Shooting RAW

I've been playing around with RAW camera images the last couple of days. Mainly because I've been viewing Photoshop CS5 tutorials and there are some really interesting things that you can do with RAW files that I've never done before. I've been scared to shoot in RAW because A)it takes up a lot more space on my memory card and B)I've never really known how to edit a RAW photo before. But I've got a camera with this awesome capability so I might as well learn how to use it.

It seems as though it's really handy to shoot in RAW or even both RAW & jpeg simultaneously (which eats up even MORE space on your memory card) for those instances where you might need to reduce noise due to high ISO or over/under exposed images. I don't know how many times I've shot a super cute photo that is unusable because of an exposure error or noise.

Anyway, I had taken these photos over a year ago with the intent of playing around with the RAW images. I've just now gotten to it. haha

Now, in the first couple of photos you should be able to see a slight difference in regards to noise reduction. The second set of photos I've actually blown up the same photo so that you can see the difference better. The thing that irks me a little is that the top photo isn't the original RAW - it is already with some editing. I had recovered some lost light (you could barely see the roses before) and changed the temperature a bit, so you really aren't seeing the full effect. But believe me, it was huge. This is actually after a second round of noise reduction when I realized my first go round wasn't enough. Somehow I managed to save over the original file so I no longer have the original to compare and I was too lazy to edit another picture for the blog and I'm hungry and want to make dinner. So there. Maybe I'll do another one tomorrow. Playing around with this cool software is time consuming but oh so fun!






Big difference in noise reduction there. Pretty cool. And I wouldn't have been able to do that with a jpeg.