Raw does not fit my workflow.

<p>I have been photographing for over 40 years and made the switch to digital on 2005.<br>

I always wanted to work in raw files for all the good reasons people work in raw files but I could never find a useful workflow for what I do.<br>

I do event photography. I can come home with 300-700 files to sort through and work on. I probably only give the client half to a quarter of what I shoot.<br>

Working with raw adds 2 to 4 steps to the process and can really slow things down.<br>

Clients are always happy with what I produce because of my shooting and Photoshop where I work with colour casts (Less to do here ever since the D300), cropping, sharpening and contrast all which I have automated into an action.<br>

Am I the only one?</p>

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<p>Working with raw adds 2 to 4 steps to the process and can really slow things down.</p>

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Not with Lightroom, it's fast and the same as with jpegs.<br>

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<p> colour casts (Less to do here ever since the D300), cropping, sharpening and contrast all which I have automated into an action.</p>

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It's easier in Lightroom. You just set the parameters on the first one depending on the shoot and then sync across all photos. No need to create an action, although you can create what is called a preset in Lightroom if you want to use it on other shoots.</p>

<p>I agree, you need to learn either Lightroom or the Bridge. Working multiple files simultaneously and being able to extract more information from your shots is invaluable. Not to mention things like white balance, tint, saturation, contrast, and so on.</p>

<p>There are multiple ways to work around it. LightRoom is one.</p>

<p>You can always capture RAW + JPEG or even just RAW and then use the computer to generate JPEG files from RAW. As a result, you can continue to deal mainly with JPEG files and only go to the RAW files when you need to recover details and/or make major photo editing. You might only need the RAW files 5% of the time or even just 1% of the time, but the key is that you have the RAW when you need it.</p>

<p>If you only capture JPEG, you are throwing away a lot of details at the time of capture and will never be able to recover it. Perhaps you'll never need such details. If that workflow works for you, great.</p>

<p>With JPEG you lose not only details, but the headroom needed to make adjustments without causing posterization. Each time you save and close the file, you lose a little more data to compression.</p>

<p>I work with RAW images in Lightroom. As Andrew said, you can finish one image and transfer the changes to any number of other files in seconds. The file itself is not changed, just its appearance in Lightroom. This includes all other formats besides RAW.</p>

<p>When I do events, I find certain situations can often be selected and adjusted as a group. At a wedding, formal group shots are quite similar (especially if you use manual settings), but different from photos during the ceremony, or informal groups at the reception.</p>

<p>Once I have what I want, I export copies as TIFF or JPEG files, tailored to the needs of my clients. It's easy to flag exactly which ones to export.</p>

<p>IMO its also a question what for the pics are needed, if they are just for web or small prints its ok to shoot events in jpg,( for me wedding is not an event). You can set the cameras jpg engine not to sharpen, to reduce contrast or saturation etc and this jpgs are good enough for one time opening and re-saving.</p>

<p>I think of RAW images as my digital "negatives." If you were using film, would you throw the negatives away and scan the prints? That's kind of how I feel about working from JPEG, and to some extent about TIFF images. If in-camera JPEG meet the clients needs, shoot JPEG and cut out a lot of processing time. If you have to do post processing, JPEG really limits your ability to adjust the results. TIFF files are okay as work product, but make no sense in the camera. They are typically three times as large as RAW files, taking more processing time and space on the memory card.</p>

<p>As others have indicated, you can create a batch process form the first RAW file and apply it to all of the others from a shoot. I only shoot in RAW and it has saved me on more than one occasion. My first couple of years in digital I shot jpeg only for some vacation photos and have grown to regret that decision. I now shoot RAW only on both cards using backup mode for all bodies. RAW = more info and more info is always better.</p>

<p>You have your answer(s), but just an observation.<br>

With modern terabyte hard drives so cheap, the problem of storage of the vital (information in the) RAW files also becomes easily and relatively inexpensively solved.</p>

 

<p>Recently, especially with 64 GB cards and larger, I have been shooting RAW and JPEG simultaneously, should I need to upload something quickly, without processing. How has that worked out? I haven't actually used the camera JPEG files. Since some of the image need adjusting, those camera JPEGs can't be used. It's simpler to select and adjust RAW files and export them than to mix-and-match.</p>

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<p> the vital (information in the) RAW files</p>

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<p>I dont think that some hundred event shots really need this</p>

<p>I'd say jpegs don't fit my events/functions workflow - I almost always shoot RAW and do just about everything in Lightroom, I think I only use Photoshop to make different sized pics and Smart Sharpen (because I like it).</p>

<p>To me Photoshop is my prefered go-to tool for "creating" or significantly altering images</p>

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<p>I dont think that some hundred event shots really need this ("vital...information")</p>

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Although I shoot in RAW, I agree completely. There isn't much beyond a medium resolution jpeg that these events, assuming they are corporate or social functions, need. Even with industry leaders that sometimes show at these events, it's just a web image.

<p>Ah, but how do you know <em>which</em> ones do?<br>

Of course, I know some of you are prescient, and I admit I, too, often shoot 'action events' only in jpg; but because of speed concerns, not storage problems, so never mind.<br>

You sure won't miss it, if you don't have it.</p>

 

<p>@<a href="/photodb/user?user_id=9843603">Errol Young</a> thats ok i hate raw as well. I do shoot raw in specific pictures of the outdoor images of the bg when i have such a huge dynamic range scene and need to pull harshly on highlights or shadows for better images. Other than that just jpeg. I dont need the safety net people use raw for. I get it right in the camera to almost the final image. I also manually adjust kelvin for every shot. Raw doesbt look better than jpeg. Especially with the the high end cameras. D3s d4 that i have. It has a fantastic jpeg image. I have more thab enough to pull and push parts of the image i need no issue at all. Its faster and the images look superb. We shoot around 3000 images in a wedding. Thats 12-14 hour coverage we filter it down hard to 1800 shots. Two photogs. </p>

<p>Are you worried more about a couple extra steps in your workflow or the final quality of your image? You can use Lightroom if you wish, personally I hate the program, but you can also use PS CC and when you open in RAW, you can select as many files as you want and make the same corrections to all.</p>

<p>@Errol: I also shoot raw almost exclusively (and love it!) ...except for event photography! :-) High end/destination weddings, or an event that you are going to want to do a lot of post, I could see the benefits - but corporate events, no. High-resolution, non-compressed jpgs work fine -- I give them 300 ppi images, large enough for print - should they need some for publication. But, as others mentioned, most of the images are used on the web. These jpgs are super fine coming from my D810/D3s - I don't think it is worth the extra time it would take in post to shoot raw, unless the client requested it.</p>

<p>It's worth the effort to make your in-camera JPG files look good. Spot metering and preset white balance go a long way to toward this goal. But, I still shoot JPG + RAW to be sure ;^) Most of the time, the JPGs are just fine, especially for web hosted images.</p>

<p>If you use PS, you could open 40 files in Camera Raw if you so desired, and you can "batch process" them if you select them all. The changes you make with the sliders will affect all of them at one time. Or you can use Lightroom, which is better designed for mass work but is really limited in a lot of ways compared to PS.</p>

<p>Using RAW might slow you down a little but it gives you a lot more flexibility than working strictly with .jpg's. </p>