Toronto Photography Meetup Group

Background info: I once owned a film SLR camera. I used to be more active in photography.
Life and work precluded me from pursuing photography as a hobby. I now want to start up again. I own a Canon G10 which shoots RAW. I do have Canon software that I can use.
I have never shot RAW before. I see there are many books and sites on how to use Adobe products to process RAWs.
Before I spend money on these I'd like to see if RAW is for me.

I imagine many people here have Canons and shoot in RAW. Where do I find out pointers and advice on using the Canon software for shooting with RAW? how did all you Canon shooters learn about RAW?

POSTSCRIPT - note that I am only interested on book or online resources. Sadly I do not have time to attend classes, courses, seminars, workshops or such events.

well it all depends on what you want from your processing, basicaly the canon software is pretty straight forward for 'developing' the image. However you will not get any more editing possibilities from it, say the 'creative' stuff. So if you just want to lighten the photos that are to dark, or add take contrast before the raw data is converted then the Canon software is fine. However i will add that Jpegs are really not that bad unless you are having to push the data to do things at the edge of what it can do. Say making enlargements or recovering data from an over/underexposed shot. This is where Raw is better than a Jpeg.

So I will just say that unless you want to do a lot of edditing or large printing with your images forgo the extra hasle of Raw & shoot Jpegs... there not at bad as we might make them seem.

Mikey

Shooting RAW will definitely give you an edge when it comes to post processing. And there's no need to spend money.. many free tutorials online.

Getting an editing software like Lightroom or Photoshop CS4, will also help.. a lot. Also available online.

Many FREE tutorials and OTHER things available online... FOR FREE.

Just the fact that RAW has 1-2 extra stops of latitude in captured information is enough of a reason for me to shoot RAW and never look back. You don't have to do a LOT of editing to justify using it. IMO, wanting to adjust exposure over the whole image in general is enough of a reason.

Suppose I want to increase exposure by 1/2 a stop. When working with RAW I'll have extra information that becomes usable when I go up that 1/2 a spot. If I had shot that image in JPG, I would be simply increasing exposure in detailless darks.

So you want us to use Google for you.

No. I can google and come up with a thousand suggestions.

I really was hoping to solicit informed and helpful responses about solutions OTHERS have used that worked for them. Insight and helpful hints from people with previous experience can be helpful sometimes. Don't you agree?

Cambridge in Colour has always been a good photographic resource for me.

http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutori ... format.htm

In terms of learning Canon DPP I would start here with these video tutorials.

http://www.usa.canon.com/content/dpp2/index.html

Start with "The Art of Raw Conversion" http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/ ... ftfella-20

You don't have to spend a cent.

Well your question on how to shoot raw.. is just change it so the files is saved as RAW (or Raw + JPEG). Other than that it's just like JPEG except that the files are bigger and you have to convert it before printing or showing it on other devices that do not support RAW.

The benefits of RAW are:
1) I think the most significant gain is 2 stops of adjustment in raw, which can sometimes save an improperly exposed pic. (this is probably why 90% of people shoot in RAW)
2) The other reason is it's nice to have a RAW image as you can switch freely between B&W and Back or other presets or correct distortion while keeping the original.
3) Always have a "Master" copy for archival purposes (who knows what new tech. will come along that you can revisit old pics and perhaps give new life to them. Or if they don't like the Canon algorithm conversion to JPEG.

You already have the Canon DPP software (which comes with your camera), which is the best to convert raw for Canon - as each manufacturer's algorithm (that isn't open source) is proprietary. That being said, some people prefer Adobe or DXO or whatever to convert it. The Canon DPP software will provide an output that is equal the conversion done on camera (such as when shooting in JPEG).

The ONLY thing that DPP lacks is the ability to tilt to correct for horizon, or it would be all the software I need 95% of the time and I can do without Apple Aperture. =)

here's another website that you can find a lot of useful information:

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutor ... iles.shtml



ann

Simply put RAW has all the information captured by the sensor and plus all the camera settings.

This allows you to process your photo over and over again in as many different ways as you desire. If in one version you want to lighten the dark areas and darken the highlights you can in the next version you might want to do the opposite.

If you shoot JPEG the camera makes decisions on how the photo should look, in doing the conversion from raw information is lost and fake information such as sharpening and changes to the curves and levels is added. Go back in a year with some new noise reduction or other improved software and the RAW image can be processed like it was taken yesterday while the JPEG image is missing important information. Like Raw you can change image on the copy of the original jpeg but the missing data and the added false data starts adding noise to the result.

The second most important reason for shooting RAW only happen if you use a workflow software package like Lightroom. This allows you to organize you images in catalogues and galleries. It is also facilitates non destructive editing so it's easy to make multiple versions of the same image well keeping track on how each version was made so you can go back at any time and make minor changes without starting from scratch and without altering the original.

This all makes alot of sense. and i may start shooting RAW from my Hockey photos. Every time i try to lighten and adjust my photos it look grainy and i never know why. Well i do know that im not using the right Lens for the type of shooting i do. But if i get the extra stops in processing i think it would be well worth it. Thanks for this post!

Thanks everyone.
I apologise if I wasn't clear enough in my request. My job is to use precise language and I guess I was not successful in that regard. I feel bad because most people (with one notable exception) have invested time and energy in penning kind and considered responses. However they didn

i use DPP to convert from raw to jpg. i think it's very easy to use.
then use photoshop to do my editing in jpg...

well, it may not be the *best* way for everyone but i found it comfortable and very easy to view all RAW files at once...I only convert those I like to jpg then do further processing.

I don't use DPP simply because it isn't capable of being a canvas for my creativity, I don't mind if my converted raw files don't match the look of in-camera jpeg, I never like what comes straight out of the camera anyway

Ditto for me. If you're not much into Photoshopping your images and just use the images right out of your camera then DPP can work for you. If you're going to eventually edit your images, then it might make your workflow a bit easier using Lightroom, Bridge, CapturePro One etc

i like to use lightroom and i play with all kinds of sliders there and crop and change my colours and do all kinds of things each time i print and end up with different versions of prints for the same photo. if i want to clone or set up my prints on a canvas then i use photoshop. they are all fun to play with

It comes down to whether or not you want to start with the idea of a complete work flow or whether yo want to be more casual in your approach.

I struggled with the same questions you are facing roughly a year ago and I have been amazed at ther power of developing raw photo's. I tried out DPP and found it OK to use. For some people, it is all they use.

I started using LR because the majority of people here us it and it has way more capabilities than DPP. I chose the platform most of my peers use for support and compatibility reasons.

I have a good friend who uses Bibble to process his images and I was tempted to go that route but in the end I chose the platform that is well supported both here on TPMG, Flickr and beyond.

Load up DPP, play around with it and you may find that it is all you need to get your start in raw workflow. Enjoy and welcome to TPMG!

Lightroom (LR) for me too.. I'm a RAW newbie myself too, and always thought working with RAW files was a pain. I'm used to editing files individually in Photoshop, and thought shooting in RAW required a per-file conversion to another format.

Then I kept hearing about LR and all its features. What a discovery. LR lets you edit and export RAW files in batches. The interface takes a little getting used to, but now it's my "go to" tool for developing RAW files. Similar to Photoshop, it allows you to make edits to RAW and exports the end result, the RAW file is untouched. This retains more accuracy rather than exporting to JPG and then editting the JPG after the fact.

I recommend you give Lightroom a try. There's a trial copy on the Adobe site.

All of us Canon users were facing the same issue when we first were embarking on the road to RAW.

Rather than spend a few hundred dollars on LR/Bibble/ACR only to discover that you don't want to spend the time required to post process photos I'd recommend you watch the Canon online videos for DPP.

They really help you understand what the many sliders do as well as how you should use them.

IF you are liking the results you are getting and find it worth the added hassle, THEN you should decide if you want to get programs that offer a better workflow. DPP has an ugly unfriendly interface in my opinion. But it is FREE and will definitely give you a riskfree oportunity to see if RAW is for you.

I use DPP when I need to convert a large number of images from RAW. I'll take a few passes to cull the bad ones, fix the colour correction and levels, and then convert everything at once.

Otherwise, I use Elements.

I have always been a Canon user for years now and have always used Adobe products. I have nothing against using DPP. Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom 2 are just my preferences . These are for the reasons of personal familiarity and availability of peer tech support as more people are familiar with the ins and outs of Photoshop and/or LR2. If you ask me now how to do stuff in DPP, I might be able to figure it out but my answer would not be instinctive

... or just take advantage of the trial versions of programs like LR, etc to find out whether you like them.

Alex Trebek says, "What is BitTorrent?"

A good way for me to lose a few of my professional licenses?

I've been playing around with the Canon software. Initially I was aghast at the ugliness of my RAW photos until I realized it was unprocessed file. I didn't expect it to look worse than my jpg shots but now I know why. One thing that I learned is that DPP can't really correct photos that you took in very unforgiving light. I shot film many many years ago - digital is new to me. I see that digital isn't a lot more forgiving than film. I had hoped it would be - it isn't so far as I can tell. Bad lighting will still probably create a bad digital photo.

My horizons still are often off. How can you correct that with the cropping tool in DPP? It's driving me crazy.

Your actually doing what some Pros do. That is DPP first when importing the shots, then move on to ACR or Photoshop.

As for cropping, I hardly crop as I would rather frame my shots the way I see it printed.

Film is unforgiving, specifically slide. You need to nail your exposures dead on. Digital is cheap. Just delete when you don't get it then try again, how forgiving is that .

http://www.usa.canon.com/content/dpp2/index.html Hope this helps.


Randy

We use LR to directly import and process all our RAW images, work great.
Unless I need some special function in Photoshop, I hardly touch it anymore.
To me , LR is worth the money as it speed up our wedding work flow a lot.

Louie