and the JPG image. So if I take the shot in "greyscale", the preview and the JPG will be B&W. The RAW will not be, so I can do it myself with the better controls in LR. The same goes for sharpening, etc. LR does some by default, but it is useful if you're previewing the JPGs with someone to let the camera at least do something, or you get complaints that they're all 'out of focus' :)
 
I'm pretty new to more advanced photography, but I see no reason not to shoot raw. You have complete white balance control and a much greater ability to fix any exposure and/or dynamic range issues. I agree with what most have said too that JPEG is a little saturated at times.
 
I shoot RAW 95% of the time. I PP them using LR3. Almost all are PPed, but all but a handful are limited to 'lens correction', sharpening (my lens is weak as hell), and clipping highlights.
 
I always shoot RAW as well and PP in Lightroom. Most often it is just white balance and maybe some saturation. I never delete the originals, I don't see a reason to.
 
I do a lot of processing. usually at least 16 layers in CS4 for a regular pic and 25 for more complicated shots. The worst part is that I only have 4Gb in my macbook pro and if I edit more than one pic with 25 layers I could easily top out at 12Gb of ram usage for page ins/out ^_^ time to upgrade to a new macbook pro I think.
 
funkboy said:
Most RAW converters (including Adobe) use ProPhoto RGB as their native working space. This means that *all* the color data from the camera sensor can be accessed & manipulated by the RAW converter, and you can choose your preferred rendering intent to squeeze the gamut down to the profile of the destination medium (usually the profile of your printer/ink/paper combination, or sRGB for the web). Adobe has a feature that lets you check for out-of-gamut color clipping for the target profile with your selected rendering intent so you can adjust accordingly.
Click to expand...

Just to carry this thought out a little farther, individual pixels in the raw file are not mapped to a specific color until they are demosaiced by the raw converter. Until that point, they just exist as data values read off the sensor. So not only can you work in a color space such as ProPhoto with a larger gamut than sRGB or aRGB, but if your camera and its raw file format continues to be supported over time, even larger color spaces might be available in the future with which to render your image.
 
Cliff3 said:
Just to carry this thought out a little farther, individual pixels in the raw file are not mapped to a specific color until they are demosaiced by the raw converter. Until that point, they just exist as data values read off the sensor. So not only can you work in a color space such as ProPhoto with a larger gamut than sRGB or aRGB, but if your camera and its raw file format continues to be supported over time, even larger color spaces might be available in the future with which to render your image.
Click to expand...

True but I think that the color recording capabilities of all current and past digital or film cameras is well within the ProPhotoRGB colorspace, so if there ever was a new, wider color standard, your current RAWs wouldn't really benefit.

IIRC ProPhotoRGB was made massively huge on purpose, basically large enough to cover the entire natural gamut of colors visible to the human eye and then some. Famous last words I know, but there really shouldn't be a need to go to a space wider than ProPhoto, ever.
 
Ruahrc said:
True but I think that the color recording capabilities of all current and past digital or film cameras is well within the ProPhotoRGB colorspace, so if there ever was a new, wider color standard, your current RAWs wouldn't really benefit.

IIRC ProPhotoRGB was made massively huge on purpose, basically large enough to cover the entire natural gamut of colors visible to the human eye and then some. Famous last words I know, but there really shouldn't be a need to go to a space wider than ProPhoto, ever.
Click to expand...

Possibly. A raw file is analogous to exposed but undeveloped film. You never know what might come down the pike in the way of new processing possibilities. But providing your particular flavor of raw file is still supported, you can take advantage of those new possibilities.
 
I shot JPEG for a long time, but have been shooting raw exclusively now for a year. Each camera brand treats its in-camera processing differently, but with my trusty old D40 a generally bump the exposure and saturation a hair, sometimes a touch of contrast (but that depends more on the subject), and I sharpen everything pretty much.

I am just guessing, but Nikon seems to think it is easier to brighten and sparkle-up a photo than to tone it down in post-processing. I haven't used Nikon's program and that may be another thing altogether.

If I take photos of buildings, I often send them to Elements to fix the perspective (sometimes I like the keystone effect and leave it alone). I also use PTLens which does some distortion correction and also has good perspective control.
 
I shoot RAW and will edit photos intended for printing or to save it when I or the camera botches the exposure or white balance.

Also, I do black & white conversions in software, not in camera.
 
dulaney22 said:
I'm pretty new to more advanced photography, but I see no reason not to shoot raw. You have complete white balance control and a much greater ability to fix any exposure and/or dynamic range issues. I agree with what most have said too that JPEG is a little saturated at times.
Click to expand...

Why not? Time.

Many pro sports photographers use JPEG only. Time is money. I've even heard of them using wireless file transmitters, that will send their photos from the camera to a server for the editors to sort and then communicate with the photographer on the field what type of pictures they need...while the game is still going on.

That is how time critical it is.
 
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