Part 3- Shooting RAW

Hey everyone! It’s time for the next instalment. The previous parts of this series can be found at the bottom of my journal. I hope you find this useful!

A quick correction from the last one: For the rule of thirds, split your image into 9 segments not 6. Sorry if I caused any confusion!

Again, I’d just like to say: Please fav this article and post links in your journals, as this will help more people to see it!



I’ve said before that if you can shoot RAW (or NEF) then you should. This is because capturing a RAW shot is like having a “digital negative”. You’re effectively capturing more of what the cameras sensor picks up than you would in a JPEG. This allows for more options during your post processing amongst other things.

I personally use Adobe Lightroom to sort and process my RAW’s. There are other programs, but Lightroom does everything I need it to.

Pros of shooting RAW:

1. More control and versatility with your shot.
2. White balance adjustment post shooting.
3. Exposure compensation.
4. Recovery of lost detail.
5. HDR from one shot. (Very useful!)
6. Better image quality as the image is not compressed as harshly as a JPEG is.
7. It allows you to capture what is before you in the best quality that your camera will allow for.
8. It allows you to have 16-bit Tiffs for printing.
9. It’s just better.

Capturing an image in RAW format can also be a safety net. The last thing you want is to have climbed a cliff at sunrise, captured a few shots, to find that there’s something wrong like White Balance or a few blown highlights. I really believe that capturing your image in RAW will add a wealth of opportunity to the potential of your shot.

Cons of shooting RAW:

1. Requires post-processing just to get a JPEG.
2. Larger file sizes will see your hard drive space evaporate. (I got down to about 100MB of free space. I now have a 750GB external hard drive to help out.)
3. Windows picture viewer doesn’t view them. Although someone told me you can get a plug-in for that so I’ll have to find it.
4. If you’re doing an event then JPEGs might be better, to process as a volume.

(So not too many…

Post-processing of a RAW:

As I didn’t think this’d fit anywhere else in the series, I thought I’d put it here. This section will guide you through what I do in my RAW conversions in Lightroom.

1. Get the image I want to process into the Develop section in Lightroom.
2. Now, the beautiful thing about Lightroom (and probably other software) is that all the adjustments are in the order that I do them in on the side bar.
3. This means that the first thing I do is to make sure I’ve got the correct white balance.
4. Then I correct the exposure. As I mentioned before, I try to push my exposure to the right without clipping the highlights. If there are any blown highlights then I use the recovery function to try and get them back. I rarely use fill light as I don’t like the effect, and I don’t mind lost shadows too much.
a. I tend to use the histogram to check that everything is as it should be. In Lightroom if you press “J” then it’ll show you areas of lost detail on your picture. Blue for shadows, and red for highlights.
5. I then adjust the brightness, contrast and vibrancy of the image.
6. The next stage is the general sharpening of the image. This is done by changing the detail, clarity and sharpness slider. I tend to mix the balance of these to see what works best for the image.
7. If the image needs it, then do some noise reduction.


And that’s all! The rest of the process is then completed in PS. It’s at this stage where I do more of my creative post-processing, but the original conversion provides a great starting point. The other PS stuff will be discussed in later articles. I hope this helps, and convinces you to shoot RAW if you can. Thanks for the great response I've had to the other two articles.