I was just catching up on my blog reading and I came across The Digital Photography Weblog discussing the two camps of digital photographers.
On the one hand, we have by far the vast majority of digital photographers, people who see Photoshop as not only a digital tool, but an integral part of their daily workflow. These are the RAW advocates. They see JPEG as a hindrance to productivity and quality because you can’t make lossless adjustments.
On the other hand, we have people like Ken Rockwell, and a growing number of professional photographers. The argument is that instant review, the ability to take an almost unlimited number of shots of a subject, and the ability to digitally remaster images are making photographers lazy. JPEG tends to be the favored format here because, as the argument goes, you can’t tell the difference in a final printed product between an untouched JPEG and a converted RAW image, and if you get the shot right the first time, you don’t need CameraRAW to cover your mistakes later.
I know we have members and readers here in both camps. While I was for a while in the non-photoshop opinion group I have started to form my own idea of what is important and it isn’t covered by either side of the above debate.
It’s all about the picture!
It doesn’t matter how you create the picture, what does the picture look like? If the finished photograph doesn’t look good, doesn’t move you or interest you in any way it doesn’t matter how “pure” your technique was by anyone’s standard.
Technorati Tags: digital, photography, raw, photoshop
Vista Considered Harmful to Photographers
What is it they always say, “Never use version 1″. Good advice, particularly when considering upgrading an operating system. I switched to Mac but I still need to have one foot in the Microsoft camp. It turns out Windows Vista Destroys Photo Metadata. This news doesn’t add any incentive to upgrade.
Now before the anti-Microsoft crowd start foaming at the mouth or the pro-Microsoft guys lynch me, this is not all Microsofts fault. If only the camera manufacturers would produce a standardised format perhaps cockups like this wouldn’t happen?