My Doubts About Raw (Page 2): Agreed.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Linda From Maine wrote:

I personally find it enjoyable to apply my own vision to a photograph when sitting at the computer rather than fiddle with a bunch of settings/choices on the camera and come away with a pre-baked cake

Agreed.

User ID

kpmac wrote:

If you are happy keep shooting jpeg.
(Those images do come from the RAW
data, however).

THAT is the whole and only simple
objective fact here. Most any user
can do a better job of processing
RAW data than the in-camera JPG
engine will do. I do not mean to
leave out the OP from "most any".
I mean the OP can surely learn to
do what is needed without getting
bogged down in any overly fussy
PP routines. If the SOOC JPGs are
usually as good as those posted
above, the RAW routine should be
VERY quick and simple.

In both posted photos, in-camera
JPGs show the same problem. The
bright orange breast feathers are
all JPGed into a solid block, and I
KNOW they are well focused just
by seeing very much detail in the
adjacent flight feathers. The bright
orange breast is certainly NOT a
blown-out highlight, so it should
show texture/detail just like those
flight feathers show.

Drbobcameraguy Loc: Eaton Ohio

I hate to post process probably because I have not spent the time yet to understand a basic workflow. I shot in raw because I can save a borderline pic and edit it to my taste with my very limited skills. My personal opinion is do what makes you happy. No one can make decisions for someone else although a heck of a lot of people think they can. My wife shoots in JPEG and her photos put mine to shame a lot due to her natural born eye for composition. She is happy and I am learning about composition. Hopefully I will have time to learn proper post processing someday. Until then we are both happy. Starting to ramble. Lol. Point is be happy and enjoy.

Blenheim Orange Loc: Michigan

If you're happy, we're all happy.

Right gang?

There are some very real advantages to working directly with raw files, rather than letting your camera interpret the raw data, but if you don't want to explore that, no problem. Your photos look fine, and if you are happy that is all that matters.

Mike

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

The surest way to corrupt a novice is to explain the importance of shooting in RAW.

User ID

Blenheim Orange wrote:

If you're happy, we're all happy.

Right gang?

...........

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(Download)

rehess Loc: South Bend, Indiana, USA

Blenheim Orange wrote:

If you're happy, we're all happy.

Right gang?

Right!!

but we will talk and talk about it for several more days.

Drbobcameraguy Loc: Eaton Ohio

CHG_CANON wrote:

The surest way to corrupt a novice is to explain the importance of shooting in RAW.

Unless he has a DSLR so he can look into the mirror and see the past. Lol. I enjoy your comments so I just try to participate in them. 😂

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

CHG_CANON wrote:

The surest way to corrupt a novice is to explain the importance of shooting in RAW.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Blenheim Orange wrote:

If you're happy, we're all happy.

Right gang?

There are some very real advantages to working directly with raw files, rather than letting your camera interpret the raw data, but if you don't want to explore that, no problem. Your photos look fine, and if you are happy that is all that matters.

Mike

Some people are fine with what they currently do.
Nothing wrong with that at all.

Like having a 14 year old bridge camera, people would tell me I should upgrade.
Why, it works. It does what I need it to do. I'm happy.

I like working with RAW when I can.
Some people don't see the need.
Why should everyone work in RAW, just because people who do think everyone should?

Blenheim Orange Loc: Michigan

Longshadow wrote:

Some people are fine with what they currently do.
Nothing wrong with that at all.

Like having a 14 year old bridge camera, people would tell me I should upgrade.
Why, it works. It does what I need it to do. I'm happy.

I like working with RAW when I can.
Some people don't see the need.
Why should everyone work in RAW, just because people who do think everyone should?

I have a 14 year old Saturn with a 5 speed manual transmission. Paid cash for it - no car payments, no interest. No major repairs, 40 mpg, hundreds of thousands of miles...

Mike

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

I don’t believe that there is any one way to process a raw file. So we can’t give you a set sequence of steps for your images. If there were such a thing it would probably be built into the post processing software so that everyone would get perfect images and you would only be doing small tweaks to them.

Modern cameras produce pretty good jpgs as long as you get the exposure fairly close. Where raw processing shines is in a situation where the dynamic range of the scene is too close to the camera’s limit or a camera setting gets bumped or a subject is backlit or some other non-optimal conditions. For most people these things occur only occasionally. But some of us use raw as insurance because raw Processing can handle more extreme situations than jpgs. It’s not always necessary, but it’s nice to have the option.

AndoverBob

Tomfl101 wrote:

What I would like to see is an exact recipe to convert RAW into Canon or Nikon etc. that precisely matches jpeg images directly from the camera. Make that your starting point and then adjust to personal preference.
Particularly when shooting portraits, I have a hard time getting a precise match, and usually find jpegs from camera to be better than my RAW conversions when exposure and WB are correct to start with. If someone can help me here I’d appreciate the guidance.

I don't have a dog in this fight, but if you want to start from the JPEG recipe, the native Canon and Nikon applications that came with the camera do just that, if you just process on the default settings. The advantage of going this way is you maintain the 16 bit processing a little further down the processing chain for more dynamic range, but the picture should look just like the jpeg in terms of contrast, saturation, etc..

GLENBARD Loc: Florida

Linda From Maine wrote:

Maybe you could post a jpg and your raw edit, and someone can reverse-engineer/compare with constructive critique. Try this forum for portraits:
https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/s-127-1.html
.

Thumbs up! It's always nicer to help others.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

Imagine your photography when you are 6-bits better.