BulldogE60

I got a T1i for Xmas and have been reading a lot of which to shoot in... RAW or JPEG. A lot of great things have been said about RAW and how its great for post processing, so I did a quick shoot of my car all in RAW format.

Now I'm having a few issues. I can only uploaded it using the Canon software, not much a problem here, except I can only view it here. I can't open it in PS b/c it says its not in the correct format. I can't upload it or email it b/c that can only be done in JPEG format.

Now i'm wondering whats the point of shooting in RAW if I have to convert it to JPEG to do anything with it?

Can I convert the pics to JPEG while its still in the camera?

Anzafin

Don't loose the hope on RAW mode yet!

Your RAW pics are now in the mode where only Canon cameras understand them. You have to convert them to a "universal" RAW mode, and then you will be able to process them in Photoshop.

1) Download the latest version of Adobe DNG Converter from Adobe
2) Install it
3) Convert your pics with it to a .DNG format (it's still a RAW pic despite the DNG extension)
4) Open the DNG picture in Photoshop, they will open first in a window, where you can edit lots of stuff before it opens to the actual Photoshop. You can edit exposure, color temperature and lots and lots of other things.
5) Edit normally in PS
6) Save as .JPG

I hope this helps.

- Antti -

C's Bimmer

This is good to know. I was wondering the same. Thanks Antti.

BulldogE60

Great Antti. So correct me if I'm wrong. RAw will allow me to make edits on my file that JPG won't. But after I"m done I will convert it to JPEG? Won't I just be compressing everything again?

Anzafin

Yes, but it still saves the picture from one compressing process, which happens already in a camera if you shoot straight to JPEG mode. In a RAW mode the picture in a camera is fully uncompressed. The quality between JPEG and RAW is not significant when you look at the pic on the screen, but the RAW mode lets you correct the mistakes that have happened when shooting the pic. I've noticed that the possibility to edit exposure and the color temperature have been the most important ones for me.

When you view the large RAW/DNG pics fitted on your screen, the pics may look even worse than JPEGs, but the result will be better. I think it's because of some algorithm stuff that I don't understand. I suggest you try it. At first I didn't find the RAW mode any useful at all, but then I've learned to use it's features. However, I don't use the RAW mode always. Sometimes I just shoot on and that's it. Sometimes I find it important that the pics are unedited, like my detailing pics.

My camera is set in to a mode where it saves the pic both in JPEG and RAW. Then I browse the JPEG pics to choose which ones I want to process more (and maybe share here) and then I edit the "same" RAW pics in PS.

edit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raw_image_format

BulldogE60

^^^ Thanks bro. I finally got a little bit of a hand on the RAW using Canon's software. I found that I can batch process so that should be easier.

I'll give it a shot, so far editing these RAW pics are amazing. Just a quick RGB process and the pics come out soooo much better.

Richard in NC

You can use the Canon SW to just adjust the exposure, white balance, and a few other camera settings. Then see if the Canon SW can save the image in TIF format. Its not compressed. The use Photoshop or any other good SW to do the rest of your edits, finally saving in JPG.

I also do the raw+jpg and only deal with the raw shots when I need a major correction.

BulldogE60

Need to learn a bit more about RAW. I was thinking, maybe I could have adjusted the RGB in JPEG mode and still get it to look the same....

Any examples you photog experts would like to throw out? Perhaps an example of "this picture was shot in RAW and this one in JPEG" and this is what can be done to RAW and not JPEG?

VHHDT

Hi ya,

As others have said, using JPEG or RAW depends quite a bit on your purpose. Shooting in RAW saves all the original colour info up to 16 bits per colour (usually 12 bits) whereas JPEG is just 8 bits. Do you need it? Well, it kind of depends on whether you are a hoarder and like to keep all those extra odds and ends just in case one rainy day you need them, and the purpose/time you have.

JPEG LOSES information during the conversion, whether it is done by your computer software or the camera hardware. If it is a happy snap then that is no big deal, but if it is a high detail picture, correcting the colours or exposure/shadows of a JPEG can result in the loss of a huge amount of fine detail.

As I understand it (feel free to correct anyone) the DCT (Discrete Cosine Transformation) software in the camera determines what information can be thrown away depending on the JPEG compression selected (ie pic settings) and a row of 24 pixels that had 24 tones may now only have 5 or 6.

RAW on the other hand retains the entire information as it is still waiting to be processed. It allows you to fix up all your settings and then produce the JPEG.

It really just depends on your subject and the purpose of your output.

Here is an example of RAW vs JPEG. I haven't done them but rather lifted from a website michaelmistretta.com The left one is RAW. Note the cloud and gravel detail.... The other is a JPEG edited to get the exposure and shadows right.




Cheers

J

John Photography

essentially JPEG's are compressed, whereas a RAW file has much more detail at 16 bits. i almost always soon in RAW, especially if i plan to do any HDR work.

T1i is a great camera, congrats!