Basics: keep calm and shoot RAW!

When you take pictures and want to get more out of your pictures, you should consider shooting in RAW format instead of JPEG.

What is RAW ?
RAW is a format that captures and saves all image data on your memory card. When you shoot in JPEG format the file is compressed and processed by your camera. This means you lose a lot of information. 
Because you've got all the information when shooting in RAW, your files are considerably bigger. But memory is cheap these days so don't let this be an excuse! 

Right: set you camera on RAW:

There are a lot of options. You can choose how big you want your RAW file to be. I like it as big as possible. You never know when your picture will be out on some billboard some day. There's also the possibility to shoot RAW in combination with JEPG.

In case of the latter, your camera makes a RAW image and a JPEG image for each picture you take. Feel free to try, but you've got to realise you'll end up with a heck of a lot of images after the shoot. 

For some reason, all different camera brands use a different file extension for their RAW files. For example:

• Canon  => .CR2
• Nikon  => .NEF
• Pentax => .PEF
• Sony    => .SR2

Adobe has also his own RAW extension and they named it . DNG (Adobe's Digital Negative).  When you import your files into Lightroom you've got the possibility to convert the files to .DNG. 

I consider this a clever option, because that way your file is smaller, still a RAW file and always compatible with the products of Adobe.

To sum it all up: here are some reasons to shoot RAW

1. Highest level of quality.
   You've got all the information on your memory card and it's not compressed 
2. Its easier to control/change you white balance. If you shoot with an incorrect white balance its very easy to correct that in Lightroom. There are a lot more possibilities then when shooting JPEG. 
    
3. Better Detail. You've got more control in sharpening your image. So you get better prints.
4. Better Colours.
5. Non-destructive editing. Every time you edit a JPEG you lose quality. This is not the case with RAW, because you're not editing the original file. So you can easily go back during the editing or reset the image and start all over again.
6. Its easier to correct over or under exposured pictures.

And last but certainly not least: the best reason to shoot RAW is that you, as an artist, have all the control over the image instead of the mechanical device that is called a camera. 

A few things you have to keep in mind: 
When looking at the little screen at the back of the camera, you see a JPEG version of your image (even if you shoot in RAW) so it can be a big disappointment when you open your pictures in Lightroom. Where are all the colours, contrast and sharpness? 
When you shoot JPEG, your camera does all this kind of stuff for you. But now you must make the decisions. So in Lightroom you have to add colour, contrast, sharpness etc.... 
But it has the big advantage that you can give it the look that you want to achieve. 

Is JPEG wrong?

Their are ofcourse reasons for sometimes shooting JPEG instead of RAW. For example sports photographers who are shooting for a wire company often prefer shooting JEPG because of the speed. It's easier and faster to send a small JPEG then a big RAW file.

And a image in JPEG can be put directly onto the net (Flickr, 500px, photoshelter, blog, website) whereas you can't do that with a RAW file (a RAW file needs to be processed with for example Lightroom and then exported to a JPEG). 

I prefer to see all my pictures on a bigger screen first, before I lay them out on the net. Like with everything else that's published here on our blog: the choice is yours. Be bold and experiment. Find your own style! 

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