You’re most likely considering it is a foolish argument. If it’s choices I would like, what’s to cease me making a choice about how my photographs ought to look after I course of my RAW recordsdata? If I would like black-and-white, I can have it. If I would like classic, pale coloration, I can have it. RAW recordsdata allow me to decide on no matter fashion I like – so what’s the issue?
Nicely it’s grow to be obvious to me that there are two issues particularly. Regardless of the technical benefits of capturing RAW, it’s definitely made me indecisive.
A few of the greatest photograph modifying software program purposes are actually absolutely non-destructive – and a few, like Adobe Lightroom Basic, Seize One and DxO PhotoLab, allow you to create countless ‘digital’ copies of the identical picture.
My Lightroom catalog is suffering from RAW modifying experiments, typically with a number of variations of the identical picture styled in all kinds of various methods. With RAW recordsdata you possibly can undo, redo, re-edit and revise, and it’s laborious to cease. I began out as a photographer however I’ve ended up as a digital dabbler who can by no means fairly decide to a remaining model of something.
Possibly it’s simply me, however I doubt it. With each new modifying approach we be taught, there’s that impossible to resist itch to return over your outdated RAW recordsdata and re-do them; with each new Lightroom characteristic, you concentrate on all of your previous RAW recordsdata that would profit.
Non-destructive modifying appears like a blessing, nevertheless it may also be a curse. The urge to maintain experimenting can grow to be stronger than the need to lastly end, export and decide to an edited picture.
That’s unhealthy sufficient, however there’s one thing worse. I strongly imagine from my very own pictures that the processing fashion, the topic and the best way you shoot it are locked collectively. In the event you shoot with coloration in thoughts after which resolve on a black-and-white therapy later (for instance), it’s inferior to capturing for black-and-white within the first place.
With digital cameras, and particularly with the EVFs on digital cameras, we’ve obtained it made. We will select an in-camera image fashion and the digicam will ‘visualize’ that fashion for us after we shoot.
Capturing to match a mode will change your framing, your composition, your publicity, your white steadiness – possibly even your shutter velocity and lens aperture. I’m not satisfied that you would be able to shoot a generic RAW file with the intention of making use of a mode later and anticipate it to be as efficient.
So right here’s a 3rd factor. Previously I’ve at all times beneficial RAW recordsdata due to their wider tonal vary, the additional shadow and spotlight element you possibly can convey out later. However does this make images higher?
In the event you select and compose a shot for the lighting, the distinction between gentle and shade, for an etheral high-key look or moody low-key, why mess it up later along with your RAW processing? Is it the urge to placate the silent rebuke of your clipped histogram, or a persistent reminiscence of digicam membership judges insisting on element within the shadows and the highlights?
Maybe essentially the most telling level is that if I’m going again later and examine my in-camera JPEGs with my processed RAW variations, the RAW recordsdata have a wider tonal vary and extra modifying potential from a technical standpoint, however fairly often it’s the JPEGs, for all their flaws, that seize the spirit of what I used to be attempting to realize.
What I’d counsel is, don’t cease capturing RAW, however shoot JPEGs on the similar time – and take a protracted, laborious have a look at each units of pictures later to see which captures your topic greatest. Not technically, however creatively.
RAW recordsdata are nice for getting you out of a gap the place you’ve shot with the mistaken settings, or for attempting out a dozen totally different modifying kinds on the identical pictures.
However possibly – simply saying – it could be higher to hone your digicam work so that you just don’t want the security web of RAW recordsdata. And possibly it’s higher to decide to a mode in the intervening time of capturing once you match your photographic method to that fashion – after which stick with it.
Possibly shoot RAW+JPEG with the intention of maintaining the JPEGs and having the RAWs as backups? I will strive something if it brings me again to being a photographer, not a digital dabbler.
You may also like…
Need nice in-camera JPEGs? Check out the greatest Fujifilm cameras, loaded with Movie Simulations, or the greatest cameras for black and white pictures for final mono capturing.