Wednesday, January 19, 2011

RAW is wonderful!

Here is an interesting video on using RAW format vs. JPEG format on National Geographic's Website.
http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/player/specials/photography-specials/photo-tips/settings-photo-tips.html
This was a pretty short video but great because it is straight to the point. I recently decided to switch to pictures in RAW format. If anybody wants to keep their photos crisp and clean I suggest doing so as well. I have immediately noticed a difference in quality. There are many good points that Mark Thiessen brings up.
RAW files are as he calls "digital negatives" which is the reason for the increase in quality. Rather than compressing the file, it is saved at the size it is taken. He refers to your ability to adjust exposure, saturation, contrast, white balance as a second thought. This is one of my favorites because I don't have to worry about the white balance on the fly.
There are some drawbacks however. And I'm afraid they are some he didn't mention in this clip. The first I noticed was not the lack of space on an SD card but the inability for my computer to the files. You have to (at least for windows) update your software. Similarly for PSE7 you need to download the plug-in Camera RAW. Once you figure this out, the images are great in Photoshop, however viewing them is a problem on even my desktop. A computer must have at least 4GB of RAM to be able to view these seemliness otherwise your memory will be to little.
Other than that... Great short clip. I do highly recommend shooting in RAW.

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