What’s it all about?
You have just about got to grips with some of the capabilities on your new DSLR camera and someone asks if you use RAW when shooting. Another bewildering set of instructions to read? It doesn’t have to be. The simple way of thinking about raw format is to think of it as a digital negative. When you used a film camera, the negative was not the finished picture, that you could print or frame, but it contained all the information necessary to make that image. So raw does just that, but in a digital format.
What raw means for you in practical terms
Technically what this means for you is that there will be an extra step before seeing your prints, as you will have to process your raw images on a computer. The purpose of raw image formats is to save, while losing the minimum of information, the data gathered from your camera’s sensor, and the conditions that existed when you took the photograph. This information is known as the metadata, and includes information about the camera, the lens, the focal length and shutter speed as well as a whole range of information about the colour and light profiles your camera used when shooting. It can be helpful to think of raw as a way of re-taking the shot, later, in a processing software package, with you having the ability to change light and colour settings, and other elements like exposure. Professionals tend to use raw because of the safety it entails for their shots. Their original image information is not compressed, or altered into another format, like jpg, so the images retain as much of the original shooting conditions and quality as the moment when the shutter opened.
What are the benefits of raw photography?
The bottom line is that it will mean better quality pictures. This sounds like a guarantee, but imagine that you could save your images without any of the changes a DSLR usually makes to an image on your behalf, like compressing the image size, taking out noise and grain, and removing the step your camera takes which result in good, but not perfect pictures. Your camera’s on board processor normally does all this in the background, and your eye usually cannot tell that your image has been processed, to some extent, invisibly. Wouldn’t you like to take some of those creative decisions for yourself? If you answered “Yes” then raw format may be the answer.
As well as improved quality, there is the possibility of you processing your own images on a computer, by making small changes to the circumstances in which you took the photograph. Common raw settings you have control over, for instance in Canon’s raw processing package (Canon uses .CR2 as a file extension for raw images) which can be downloaded as a plugin for Adobe Photoshop, noise and grain control, colour luminance, white balance, exposure, contrast, brightness and saturation (the amount of colour in your image – by increasing saturation to 100% you can make a colour image black and white. The only way to learn the full extent of Camera Raw’s features is to try them out. Search Google for Camera Raw, download the plugin and experiment with it in Photoshop and find out just how versatile a system of post-processing it can be.
How to shoot in raw format
You don’t really have to shoot any differently than you would if photographing in jpg format, but there are some things to know before jumping into raw. There isn’t a universal standard for raw files, unlike jpg, so file extensions and the finer details of what metadata is captured is determined by your camera. Different file extensions for raw include .cr2, .dng, .raw, .nef, .raf, .orf, .srf, *.sr2 and a whole range of other file extensions will follow the name of your image when saved. This shouldn’t trouble you as long as you read you read your camera’s manual, where file extensions, and file sizes, will be explained to you.
Size matters
How much space an image takes up on your card, memory stick or portable storage device is a critical factor when shooting in raw format. All that extra information and metadata takes up a lot of space, so be prepared to take extra storage with you when shooting in raw. A typical difference between jpg and raw would be to think of an 8 megapixel shot in raw – this, being uncompressed, would take up 8 megabytes of storage, while the same image taken as a jpg would take up between 1 and 3 megabytes. So prepare to take at least three times as much storage to a shooting session as you would normally.
This article is just an introduction to shooting with raw, but you can find out much more by signing up to a camera, photography or Photoshop forum online; an even smarter move would be to take an online photography course, such as www.institute-of-photography.com, where the Diploma in Photography covers units like ‘Understanding the technology of digital photography’ and ‘Image Editing Techniques’, and you can learn much more there than in a general forum.
As always, our advice is to experiment. Try shooting the same image, with the same settings, in jpg and in raw, and then look at what you can achieve by post-processing your raw image. Even if you don’t massively improve your photography skills, you will learn a great deal about your own camera along the way.
