jeep_daddy Loc: Prescott AZ

rleonetti wrote:
If you switch to Lightroom and shoot raw, do you see a photo when you upload from the camera, or do you have to do some processing before you see anything?
Yes, you see a "preview" and it is based on what Adobe thinks some preset values are. It is not entirely different than seeing a JPEG were the camera maker uses some presets to interpret the captured data.

rleonetti wrote:
Do you normally shoot just RAW, or RAW+jpg at the same time?
I don't. But, you can. That means you can view what your camera maker thinks you should see as the JPEG and what Adobe thinks you should see as a preview.

rleonetti wrote:
Currently when I shoot all jpg I immediately get a photo and some of them survive without any processing. Does that happen with RAW?
Certainly! But remember that in Lightroom you are viewing a preview of what you can produce by Exporting or printing. The first preview might be exactly what you want and require no adjustments. It is still a preview of raw light data and does not become a photo until you make it one.

I want to expand on what is being said here on the last point. Almost all raw images need some processing. But you can have LR apply that processing to all the raw images upon import so that they have about the same look at the jpg's you're used to seeing. You can create a preset that has the lens correction values and camera calibration values you set. LR even has profiles built in like your camera to get you really close to what your jpg might look like straight out of the camera.

PixelStan77 Loc: Vermont/Chicago

It works for me when I shoot my grand daughters basket ball game. It is my standard now for all shooting.

MtnMan Loc: ID

You can see the RAW image immediately. They are usually washed out unprocessed.

You can also apply a preset on import that will closely match your camera's jpeg conversion processes; e.g. Lens correction, sharpening, white balance. It will be usable but you can tweak everything.

MtnMan Loc: ID

I now normally just shoot RAW. I upload images frequently.

I plan to shoot RAW + jpeg on an upcoming Africa trip, putting the jpegs onthe second card on my D800. I won't have my computer to upload so the jpegs will be my secondary backup. Since the jpegs are so much smaller I'll likely get the entire trip on one card. But I'm bringing another in case.

For backup of the RAW files I bought a RAV4 filehub plus and hope to use it to backup the RAW files to cards. I don't know if that will work out because the power situation at the camps in Africa is sketchy. I need to charge both my cell phone and the filehub for this method to keep working. That's why I want the jpeg backup.

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

The raw file contains a basic jpg preview generated by the camera. You can find software that will show you that image and even save it as a separate jpg file.

If you load your raw file into Lightroom the preview will show up immediately, then in a half second or so (depending on the speed of your computer) the image will change to what you would get out of Lightroom using the default settings. Lightroom then saves a preview which it will show you next time you load LR. (Previews expire after a month or so but they're regenerated fairly quickly as needed).


I shoot raw only. When I first got a DSLR I shot jpg only because it was what I was used to. Then when I started shooting raw I did shoot raw+jpg so I could use the jpg if it didn't need any further processing. Eventually I dropped the jpg and shot raw only because I put all my photos into LR anyway (so I can keep track of them using the catalog). Since I'm going to put them into LR, I might as well just use the raw file which has more information.


All raw files going into Lightroom get at least the default processing (or a preset if you have that defined). If that turns out to be OK, no further adjustments are needed and the image will survive as is.

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

Lightroom immediately displays the RAW (utilizing the thumbnail embedded in the RAW file).

Lightroom, being a third party software, doesn't utilize some of the image processing "tags" your camera embeds in the RAW file, such as contrast, saturation, sharpening and some others. OTOH, it does utilize whatever actual color temperature and tint was saved with the RAW file, so the rendition in Lightroom is a fairly accurate representation. But if you want to amp up contrast or saturation, apply noise reduction or sharpening, etc., other than default settings in Lightroom, you'll have to set these yourself. Lightroom also has a library of lens profiles, that you can optionally have it apply to auto correct for things like chromatic aberration (which also can be done manually if you prefer or if there's no profile for your particular lens), vignetting, and optical distortions. I don't think this is as as sophisticated as lens correction possible with DXO and some other, more expensive software, but it seems to help to some extent.

Incidentally, if using Windows you also can set it up to display RAW files directly in Windows Explorer (as a thumbnail, various sizes of which are available in some versions of Windows) or in Windows Picture Viewer (larger, but not color calibrated, so RAW files typically look a bit washed out and flat).

To set this up, you need to install a "codec". Some camera manufacturers provide these free of charge, but last I looked Canon (which is what I shoot) didn't have a 64 bit version so I use one called FastPictureViewer that's pretty universal... It displays RAW files from almost all manufacturers, as well as TIFFs, PSDs and some other file types that Windows normally can't display. Last time I checked FastPictureViewer wasn't free, but only cost $10 or so.

I only very rarely shoot RAW + JPEG... Just when I absolutely need immediately usable JPEG files for some reason. It takes up a lot of extra memory space to shoot RAW + JPEG.

It may be useful to shoot RAW + JPEG when first learning to do post-processing. That way you have some point of comparison between the in-camera processed image and your efforts to improve upon it with post-processing. Once you feel you consistently get better end results doing the post-processing yourself, you might want to discontinue shooting RAW + JPEG.

I honestly almost never see an image that won't benefit from at least some post-processing work... be it a RAW file or a JPEG. That's just me after 20 years working with digital images. Sure, some might be usable straight from the camera... but I never plan on it.

Lightroom is a powerful tool to catalog and manage high volumes of images very rapidly, with batch processing capabilities (renaming, keywording, etc., etc.), to make proof books or maintain online thumbnail galleries for customers to choose, and to make slide shows for presentations, among a few other things. Lightroom is not a particularly powerful individual image editing and optimization software. It has mostly just global adjustments and some of it's tools (such as cloning/healing) are downright crude in comparison to what can be done in Photoshop (and Elements... more on that in a moment).

To finish images for anything more than proofing... i.e. to make prints or provide digitally to commercial customers, etc.... I use LR to locate the image, re-crop if needed and maybe do a little more global adjustments, after which I nearly always pass the file off to Photoshop for the rest of the finishing work (retouching, noise reduction, sizing, sharpening, etc.).

Photoshop is the other half of the LR/PS package. It's probably the single most powerful individual image editing and optimization software available, with pixel level precision and adjustment capabilities that can be done as selectively as I wish them to be, but it relatively primitive in terms of cataloging, keywording, etc. and generally searching or managing an archive of digital files. For many users - especially professional shooters who need to prepare their images for commercial usages - Lightroom and Photoshop are two sides of a coin, each incomplete without the other, but together a very powerful package that can handle images from download to the finished product.

OTOH, some people get by with Lightroom alone... they just don't make very big prints or mostly only share their images online and simply don't need all the power of Photoshop. Other people get by with Photoshop alone... they don't shoot a large number of many images or need to maintain a large archive, but want to work and finish what they do shoot to a very high degree.

Someone who wants both, but doesn't want to go take a bunch of classes and read a stack of books to learn to use the two softwares well (especially Photoshop, which is far more complex)... I'd recommend take a good look at Photoshop Elements, which is more of an all-in-one that borrows most-used features from both the bigger software programs, plus gives the user the option of three different interfaces: beginner, intermediate and advanced. (Neither LR nor PS offer similar choice. LR might be best best described as "very" advanced... while PS is "very, very, very" advanced. Learning to use both LR and PS well is probably equal to a couple years of college level courses. Probably 2/3 or 3/4 of that learning process would be for PS alone.)

If brand new to post-processing, Elements is actually a good way to start... It gives a good basis for later advancing to Lightroom and/or Photoshop, if need be. But it also might prove to be all one ever really needs for their purposes.

achesley Loc: SW Louisiana

When I bought my Canon G16 I had to upgrade from LR4 to LR6 as LR 4 could not do the newer RAW format Canon choose to upgrade to. I could convert the G16 RAW to DNG and see them that way. But, I went ahead and upgrade to 6.

rleonetti Loc: Portland, Oregon

Much good info was passed on here: thanks to everyone for the insight. I have a new copy of PS Elements, and now need to move to Lightroom from Aperture and it looks like shoot RAW as well. Thanks again.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

I'll see if I can find a link for that. :D

JD750 Loc: SoCal

Answers:
(1) You see the photo right away with a raw image.
(2) JPG or raw, which one depends on the subject matter.
(3) Never. All raw images need processing.