Keeping it RAW

First things first, if you are shooting in JPEG no matter how large your ccd you are not getting the best image quality and are removing a number of creative options out of your workflow.

If you are shooting with a digital camera set on a compressed format then the camera does quite a few things. It takes the output of the CCD runs it through the image processor in the camera, tweaks up the look of the image and then converts the data to JPG and stores on to your flash card. The camera has to do this all really quickly so you can take the next shot. For this reason the processors in cameras are optimised for speed not necessarily the ultimate in quality.

If you shoot in RAW then the camera takes the output off the CCD and dumps it straight onto the flash card for you to muck about with later on. What this means is you can now take you time optimising the file at your leisure without the time pressure of having to take another shot. You now have the ability to use the full power of your computer for what it is good at... doing complex computations in this case optimising your photos. So wake that computer up and get it cranking out some images!

If you are using Photoshop CS3 browse to your RAW files and open them up, they will open into the Raw plugin in Photoshop. This is where the good stuff begins and will be the subject of my next post.

Just a s a gentle reminder, there is a lot of conjecture on all things photography related, if you are not sure about something go and do the research there are some brilliant resources available on the net.

It is my belief that if you know what a great photo looks like why risk shooting in any other format than Raw? It is a bit of extra work, but at least you don't have to kick your family out of the bathroom so you can process some film!