A fellow Kings Park Photo Club member recently asked me, “What are the advantages of shooting in RAW?”
She was dismayed to find that the RAW photos she had taken were not immediately ready to e-mail or post on a website. When I told her the steps necessary to prepare them she was further dismayed by the amount of work on the computer this would take. Why not just shoot in JPEG format all the time?
It’s an excellent question. Yes, RAW format requires more work on the computer before photos are ready to post, e-mail, or print. I’ve recommended here before that you should be shooting in RAW. So why?
There are two fundamental reasons to be shooting in RAW format. These are quality and flexibility.
Quality: When your camera is set for RAW format it is capturing the highest quality image it is engineered to take. It is taking an image containing all the information it is physically capable of collecting. For a typical DSLR, or advanced point and shoot, this means it can record 4,096 levels of lightness and darkness as opposed to JPEG’s 256. Higher quality DSLRs can do even better.
In terms of color quality, the RAW format can use the Adobe RGB color space, whereas JPEG can only use the sRGB color space. The Adobe RGB color space is more sensitive and captures more colors present in the scene. It captures about 50% of the visible colors as opposed to JPEG’s 35%. JPEG format was designed for lower resolution computer monitors and e-mail transmission. Adobe RGB was designed for higher resolution printers.
Flexibility: RAW photo files are never changed when they are edited. Instead, editing instructions are applied by software and a new version with these changes is created. The original RAW photo file is never altered. Therefore, you can go back later (like when your skills improve) and make a better version, or even a completely different version, similar to making different prints from one negative in the old film days.
If you edit your original JPEG image, the changes made are permanent when the image is saved. You are stuck with the results, good or bad, there’s no going back. Also, JPEG files suffer a loss of information contained in them when they are edited and re-saved as JPEGs. Considering that they contain less information to start with, this can produce a lower quality picture the more they are edited and re-saved.
With RAW photo files you have the opportunity to apply numerous editing changes without any loss of information or quality. You also have greater ability to improve, or fine tune, exposure by editing the photo: Typically a 2-stop exposure leeway if you did not get things perfectly right at the moment you took the photo. JPEG’s have a lesser exposure leeway, about 1 stop, when editing.
I’ll be up-front: There are some disadvantages to shooting in RAW and some advantages to shooting in JPEG. I’ll discuss these in my next post. If I want to take a photo of the dent in my fender to e-mail to the insurance company, I’ll shoot JPEG. If I’m after that beautiful sunset or the portrait of my grandchild, it will only be in RAW.
I think the accompanying photos of my great-nephew Dylan - an edited RAW file and an in-camera JPEG (with some minor editing) - illustrate the advantages of shooting in RAW. The JPEG version is good, but the prints of the RAW version made his grandparents say, “Wow!”
Kings Park Photo Club: Meeting this Thursday, January 16th at 7 PM at the Kings Park Library. Member Eric Loehwing will be giving a presentation on flash photography. Come on down and bring a friend!
