NKN_RKY wrote:
Just learning to shoot in raw, this one after editing is saved as jpg but would like to know most of the steps you would take to edit a raw photo, obviously correct wb if need be but I'm still trying to understand correcting sharpness and brightness without being excessive, sometimes it looks good on screen but when you go to print its not the same. Thanks for any help! I shoot with a Nikon D5200, I thought would be a good starter camera.
I would try playing with the contrast a little...bump it up a little bit and then save that as a J.PEG. What's so great about RAW is that you can make changes and save them as a different copy, or after making changes and processing/saving as a J-PeG you can then change it back to normal (original) and resave. There's never any degradation no matter how many changes. You can also play around with lightening and darkening to achieve different moods/looks for your photos. With the above awesome shot I would try lightening a 1/2 - full stop and increase the contrast to a 1 to 1-1/2 or so...but again, it's all subjective and you will need to play around and find/develop your tastes to what looks good to you. Good luck, and remember to not get so caught up in what to do that it stops being fun. Be creative, try some wild adjustments just to get a feel for what you can do in RAW!!!