[Closed] Getting into digital photography - RAW files

mechanicaldope - Member
Sorry, a little confused here. No way I can afford LR currently, even if it is considered a bargin. Is the Efex collection a suitable replacement or not? If not, what bargin basement program would you suggest?

Not sure whether the free 'light' version of LR for Android is still available?

IIRC Snapseed is free and now includes RAW processing too?

Raw therapee is a free option. Your camera vendor probably provides something free too. Generally the free ones are hard work and the paid for ones are easy to use though.

No way I can afford LR currently, even if it is considered a bargin

Then I would suggest that the first port of call for you should be your camera manufacturer's website - they will have a free program for raw conversion.

Alternatively you can get other suites, or use Lightroom on subscription.

Anyway, the sooner you start capturing the raw images from your camera, the better. Even if you don't start to process them yet.

used to get about 400 shots on an 8GB card doing this, but I can get 550 or so using only RAW

A 16Gb card can be found for €7,70 so that is a cheap issue to solve.

It still makes it harder to work with. I filled up 500GB in about a year or so, some of which was pre-pruning admittedly. But much of that was holiday type snaps I wanted to keep, so that's quite a lot of work to prune, and still a non-trivial amount of storage to keep in the meantime.

Then there's uploading it all to cloud storage if you want off-site backup. I don't have fast upload speed, so I can't simply copy the whole lot to a computer and sync it and be done. It requires work and planning and consideration, imo.

What I would like is software that recognises that the RAW and the JPEG of the same image are actually the same image, and once copied over and given star ratings you could instruct it to automatically delete all the RAW files for the low star-rated ones.

I just don't do that kind of housekeeping. When I filled up my terabyte nas (after several years)* I bought a new 4 terabyte one for half what I paid for the old one.

I don't backup raws to the cloud as rural Wales is decades away from that kind of broadband speed, but if I did lose my local storage it's not like I'd be worse off than had I only had jpegs in the first place.

*I can't remember how full it was as I was more concerned about its age than anything else.

if I did lose my local storage it's not like I'd be worse off than had I only had jpegs in the first place

Really? You'd rather have nothing than JPEGs?

The majority of my pictures are documenting family holidays and my kids growing up. That is valuable enough for me to make the effort to keep them.

Who's that aimed at?

The "I" that you selectively missed off my quote. It can't have been that difficult to work out.

Really? You'd rather have nothing than JPEGs?

The majority of my pictures are documenting family holidays and my kids growing up. That is valuable enough for me to make the effort to keep them.

When I said I don't back up raws to the cloud I mean just raws, I do backup jpegs to the cloud (every raw I keep is processed), which as you point out is easy. To two different vendors...

Shoot in RAW. Import into whatever RAW-compatible photo management software you prefer. Photos on the Mac is fine. Lightroom is darn good - despite its awful interface.

Storage space is neither here nor there unless you are indiscriminate with the exposure button.

RAW won't help you make a great photo out of something awful. It will give you more options with recovering detail in the shadows or highlights if your exposure was not perfect.

And backup, backup, backup.

If you render JPEGs of your photos you can also store them on Flickr & Google Photos.

When I said I don't back up raws to the cloud I mean just raws, I do backup jpegs to the cloud (every raw I keep is processed), which as you point out is easy.

OIC yes.. I have only just accquired LR and not spent much time on it, but I would like to be able to set a default for my camera and just select all starred images and develop, which I think I can do. But then can I automatically delete the RAWs?

It will give you more options with recovering detail in the shadows or highlights if your exposure was not perfect.

Some pictures I took on holiday were slightly under - but I didn't bother re-taking because I reckon I can lighten it up later. But then, as I said that's extra time and effort... bugger.. I dunno..

I did briefly delete the raw files after processing when I first started using raw. When I came to print a large canvas from one of those jpegs I realised some of it was blown out so I went back to reprocess it with more care... I stopped deleting raws at that point.

That canvas is on the wall opposite me and I bet nobody else will ever notice, but I have. It bugs me. You can get 50,000+ odd raw files on a 1tb drive costing 50 quid. I'd happily pay that just for that one file.

[i]Who's that aimed at?[/i]

The "I" that you selectively missed off my quote. It can't have been that difficult to work out.

Think you've lost the plot pal.......there was no 'I' in your quote!

Anyway....Was looking through my (seriously in depth) Instruction Manual and see that I can actually process raw photos on the camera itself, as well as Panasonic including a CD with processing software on it, for using on the computer. Clearly trying to do it on a small lcd screen wouldn't be very easy, but wondering if anyone has used the Panasonic silky pics software and how it might compare to LR?

silkypics is absolutely
dire

[b]I [/b]like to think I am a good photographer, have always had a decent camera and always taken loads of photos for near on 40 years

There you go, if you can't work out who I was referring to then maybe leave the raw processing for next week and brush up on your reading first. 🙄

And silkypics is not easy to use, Lightroom or for better image quality Capture One.

silkypics is absolutely
dire

Oh 🙁

There you go, if you can't work out who I was referring to then maybe leave the raw processing for next week and brush up on your reading first.

Well 10/10 for that remarkable series of posts.....you are indeed a master of sarcasm and also a [s]complete tool[/s] person with in depth knowledge of my photograhic ability.......well done!

I use a fairly old Pentax DSLR. I pretty much always set it to save both RAW and JPG. The exception is in burst mode (for sports, etc). The camera can't save the RAW files fast enough to sustain more than a few shots so I only save JPGs. Don't know if it's an issue with newer models, but that's the only downside to saving both. I can save about 2000 RAW files to the SD card. Space isn't an issue.

It's worth mentioning that shooting raw can reduce frame rate and buffer size (in terms of shots in buffer before the camera grinds to a hault). Depending on camera.

Yep, even with extremely fast CF cards (£200+ each), my D4S's buffer fills up very quickly shooting RAW or RAW+JPEG (a few secs at 10fps), whereas with just JPEG it can buffer something like 90secs at 10fps high res JPEGS (longer than I've ever needed shooting sports).

I very rarely use RAW, as the built in JPEG conversion is good enough for me.

My dad even has *gasp* phone pictures on his walls, and they look brilliant.

Mate of mine's an amateur photographer, far better than I'll ever be. They've got a large canvas over their fireplace of one of his landscapes, maybe 3' by 2'. I asked him how he'd shot it; "oh, iPhone."

All comes back to a conversation I regularly have with other photography teachers and my A level students. What is it about photography that interests you?

I trained as a painter, so my focus is always composition, image and mood. I'm not that fussed about the technicalities most of the time and tend to process the hell out of my photos anyway (I'm quite interested in using digital artifacts as part of the image making process) so just use .jpg most of the time as it fits my needs. If 'working' for someone else or for print, etc. then I'll do raw and .jpg together just in case.

Other photographers love the tech stuff and so taking and processing 'correct' photos becomes the obsession for them - loads of gear, raw all the way, and hours spent staring at LR is their thing.

Of course, most photographers sit somewhere between the two extremes and so the questions are what works for what you want to do and what investment are you willing to make in terms of money and time to get those results?

Mate of mine's an amateur photographer, far better than I'll ever be. They've got a large canvas over their fireplace of one of his landscapes, maybe 3' by 2'. I asked him how he'd shot it; "oh, iPhone."

That's a really cool story.

using raw gives you
the chance
to make the best photo
you possibly could
at that moment
maybe the time and disk space
are not worth it
to you

Again, depends on your definition of 'best'...

possibility
is the key word
jpg removes possibility

Depends. For me (and admittedly I'm probably not typical for photographer in coming from a process driven 'fine art' background rather than an outcome driven technical one) .jpg compression artifacts and loss of dynamic range actually add creative possibilities rather than remove them.

Horses for courses...

It's easy to remove dynamic range and compression artifacts when you start with a raw. 😉

but I would like to be able to set a default for my camera and just select all starred images and develop, which I think I can do.

you can, but what's the point...? Every photo needs tweaks to a different extent to get the most out of them.

FWIW on my DSLR I only ever shoot raw. The downside is it sometimes takes me 6 months to get round to processing them...!

"Mate of mine's an amateur photographer, far better than I'll ever be. They've got a large canvas over their fireplace of one of his landscapes, maybe 3' by 2'. I asked him how he'd shot it; "oh, iPhone.""

Did anyone see the iPhone advert that was on during the recent football tournament? Some stunning pictures, proving it's not always about the equipment:

http://www.idownloadblog.com/2016/06/09/apple-euro-2016-iphone-ad/

Of course, they'd have all been even better if they'd been shot on a 'proper' camera. 😉

"FWIW on my DSLR I only ever shoot raw. The downside is it sometimes takes me 6 months to get round to processing them...!"

I'm currently going through some stuff I shot in 2013. 😳 But the thing is, I can go back and improve the technical quality those images, now that I'm more familiar with RAW processing. I can't do very much wit the jpegs.

"my D4S's....
I very rarely use RAW, as the built in JPEG conversion is good enough for me."

Really? You have a camera like that, and you don't shoot in RAW? 😯

Really? You have a camera like that, and you don't shoot in RAW?

5thElefant - Member
It's easy to remove dynamic range and compression artifacts when you start with a raw.

but I would like to be able to set a default for my camera and just select all starred images and develop, which I think I can do.
you can, but what's the point...?

To save hours and hours of work - as I said most of these are simply holiday snaps, only a few are worth the effort. But the snaps will want to go on facebook or be printed out to share with family etc.

"Pretty normal with users of sports oriented cameras as raw slows them down. Raw doesn't help when you missed the shot."

I appreciate this, and I noticed my D610 needing to slow down the shooting rate recently, as the relatively small buffer size compared to the file size (shooting RAW+ Fine Jpeg to separate SD cards, which aren't exactly the fastest of their type) was being overrun. Another photographer next to me with a D4s was shooting away like a machine-gunner! I thought the smaller file size and much larger buffer on the D4S was capable of fast RAW shooting, even for extended periods?

For a lot of what I do I want them there.

do you
want
exactly and precisely
the
amount of dr and artefacts
you get
or
do you just want random results?

Yep, even with extremely fast CF cards (£200+ each), my D4S's buffer fills up very quickly shooting RAW or RAW+JPEG (a few secs at 10fps)

Undoubtedly true, however if you want to make a video then it has a mode for that, what would you ever need 4 seconds of 10fps for?

Pretty normal with users of sports oriented cameras as raw slows them down. Raw doesn't help when you missed the shot.

I'd argue but for the most part I agree with this guy (he specifically covers sports and motor drive a couple of episodes into the series). Although TBH the sharpness point alone is enough to convince me. A .jpg is never going to look equally good on facebook on a phone, fullscreen on a PC or printed, so why would you rely on your camera to try and come out with something average?

Of course, but that's assuming you actually want to remove those things (or not even have them in the first place). For a lot of what I do I want them there.

It's easy to remove dynamic range and [b]add[/b] compression artifacts when you start with a raw.

You don't have to rely on luck, making a photo worse in post is easy. Add noise, add crappy compression artifacts, screw up your dynamic range any way you like all in the comfort of your favourite chair.

Jared Polin is intensely irritating. His ego is bigger than his talent. Ken Rockwell is far less irritating, but still very self-absorbed:

http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/raw.htm

😆

I thought the smaller file size and much larger buffer on the D4S was capable of fast RAW shooting, even for extended periods?

[url= http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/nikon-d4s/nikon-d4sA6.HTM ]A quick look suggests it's marginal.[/url] 50 shots with either high quality jpeg or raws, but the buffer clear time is 6s in jpeg and 9s in raw. Jpeg and raw is 43 shots and 19s to clear.

for sports one may
also
consider time lost changing cards
and
sending shots to a newspaper

sending shots to a newspaper

I remember reading somewhere that for newspapers the photographers need to get the pictures in as quickly as possible.. so perhaps JPEG would help with that...

theauthorities - Member
do you
want
exactly and precisely
the
amount of dr and artefacts
you get
or
do you just want random results?

5thElefant - Member
Yes, I managed to miss a word in my last post. What I ment to say was:
It's easy to remove dynamic range and add compression artifacts when you start with a raw.
You don't have to rely on luck, making a photo worse in post is easy. Add noise, add crappy compression artifacts, screw up your dynamic range any way you like all in the comfort of your favourite chair.

I shoot raw. I've found that over the years, it's just better at being able save an image by recording detail that a jpeg may have removed ( such as near blown out whites) . The use of my pics is for myself so the full post processing and editing can take a while till I get it the way I want, and I would rather start with the most amount of detail in the first place.

I do understand why sports photographers use jpg though, for some sports, your environment is fairly stable in terms of lighting and once you have a setting you know is getting good results, then you can freely click away. Then after, the post processing is quicker as for news print (as I understand it ) your meant to only have basic adjustments applied such as brightness contrast crop etc, so when post processing your doing quick edits and exporting out to the media as a jpeg.

for sports one may
also
consider time lost changing cards
and
sending shots to a newspaper

Will people please
stop writing everything
in f****** haiku?

Jared Polin is intensely irritating. His ego is bigger than his talent. Ken Rockwell is far less irritating, but still very self-absorbed:

Whilst true, he does get his points across very well, much easier to spend an evening with a few of his tutorials and a camera than following a book.

Ken on the other hand probably isn't actually that different, but always comes across as "you're doing it wrong and here is a long list of reasons why", rather than a friend leaning over your shoulder and just telling you what to do to get the result you wanted.

I always imagine if they were running a course, Ken probably likes Powerpoint.