raw format

why it is better to shoot on raw format? is the quallity better?

and how can i convert raw format into jpg?

by the could i face any problem by making photo in lab in raw format?

As I understand it there is no image quality advantage to raw. Whe you print it, it is handled by the printer at 8 bit. It is useful for its flexablility. you can do more computer manipulations of exposure and colour temp.

 

I shoot jpg and try to get good exposures. More on the card and esier to store. Some would laugh at this. so be it.

 

Errol

I see a huge advantage to RAW format. There is a 2 or 3 stop increase in dynamic range, which is a major improvement. I rarely ever shoot just JPG images anymore, unless I'm shooting an eBay auction or something. I also see NEF files as kind of the negative, you can go back again and again and work with them. I shoot RAW+Basic JPG all the time with my D80. The basic JPG files are great for iPhoto and to post to my smugmug account. The RAWs get processed and printed.

 

Dave

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/understanding-series/u-raw-files.shtml

Each time you save a JPG, you might loose quality due to compression. If the default quality is "90%", then the third time you save the file it is only "73%" of original... You could use TIFF to avoid this, but RAW or compressed RAW is considerably smaller and a lot more flexible. Use RAW as "film" and JPG as "print".

I think the use of RAW files really depends on the camera you have. When I had my d70, I shot raw/jpg because exposure was inconsistent. Shortly after I got my D200, I stopped shooting RAW because exposure and white balance is extremely accurate with the camera. I also have software that can increase the dynamic range of jpg files and easily correct white balance if necessary. I believe the new version of Photoshop will also have this option.

RAW will give you more options IF you know what you are looking for in post. And if you know in advance that some components of the exposure will give you problems, again RAW is the better option.<p>

 

For example with this shot <a href="http://www.photo.net/photo/5761886" >HERE </a> I knew in advance that I would have to deal with not only water, but also snow so I shot in RAW mode.<p>

 

But with this shot below the light was even and no real chance of the highlights blowing so I shot in Jpeg (ISO 500 just to show that the D70 is no slouch in low light as some would have you believe).<p><div></div>

If you shoot RAW files, you can decide later what white balance is best, how much sharpening to apply, if the exposure is correct or you if need to adjust up or down a stop or two. As has been mentioned already, you can also capture more dynamic range with RAW files. There is no loss with the compression that is applied to RAW files in camera. The loss from the highest quality JPEG is minimal, not visible, but it is there.

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The minor loss you get from high quality JPEG is not, in my view, a reason to shoot RAW. The flexibility of being able to adjust sharpening, white balance, dynamic range, and exposure is plenty of reason for RAW if I'm doing something I care about. I shoot almost exclusively RAW files.

When shooting JPEG, you leave a lot of the processing decision to the camera to produce a final image -- it might be very good at it and might allow to tweak the results up to your taste. When you're shooting RAW, you have to do all this work by yourself: the learning curve is sharp, but once you control it, you might not want to relinquish that control back to the camera.

 

Modern cameras will let you shoot RAW+Jpeg -- so you can experiment and draw your own conclusions.

 

Personally, I shoot RAW all the time. At first, the results were not good. Now, I'm a little happier with the results. Lately, I've been using a lot of layering techniques with RAW files processed with different level of exposure compensations to gain a bit more dynamic range, mostly for high-contrast scenes -- works very well with B&W.

 

So, try it and see if you like the added flexibility and can afford the longer processing time.

It's easier to PP with RAW because you start making decisions about contrast and colors prior to demosaicing. You can deal with setting WB in tricky lighting by using a grey card when necessary. You can push your shadows and hold your highlights by applying steep curve with a long shoulder and avoid color shifts. You can take advantage of ETTR shooting RAW. You can re-convert your RAW files different converters, and there are always new RAW converters coming out that are improving the results you can get both in terms of resolution, noise, colors, etc. You can't do any of this with JPEGs.

 

It is commonly stated that there is little or no difference between the resolution from JPEG Fine Large and RAW, and I have seen firsthand that this is not accurate. Here is a test shot I took in with RAW+JPEG: http://photos.imageevent.com/tonybeach/mypicturesfolder/rawconvertors/websize/D200-JPEG_AWB0825.JPG

If you have the bandwidth, then you can view the 1.66 MB file that shows the difference between the JPEG Fine Large file and three conversions using Capture One, Nikon Capture, and Raw Magick Lite here: http://photos.imageevent.com/tonybeach/mypicturesfolder/rawconvertors/_AWB0825_crops.jpg

The shots were uprezzed 150% using bicubic smoother (not uncommon for larger prints), with a luminosity contrast curve and some USM applied to make the text more legible.

 

It is clear to me that when you are trying to extract as much maximum fine detail from your files as possible, you choose a high quality RAW converter (ACR is not high quality, and doesn't do much better than out of the camera JPEGs). With a clean conversion you can apply more sharpening with few or no halos -- so even if you could argue that there isn't more resolution, the converted files hold their detail better.

Shooting raw is about having control, and not letting some anonymous engineers in Japan

decide what your photographs should look like.

Check out the above link and read it!

http://www.nikonians.org/dcforum/DCForumID86/15189.html#1