PART 3 - Exercise : Raw

RAW

I don't know why, but I have never wanted to leave my camera in Raw.  Even though there is a setting for both.  My lack of knowledge on how Raw works or why you needed to use it may have held me back.   I had this feeling it was detrimental to the camera in some way so only use it if you had to, and thought it might zap up all camera storage space.  But now, at last I feel more comfortable with it and my camera is now set to take both Jpeg and Raw.

I went on a course also this week and he said absolutely put your cameras in Raw - I listened to him - and my cousin has been saying it for years. So now I'm a reformed character.

The two main reasons for capturing in raw are 1. to capture a wider range of brightness and 2. Settings such as WB and contrast are kept separate so with a raw file you can go back and select any setting you like at a later date.  This is particularly useful, if like me, you have  tendency to forget to change your settings ( still )....

Here below I have taken shots in both raw and jpeg, with the appropriate settings for the conditions.
The first two are from the camera, not adjusted and then I just looked at both in Lightroom and made adjustments to suit the eye.

Before that I noticed and you can see from the image that the Raw image is slightly darker initially.  I tested all the different settings as I went through to see what effect they had on the picture.  I have lifted
the greens and the hedge has come to life - I took the temperature slider, moving towards the yellow enhancing the tips of the bushes - looking again it may be just a little too bright - but its ok for this project.  Obviously if you were printing for a client you would need to more exacting.
I clicked on the arrows on the histogram and they showed just very slight clippings in the tiny bit of sky showing, in this instance not really for concern.
I looked at the White Balance and tried them all to see their effects.  Daylight added some yellow, and looked quite nice, made it less blue than the original which was taken on a cloudy day.
Shade / cloudy - Yellow tints again but slightly too much.
Tungsten - far too blue / green - dark and strong.
Fluorescent - too blue, but not too bad, not as strong as above.
Flash - added a nice amount of yellow, enhanced the picture.



Here are the originals of firstly the Jpeg, then Raw.

IMG 7306 - Garden Bench

Daylight

Raw - unaltered

Garden Bench - Jpeg

Garden Bench - Raw

Portrait - IMG 7270

The second picture here the raw and the jpeg did differ a little more, the raw showing a little less red. Not having the same glow to it. For my image, the third picture below, I have altered the exposure and adjusted the colours until I was satisfied with the image.
Also here I experimented with the white balance.
Daylight - this has taken some of the colours from the skin tones on the face.
Cloudy - Puts the face colour tones back.
Shade - has added, it seems, more yellow.
Tungsten - has gone completely dark blue ..
Flash - gives a nice even colour to face.

I slightly raised the yellows and reds, along with the exposure.  But I feel like I am changing for the sake of it with this picture - I quite like the original.

Artificial Light 

Mina - Raw

Cottage - IMG 7358

Here as with picture one the Raw photo is slightly darker than the Jpeg.  There isn't a lot of colour here anyway as its mainly green/white/grey, and the weather conditions weren't great - more blue in the sky would have been a bonus - but I did  have the benefit of no harsh shadows so cant have everything.

Again here I adjusted the exposure and colours adding a little yellow, lifting the trees, building and giving the image a bit of a glow, maybe a little sun imitation.

The effects of white balance are as follows..
Daylight - seems to take out all the yellow, Cloudy puts its back..
Shade - added a small amount of yellow
Tungsten - again a large amount of harsh, dark, Blue / Green.
Fluorescent - Blue but not too harsh.
Flash - good adding a small amount of yellow.

Im going to leave on cloudy as I like the effect, and it was a cloudy day.  Some detail is lost in the sky but I didn't want to darken any more.  The colours in this picture are not too interesting and I actually quite like the jpeg.



High Dynamic Range 

Cottage - Raw 

Raw gives you more choices and therefore making your image exactly how you want it or how you feel it should be. Giving you the chance of recovery if needed.