Digital Photography: The RAW vs JPG Debate

If you utilize a digital photographic photographic camera (I utilize a Canon Eos Digital Rebel/300D myself) and that camera is an SLR, then it most likely tin record mental images in raw format. In general, you should enter your mental images at the peak declaration possible. If you only have got a little memory card and are worried that you can only record a few raw mental images on it, then it's time to purchase a larger card! [They don't be much these days]. You can always shrivel an mental image after it's taken but you can't enlarge a little 1 without introducing artifacts. At the very least, you should have got your photographic photographic camera record mental images in Hires JPG formatting but raw formatting is even better.

Any sort of JPG written to your camera's memory card will be processed in some way. JPGs, by their very nature, lose information in an image. If you repeatedly salvage a JPG, you'll lose more than than than and more item in it and see more artefacts appearing. Also, if you've put your photographic photographic camera up to make some mental mental image use (e.g. contast/brightness adjustments), these volition also be applied before your camera composes the image out to the memory card. In such as cases, you could stop up with mental images that have got burned out foregrounds or shadows that are so deep that they incorporate no detail. Such countries of an mental image may be irreparable even with the likes of Adobe PhotoShop.

RAW images, on the other hand, are simply that - raw. What the photographic camera sees is dumped (without any mental image use whatsoever) onto the memory card. raw mental images also be given to incorporate more than information and item and have got bigger data file sizes than similar declaration JPGs. The job with raw data data data files is that they've not been the easiest to work with; for example, Windows Explorer cannot show raw files as thumbnail mental mental images so, unless you've renamed your mental image files with meaningful names, you won't cognize what the images are when you come up back to them a couple of calendar months later.

This is where software system such as as RAWShooter Essentials [http://www.pixmantec.com/index2.html] (RSE) come ups in. This software system allows digital photographers of all abilities import, view, redact and convert big batches of raw data data files (to TIF files). RSE is currently free - it won't be for too long - so catch a transcript now. Having used it (i have got got no association with the company who bring forth it), I can state it do working with raw data data files a doddle; much easier than using the software system that came with my Canon Eos Digital Rebel.

With your born-again raw files, you have full control over what uses will be carried out to bring forth the concluding image, using bundles such as as Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Elements or Paint Shop Pro. The better raw transition bundles also include basic contrast, brightness and colour direction controls, so you may not even necessitate a separate mental image use package. Some even supply tools for compensating for over- Oregon under-exposed images.

By shot raw images, you give yourself finish control over colour and exposure and it's you, rather than the camera, that make up one's minds what accommodations are applied to reproduce the tones of voice and direct contrast of the original scene. It also allows you maximise the quality of your concluding mental image for whatever end product you want, whether that's on a monitor, as an inkjet black and white or sent to one of the digital photograph laboratories for printing.

Various raw transition software system is available (I've already mentioned RAWShooter Essentials) to let you to procedure digital mental images to the peak quality possible. "Capture One" and "Breezebrowser" are both highly regarded, although you have got to pay for these. A demonstration version of Capture One is available so you can seek before you buy.

Probably like yourself, I shot all my photographs in hires JPG manner until I got switched on to recording my mental images in raw mode. Yes, I had to purchase a bigger capacity memory card, but even 1Gb cards are pretty inexpensive these days, and with mental image data files being about 6Mb a piece, that still allows me record well over 200 mental images on the card - that's equivalent to over 6 axial rotations of 35mm movie (at 36 frameworks per roll)!

So, if you're not already recording in raw mode, do the electric switch today and take full originative control of your photographs.

Just after I'd finished this article, I was looking around the websites of some professional photographers who utilize digital photographic cameras to see if what they had to state on the subject of raw Vs JPG. What I learned surprised me. Quite a figure of them hit in JPG manner rather than RAW. The ground is time. Professionals anticipate to acquire "the image" in photographic camera using compositional techniques, filters and a cognition of their topic and they simply don't have got the time to pull strings mental images to accomplish a desired result. Any such as time would be them money by taking time away from being out there taking photographs and earning a living.

The recreational photographer is in a more than epicurean position. Our supports don't depend on our results and, if a photograph isn't quite up to spec. we have got the time to pinch it and convey out its concealed attractions, rather than junking it and moving on the the adjacent photo. The lesson to be learned is that we should always seek to acquire the best image possible on the twenty-four hours with the photographic camera rather than becoming lazy and assuming sloppy images can always be corrected, cropped and manipulated when we acquire home. Post-processing of photographs should be about making good images even better rather than so-so or bad images just acceptable.