What does shoot in "raw" mean?

Question

In photography...

Answer 1

Shooting in RAW means that you are shooting in the cameras native file format and no retouching is done in the camera. As an example, the Canon system used CRW or CR2 as the extension for their raw file format. There is also a non-proprietary raw format from adobe which has a DNG file extension (digital negative).

The advantages of shooting in raw:

-- More control over your photos since they are developed on your computer (which means you have to have the software to convert the file, although many high end programs like photoshop have this built in for most camera formats)

-- More dynamic range, meaning you will lose less in the shadows and blown out highlights

-- All the information from the photo is maintained since there is no in camera conversion to JPG or TIF

Disadvantages of raw:

-- Larger files (means less photos on your memory card and possibly slower camera performance plus more hard drive space to store your photos)

-- You don't have a jpg file until you convert it, so if you want to print directly from your card or read the card in a photo kiosk you can't do this



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Answer 2

RAW is a format style just as Jpg or Tiff. The differences are many though and only special plug ins allow you to view the ,RAW image on your computer.

It has some advantages though as if you are able to manipulate thee original "negative" exposure, white balance and other details that you can not with the other formats.

There are some excellent resources in the bookstore (Amazon) on what it means in more detail.

Not all camera shoot RAW... usually only the high end digital ones... and each brand has their own Raw format... making it difficult without their plug in to work with the image.

At this point there are more cons than pros for the novice user, I would suggest to get your best quality to shoot in Tiff mode or high-res Jpeg and covert to Tiff when you download.

Jpeg images will degrade each time they are opened and saved... Tiff will not.

Beaux

Answer 3

The best advice is that if your camera takes RAW pictures, then use that. If it does take RAW, you will have some software which came with the camera, to convert to pictures, but Photoshop and Elements have plugins to convert ll the usual RAW formats and these are being continually updated.

The advantage of shooting RAW is that you always have a digital 'negative' which you can adjust time after time without affecting it.

The downsides are that they take time to be written to you card which will slow your shooting down a tad, and a certain amount of post-shoot work is required to convert them.

Answer 4

Beaux H has the right answer and for the beginner jpg files are fine. You would shoot and use Raw files only if you are moving on to really developing as a photographer or graphic artist using Photoshop where you would need full RAW files to work with.

Raw files take up more space on y our card and drive as they are bigger.

Answer 5

Possibly shoot in the buff, nude. Also could be not using camera filters

Answer 6

No clue.