Shooting Raw: Questions

[orchjoe]

For all you professionals out there:

Do you have to adjust your pictures very much when you convert them? (I find that I over expose my shots in photoshop after the fact)

How do you store your pictures? (do you delete the Raw image file after you create a jpg or tiff or do you keep them both)

 

[Master Mason]

not a professional, but yes I keep both the RAW and the jpegs, that way if I ever want to go back and work with the picture I still have the original files

As for adjustments, mustly just a little fix on the white balance and saturation and a crop.

 

[orchjoe]

Thats what I thought... keeping both is the better situitation.

I shot about 100 pictures last night (Just RAW) and it is about 1.4 GB of stuff... I am assuming this is a normal thing??

 

[handicap18]

I don't do a lot of fixing. Some minor adjustments here and there usually. Once I get Nikon's full RAW software, then I'll probably do more.

As for the RAW files. Keep them. Think of them as the negatives that came back with your prints.

I have a seperate file for the RAW files and back them up on their own DVD.

 

[Master Mason]

Kyle,

Have you tried Lightroom yet? I am fairly certain there is a free trial available, and if you like it, you can get it from campus tech for a fraction of the retail price if you have a kid in school, which I am fairly certain you do.

It is one of the best pieces of software I have ever purchased IMO.

 

[boBQuincy]

Most of mine do not require a lot of adjustment. I save a small JPG along with the RAW and they are usually good enough to email without editing.

I *never* delete the RAW! I have some RAW images from a Canon D30 that are almost 6 years old and with the newer RAW converters the converted images look better than ever. The RAWs are your master files, keep them.

 

[Code]

Kyle,

Have you tried Lightroom yet? I am fairly certain there is a free trial available, and if you like it, you can get it from campus tech for a fraction of the retail price if you have a kid in school, which I am fairly certain you do.

It is one of the best pieces of software I have ever purchased IMO.

I just started using Lightroom over the weekend to manage the ~1500 RAWs I took on our trip, and agree that it is a fantastic program.

 

[SWDopey]

Whether you need to adjust the raw files much depends entirely on how well you did with the exposure in the first place, and there's also some adjustment for taste. If it makes you feel any better, I've processed 36000 images in just the last 3 months for pro photographers, and every single one benefited from adjustment.

I'd definitely agree with the suggestion to try Lightroom. It will cover most of image adjustment and cataloguing needs. It will also allow you to store all of the adjustments you make to the files without *having* to keep a full res jpeg as well (although you may choose to do so).

I would definitely keep all of the raw files without question, even if tucked away on DVD or an external hard drive. And if you decide to keep a jpeg of the finished image, definitely make it a jpeg. There's no real world advantage to using tiffs in this situation.

Victoria

 

[handicap18]

Kyle,

Have you tried Lightroom yet? I am fairly certain there is a free trial available, and if you like it, you can get it from campus tech for a fraction of the retail price if you have a kid in school, which I am fairly certain you do.

It is one of the best pieces of software I have ever purchased IMO.

Nikon Capture and Lightroom I can get for the same price (actually I think Lightroom might be $30 less, $129 vs $96 {$96 for Lightroom through an educators web site, DW is a teacher}). Thus far I've been using the basic RAW converter that came with my camera. Doesn't really do much other than convert to a JPEG. I've tried 4 or 5 other free or inexpensive RAW converters and found they've done a terrible job.

I have heard great things about Lightroom. I may have to give it a try.

 

[Anewman]

I only archive the RAW files and delete the jpegs after I send them off to print and/or upload for sharing, I can always go back to the original RAW file and produce an other jpeg in seconds.