Baked or Raw?

I wrote this tutorial for my friends at 
Friday My Town Shoot Out 
and am sharing it here for you! 

Did you know a photo is like a cupcake?

If you shoot in jpg, 

which all cameras can do, 

then your finished photo is like a baked cupcake - 

with all the processing decisions being made 

by the camera.

You can ice it, 

 add sprinkles, 

and maybe cut off some burned edges if you need to, 

but you can't go back and adjust 

the ingredients that made the cupcake! 

Your camera is very smart 

and often makes good decisions for you,

but not every time or in every situation. 

Shooting jpg leaves you little latitude later on.

That's where shooting in raw 

comes in.

If your camera has the ability to shoot in raw, 

it will collect all the raw ingredients 

needed for your photo to 

give you the power to 

make adjustments to the recipe 

before baking...or printing in this case. 

All images begin in raw...

it just depends on who 

makes the processing decisions:

you or the camera.

jpg - Your camera decides

raw - You decide

Here is a diagram from a helpful link 

at The Lightroom Lab website:

Most dSLR's will shoot in raw, 

and many point and shoot cameras will as well.

You can check your camera's manual

to learn about its settings. 

Check under image quality options.

Shooting in raw has upsides and downsides. 

One downside is

your file size will be much larger 

and eat up space on your camera card 

and computer.

One upside is 

your file size will be much larger 

and you have more information 

to work with saved on the card and computer!

So, I consider it a win-win!

You can always buy a larger card if you need to! 

You do not need to feel like you are cheating 

by adjusting your raw photo.

A raw photo comes out unprocessed 

and therefore looks kind of muddy. 

It is expected that you will 

play with the ingredients 

to get a recipe 

that captures what you saw creatively.

You will need software to read a raw image. 

But most photo software including 

Picasa, Photoshop and others 

(including any software that came with your camera)

will read a raw image. 

After processing,

 you can save the image in jpg

and share it with others.

Back in the day of film...

the same thing happened.

A photographer could buy specific types of film 

and use different darkroom techniques 

to get the creative look they desired. 

It was a more difficult process, 

but there was still a creative process involved. 

That being said, 

I do not always shoot in raw.

I shoot in raw when 

being able to control white balance 

or exposure is important.

When someone pays for portraiture I shoot raw. 

When I am taking snapshots, fun shots, 

or rapid shots I use jpg.

I shoot my son's soccer games in large jpg.

If you don't shoot in raw...

at least shoot in the largest file size you can 

(shown below.)

A large file size collects more pixels 

and will give you a better looking photo, 

especially if you plan to enlarge it. 

I hope that helps.

Happy Shooting!