Images?

[Adrian "Marvel" Reynolds]

My friend got me a book for Christmas about taking better photographs, having only just read a little bit I already feel that in future I could take better pictures,,,, but,,,,,it recommends to take the pictures using a NEF setting rather than anything else,,, I dont know what this actually does but my friend says it makes it easier to work with pictures in editing programs, the only thing is I cant open those pictures, so should I go back to regular settings till I get the correct software?

Adrian

 

[tecdes]

More commonly known as RAW Adrian.

Unless you are producing works of art photos I would stick with the ordinary settings.

Providing you take reasonable photos you can get all you want from a an ordinary photo editing programme.

My camera is an Olympus which came with a free editing programme. Also RAW capabilities which you have to have to edit. Not used it myself takes enough time with an ordinary editing photo programme.

RAW gives the opportunity of playing with all the elements without affecting the others appox.

Used to produce wedding videos and asked an International photographer at one wedding the same question. He roughly gave the above info. He only used RAW on specialty work and not wedding photos.

Laurie

 

[Adrian "Marvel" Reynolds]

Thanks Laurie, I did think it may be something like that, the book is full of different help subjects from portraits to time lapse, I'm hoping to get more from my camera in the coming months as all I do right now with it is to take shots of my kits or builds.

Adrian

 

[tecdes]

Same here. I started in March, after moving , to take photos to make up the story of our year.

if I am allowed I may even get a model in there.

Laurie

 

[Bunkerbarge]

A very good friend of mine who is a professional photographer is always trying to persuade me to keep my pictures as RAW files. It enables you to make all sorts of editing without affecting the base file in any way but it really is only of use to professionals. I'm fine with playing with a copy in Paint Shop Pro!! There are more and more photo editing software programs that allow you to edit RAW files and most cameras nowadays can take RAW files but I still don't think it is worth bothering with for the majority of us. The downside is of course that RAW files are generally quite a bit bigger than .jpgs so storage is a consideration as well.

 

[john]

I'm no professional photographer but I only ever use raw, probably because I'm not confident that the lighting on my picture will turn out how I like and it makes it easier for editing, the problem I have now is I've just bought a new camera and I can't edit the raw files until I can get an update.

 

[Andy Mac]

I only use Nef or RAW images for speciality stuff. For everyday pictures I stick to JPEGs.

NEF/RAW images are like a digital negative and will always need plenty of editing, but as mentioned above you do have a high quality base image to work from.

A JPEG has been "processed" and compressed in camera to the best of the cameras abilities, if you shoot in RAW you will need to do all the processing (eg Photoshopping) manually yourself to the best of "your" ablities. But for everyday shots, the JPEG will be all you ever need.

As Bunkerbarge mentioned RAW images take up way more space on your hard disk than a JPEG, so they'll hammer your memory card and hard drive limits. Also, if you're like me and shoot 2 or 3 hundred images at an airshow, all the RAW images will take forever to post-process, whereas JPEGs will be ready to view and perhaps give a minor tweak to make them acceptable.

Some cameras have the ablity to save both a RAW and a JPEG from each image you take, if yours is capable of this Adrian then it may be an option until you decide which format is best for your needs.

 

[eddiesolo]

My missus is a professional photographer and she does portraits so saves them in RAW, the files are big and she edits them etc. I use an old Fujifilm-Finepix 5500 and I can barely understand that lol. I save as Jpegs and then use Photoshop or even just the basic paint to crop etc. Cannot do much else...I am useless really, out of every ten pics I take, at least one will be the floor, two with half the image, six out of focus and one that will just be about okay.

Si

 

[Stevekir]

One thing that a RAW file can do to improve images of models is to increase the detail in shadows. For example, a picture of a Lancaster (which has a black underside) often fails to include much detail of the bomb bay, undercarriage stowage etc. By manipulating the sliders for highlights, shadows etc. a big improvement in detail in those parts can be had, for both models and original planes etc.

It wrks like this: The chip in a digital camera (the thing that receives the image obtained by the lens) captures a wide range of detail in the shadows and highlights (and other detail). Some of this detail is lost following jpg compression in the camera. With RAW, all the detail is preserved in the file and when it is put into a RAW processor (Photoshop for example but that is very expensive) you can adjust the highlights and shadows to bring up the detail in dark areas (and also sky and other very bright subjects). In many subjects with dark areas it is effective. But for most subjects, a non-RAW camera is OK.

There are quite inexpensive RAW converters available, for example:

http://www.contenta-converter.com/download.php?language=en&so=raw (Costs 29 USD)

Search for "RAW photo editing software" in Google.

Nikon (and probably others) offer free converters.

 

[Adrian "Marvel" Reynolds]

I've now set my camera to do jpeg and Raw, mainly so when I get a chance I can start to work on the images and learn as I go, space isn't an issue so I can store them both easily.

Adrian

 

[Ian M]

I think the thing to remember is that a RAW image is the modern equivalent of a film negative. All the information is there and instead of controlling the contrast and colour sat in the printing developing stage, its just done in the software. In other words you get the image YOU want and not the one the camera thinks you do.

Ian M

 

[Stevekir]

I have dug out a test I did to see for myself the power of RAW files to bring out detail in deep shadows and washed-out highlights. The first scene (below) was taken by the camera as a normal jpg file without any adjustment, enhancement etc. It was saved in the conventional way straight from the camera's memory chip as a normal jpg. The second scene was taken by the camera as a RAW file and adjusted in Photoshop to bring out detail in the shadows and the highlights and the result saved as a normal jpg. It takes time to understand what the adjustments can do but they certainly work, unless of course the image has only a small range of light to dark. (This second image has a colour cast on the house roof and the arm chair which is not present in the original but appeared following uploading to the forum, but it still shows the greater range of detail.)

But bringing out the detail in shadows and highlights is only one of many different types of adjustment that can be made such as the many enhanced versions of conventional adjustments found in most image software.This second image also shows the controls for these, as buttons and sliders surrounding the image (in the case of Photoshop—other RAW image software has differences.)

View attachment 75392


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View attachment 75393


Shadows

The book case on the left has much more detail, especially showing books on the top shelves. If the image is enlarged the titles of the books can be read. The wall cabinet on the right can be seen as made of wood, with a lamp in front of it. More detail can be seen on the shadowed side of the arm chair. The right part of the hedge has a little more detail.

Mid Tones



The curtains and the fabric of the door mat and arm chair have more detail and better colour.

Highlights

The brightly lit patch of carpet can be seen to have a speckled pattern, and the sky to the right of the house has some detail. (RAW is very good at showing clouds in a bright sky which are often invisible against the sky.)