Do you need to shoot in RAW format? That’s the question I want to ask today. Before we try to answer the question. let’s see what are the benefits of working with RAW format.
- Give you the ability of working with uncompressed files; contains all information from your sensor.
- More control in adjusting white balance, shadow/highlights, contrast, brightness, noise etc. due to the 12 bit information within the RAW file
- Useful in extreme conditions. Low/High contrast or low light scenes.
- Better image quality if you are competent in your photoshop skills
Now, you read all these and say, “Great, from now on, I will always shoot in RAW format.” Well, you could do that if you fulfill (at least for me) these 3 conditions.
- Disk space – Not a major problems nowadays. The gigabytes per dollar ratio is dropping rapidly; affordable terabytes are coming in the next 2 years. But how much is too much? A typical RAW file is about 8 meg. Add to that, your converted tiff, psd and jpeg file, you will fill up your hard disk in super quick time. I find that I need to buy a new external hard disk every 6 months.
- Time – Post processing takes time. If you have an inefficient workflow, you will take even more time. The thing about RAW is that you can’t batch process them as that would eliminate the advantages of the RAW process.
- Post processing skills (PP) – To me this is the most important factor. Without good PP skills and experience to see a good photograph, no matter how you shift the scroll bar in your adjustment, you will not get a better photograph than your DSLR can automatically give you.
Now that I have lay out the case for you. Do you want to answer the question yourself?
Do you need to shoot in RAW format?
17 Comments
I used to think that shooting in raw was not for me. As a Linux user it was just too much of a hassle to preview the shots, let alone process them.
However, after using Lightroom for some time and installing it on Linux (it can be done…) I’ve noticed that timewise there really isn’t a difference in processing time between raw or jpg. So now I shoot in raw whenever I’m shooting something more creative than a walk around with our dogs.
When photographing dogs I mostly use jpg, since I need the increase in buffer size.
Thanks for the comment.
I agree that nowadays the default functions in apps like Lightroom has made it faster to process RAW, but still without the background in photo processing, a newbie will be better off shooting in JPG.
I shoot in RAW usually, but sometimes Jpeg is more suitable. I shot a football match on Saturday and ended up with about 600 images. I only have 3 1GB cards, and my camera’s burst mode in Jpeg is much faster than in RAW mode so it was a no-brainer.
I’ve pretty much given up on raw and I am much happier how.
The quality of the jpgs is good enough for me and the slow down and additional processing needed for raw is not worth the hassle for me. File size IS an issue, to me at least. I like having snapshots but I’d not like it soo much if they “waste” 8 MB each.
It might be because I try to do as much as possible with Picasa (which does not have a great raw support) and compared to Picasa everything is sooo much slower. Lightroom is not bad and gives a bit better image quality, but all in all the slowdown is there. I have limited amount of time available for photography and spending hours and hours on one photo is just not what I enjoy anymore. Some day I might start with RAW again but at this time JPGs just make me happier. Plus every program can read it.
I think it’s also a myth that all professionals shoot raw. Think Ken Rockwell.
I’m a little bored that so much “serious” amateurs pride themselves so much that they shoot raw now. Most of my photos do lack in composition or lighting but not very often I miss the 5% gain I could get if I had shot it in RAW (which would have cost me say 20% of time and fun). Just my 2 cents.
Best regards,
Martin
I hope you are kidding about Ken Rockwell?
When did Ken become an example of a professional? He is a popular guy, but definitely not a famous for his work (his photography is mediocre) but for his often controvercial articles (often at the price of being obviously wrong).
RAW is not necessary for everyone, but its disadvantages are quite few nowadays.
I’m am an absolute RAW fan. Read some web pages and those composers advocate the use of jpegs and good luck to you but my choice is RAW – I like the lossless format and the ability to do much more with a raw file than jpeg.
Whilst you are able to adjust jpegs I would rather retain as much pixel information as possible throughout my workflow. Yes, my flow may be slower than a jpeg shooter but I know and am comfortable with that.
In the end it distills to this – do what you want to do. If you are happy with the printed results from jpegs or raw files then great that’s what works for you. IF your clients are happy and you feel your images can’t be improved then it matters not whether the file was jpeg or raw.
Personal choice – if it ain’t broke etc. but at least try the other file format before condemning those that chose the opposite format to you choice.
My 2 penneth.
RAW should be used when you can’t get a custom white balance and / or the lighting is out of your control. It should also be used for HDR, low light, long exposures and for fine art pieces that you have intentions of enlarging way past what you normally would from a JPG image.
I work in the photo / print industry, I can tell you first hand that RAW has let people become sloppy photographers. The attitude of, “I’ll fix it later in Photoshop” is a horrible one to adopt. Learn your craft. Moreover, if you are doing this as a profession and / or looking to do it as a profession, you will kill yourself in an all RAW workflow, no matter how stream-lined you make it. Take an average wedding photographer, they may shoot 600-2000 photos per wedding and spend as much time post-processing RAW files as they did actually shooting the wedding. That cuts profits in HALF, yo uare paid for your time. The time spent post processing job 1 could have been used to do consults for potential job 2, 3 and 4, thus getting you deposits and making more money.
Know what your output is going to be. If you are shooting your sisters baby’s first birthday, chances are you will never make a print bigger then 8×10 or 8×12 – is RAW really needed? Especially if you are in someones home and using a flash w/ a diffuser (like omni-bounce)?
Take the 2 minutes to do a custom white balance wherever you can, learn to actually shoot and hit a proper exposure and be a photographer, not a photo-retoucher.
I’ll also second Lightroom as a fantastic way to process and catalogue RAW photos. It’s never been so easy. I can process 100 times faster in Lightroom compared to my old method of using the Adobe Camera Raw plug-in in Photoshop.
For newbies that have never post processed before and would like to dive into Lightroom, I highly recommend The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Book for Digital Photographers book by Scott Kelby.
If I wasn’t using a workflow product like Lightroom or Aperture I might shoot in jpg. But after using lightroom for a few months I almost forget I’m dealing with raw files, the process is so streamlined. I don’t spend a lot of time tweaking if I don’t need to, the defaults in Lightroom work fine. But the option is there if I need it and as I grow in my skills. I love not having to think about ruining the originals by saving over them. Memory is cheap, I don’t think that’s a real issue.
Oh yeah, I try to get the exposure right the first time AND shot in raw because I’m not perfect.
ok, so maybe Ken was not a too good pick as a “professional” (well, compared to me he is) but I like his writing. Hey, he even wrote an interesting post about it as I remember now: http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/raw.htm
Raw is a good thing. But don’t feel bad when you’re not doing it. You don’t lose soooo much in picture quality (see also Ken Rockwells post) and you gain simplicity and speed. A bad exposure is not really that much better with raw. A good exposure is not really that much better with raw.
Raw is a good thing but at a cost. For me it’s not worth it anymore – but that’s a very personal decision. Plus it might change over time.
@Donncha – I agree totally. Your camera can have a burst of 5 shots a
second, but if your card speed don’t match up to it, it’s useless.
@Martin – I too use Picasa to organize my photos and if I remember
correctly Picasa do support some RAW formats.
@Paul – I am not condemning RAW, its just that I think it is a bit
troublesome to use at the moment.
@Mike – I would have thought someone in the photo/print industry would
have backed the RAW format for its flexibility, guess not…
@Dave & Bob – Have you thought that if using the defaults is just fine in
Lightroom, putting the same settings into a camera would have given you
the same results without any further PP?
Since I try to sell photos, I believe that RAW is the best for that situation. Plus I have begun to believe that have post processing skills IS just as important as shooting skills. If you refuse to learn or are scared of Photoshop then you are leaving great photographs unmade.
JPEGS are for snapshots and when space is limited in my opinion.
@bmunch – Yeah, but jpg/camera defaults LOCK you into those defaults.
JPG is more convenient for sure but that is all it is. You’ll never get better image quality from jpg than from RAW.
That being said, its easy to become a snob about these things and there are plenty of scenarios where the convenience of jpg is the way to go. But as someone trying to make money from photography (part time, so I hesitate to call myself a professional) I don’t find my self in those scenarios often.
@bmunch – not when the people who try to edit don’t know proper color theroy, are not using a quality monitor and are not using a hardware calibration unit. RAW, to most new photographers who have never shot film, is simply an excuse to not learn how to properly take a photograph.
I use both RAW and JPG modes but I often find that I don’t have the time to do post processing. I would love to be able to post process all my photos but if I did that, I would never have time to upload them to my websites.
For images that I share on the internet, JPG is good enough considering the low resolution that I upload them at but if I am going to print or have a special event, I will use RAW mode.
I found shooting RAW as a very good training to catch up with Digital Photography especially being for beginner – some people might argue on the fact you need to understand the technology, but it’s a mandatory step to be efficient in the digital world.
I don’t really understand the question of JPEG or RAW especially with Lightroom giving efficient workflow for any format !
I recommend Chris Orwig training available for Lightroom, BUT I recommend everybody to spend some time defining proper PRESET. I consider PRESET like ACTION for Photoshop, this has to be used to call whatever method you might have to work, a workflow.