Sauerbry Loc: Minnesota

I just purchased a canon 3ti after only having a point and shoot. I don't know the camera well but I did set it to shoot raw. Pictures were great but what is the impact of shooting raw

snowbear

Easier editing. There are thousands of posts on this subject across the 'net - just Google it.

brucewells Loc: Central Kentucky

Snowbear is right, in that, there is much discussion of this subject on this forum, and others.

Fundamentally, the RAW format allows you to make edits on your photos using any of a number of editing tools (i.e. Photoshop) without losing data in the image file.

JPG is a great format to distribute your finished (after all the editing is complete) photos because it is a compressed file that is smaller and easier to mail/upload/display. RAW files differ in their structure from one camera manufacturer to another, so if you send Aunt Suzie a RAW file photo of your kids, she probably won't be able to view it. However, every computer operating system knows how to handle a JPG.

But, if you shoot your photos in JPG, then try to edit them, they will lose data when you save them. That's why the JPG format is considered LOSSY. After several edits and saves, the photo may not even be worth saving, much less sharing. So the RAW format lets you capture the image, edit it in your software then save a JPG copy of the image with all your edits. The beauty of the RAW file is that you can always go back and start over with your edits if you aren't satisfied, with no loss in the quality of the image.

RacerDan Loc: Virden Illinois

someone a month or so ago did their own data loss test and posted it on UHH. If I understood their results it took alot of editing and restoring to show much data loss on a jpg file.

wilsondl2 Loc: Lincoln, Nebraska

Did you download your pictures yet? If you didn't you may have a surprise. You have to prosess RAW after you do. AS others have said you can do a lot more with your pics in the computer if you shoot raw. If you are new to both dSLR and PP I would shoot jpeg tell you get the camera down and then try RAW and see if you like doing more in the computer - Dave

DavidT Loc: Maryland

If you're new to digital cameras, I would agree with others in this forum that shooting large JPEG first instead of RAW might be wise. I would add that Canon's Digital Photo Professional program that comes with its cameras for processing RAW files is rather clunky and hard to use. Programs like Adobe Lightroom 3 are much better, but have a steep learning curve. So, it might be time better spent learning the camera's capabilities first before launching into RAW-file processing.

AuntieM Loc: Eastern NC

I note when I shoot RAW and JPG at the same time, that the RAW takes about 3 times the memory as JPG. When I do my yearly vacation, I normally shoot around 2,000 pictures. Would shooting RAW be overwhelming for me to process when I get back, and would it be worth my time and effort to shoot RAW all the time? Thanks for any thoughts on this.

Swamp Gator Loc: Coastal South Carolina

If most of what you want to do with your images (and what 90% of people basically do with their images) is to look at them on your computer, upload them to smart phones and tablets, email them around to friends, post them on FB, photo forums and other sites, make photo books, make prints from 4x6 to 11x14 (although larger is certainly possible)... then shooting jpegs are fine.

DavidT Loc: Maryland

I, personally, would find processing 2000 RAW images to be overwhelming! But, it depends on how much time you have to spend on processing each RAW file. You also have the option of just saving all the RAW files and processing into JPEG only those that meet your discerning criteria for emailing or printing.

When shooting snapshots of vacations/family, I usually shoot JPEG only, knowing that selected pics will be printed as 4x6 at the largest. But, while shooting, I might find certain subjects particularly noteworthy or spectacular. In these cases, I will shoot RAW (or RAW and JPEG) and save them in a special RAW folder for more refined post-processing.

judy 2011 Loc: Northern Utah

Thank you so much! Now I understand. Since I don't have photoshop or retouch anything I don't need to do RAW. All I do is crop and resize so JPEG is good enough for me. I finally get it. :)

Sunrisepano Loc: West Sub of Chicago

Sauerbry has found his/her answer. For others who may be reading this and have the same question about RAW vs. JPEG. let me throw in my 2/100 of a dollar.

When you shoot JPEG, you decide before you take the shot what color balance you want. Or, you set the camera to AWB and let the camera's internal computer decide what to do. Then, the cameras internal computer throws away (gone forever) any color information that does not acheive the selected color balance.

When you shoot RAW, the camera saves all of the color information, even if you pre-select a color balance. The camera will show you your selected color balance on the back screen.

When you load the pictures into your computer and look at the JPEG photos, you can do MINOR color corrections. If that indoor photo with incandescent lighting is too red-yellow, you can only add so much blue-green before it starts to look weird.

The RAW photo on the other hand, will have all the color information available. So, even if you took that indoor picture with incandescent lighting and had the camera set to daylight, you can FULLY recover the colors as if you had set it correctly on the camera (maybe even better) because no color information was thrown away.

Another plus is some of that color information still exists at the extremes. Blown out highlights and blocked up shadows can be somewhat recovered.

The downsides, the cost of Photoshop or Aperture or any other RAW file converting software. So far, camera companies that make cameras capable of shooting RAW include software with the camera that can convert it to JPEG (or TIFF or...). Then there is the time factor. It takes your time to decide for each individual shot the best color balance. If the pictures were taken under identical lighting conditions, the color settings can be copied from one and applied to the others.

If you are under time pressure at the time of shooting and fear you may forget to adjust the color balance from one situation to the next, I recommend RAW.

If you trust the camera AWB, hypercritical color balance is not all important, and the time to color correct in post production is too much, definitely shoot JPEG.

AuntieM Loc: Eastern NC

OK, so maybe a good "rule of thumb" for me would be, if I am shooting to document something, like what the town I am staying in looks like, or just the overall look of a place is - shoot JPG. If I am out in some wonderful landscape setting, and want to make sure I get the shot and don't really muck it up too badly, I would shoot in RAW and process later. Will this work?

Sunrisepano Loc: West Sub of Chicago

Sounds good to me. :D

Elderjim

elderjim. May I add to this great post. In Lightroom 3, when photos are imported they are displayed with lightroom's enhancements so that you see a good image. This can be fine tuned by LR. I have not used Bridge or Camera Raw in CS-5, so I do not know if that enhancement occurs. LR then will process the raw image to what ever you want, then you can Edit in CS-5. CS-5, if I am correct, is not itself a raw processor, (but contains Camea Raw), so the image is processed as a PSD. SC-5 does not compress the image as JPEG does, s you can use layers, transform, liquidfy, remove objects using Content aware, etc. You can save the image in CS-4, but when you close the image it is saved back into LR. elderjim

GoofyNewfie Loc: Kansas City

Absolutely!
Check your histogram to make sure you're exposed properly and double check your color balance. For the stuff that's really important, shoot both jpeg & raw.