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JamesD · 10-13-2007, 11:16 PM

Thanks, Stewart. It answers some questions, further educates me and creates some confusion.

I'm looking right now at the current issue of Popular Photography and the article is: Why Raw Works. Here are a few quotes from that article:

"Sometimes there are good reasons to shoot JPEGs. You might be running out of space on your memory card, or you know you'llnever make prints of the pictures or maybe you're just a really, really, self-assured photographer.

But the JPEG format has limits. Since the file gets compressed the moment it's taken, your camera's settings are written in stone. Make the wrong call on the white balance, for instance, and it will be a Sisyphean effort to fix the tone in Adobe PS.

Want to rein in your contrast and saturation-happy JPEGs? You can either become adept at manipulating your camera's image settings on the fly, or forget JPEG and shoot RAW to take permanent charge of your shadows and highlights."

What follows are examples of mistakes made in the camera when shooting on a blue-sky day but not taking into account that his subject was in shade near water. The result was that the camera's auto white balance was tricked into making the sky-reflecting water a ghastly blue. RAW let the shooter correct the shot from cooler to warmer, easily.

From this I think I learned the following:

- for important shots, use RAW.
- most shots would be fine in "fine" JPEG.
- when processing my RAW images later, I will need a RAW conversion program such as Faststone.
- Photoshop Elements 5 or 6 is fine to do the post processing but not to make the RAW conversion.
- I can save the RAW images as RAW, JPEG, TIFF depending upon the space I have and the uses I wish to make of the images.

I hope I have this correct. It's all quite new to me.

Question: When my new camera arrives (k10d) will the software that comes with it, allow me to make RAW conversion to JPEGs? Will this software also allow me to do post processing like changing white balance?

Thanks so much.

Question two: is the Raw button on the side of the camera like a toggle button. Press once for a RAW shot if the camera is "set" for JPEGs. If the camera is set for RAW, press once for a JPEG?

10-13-2007, 11:16 PM	#27
JamesD Loyal Member Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Oregon, USA Gallery Photos: 12 Posts: 523	Thanks, Stewart. It answers some questions, further educates me and creates some confusion. I'm looking right now at the current issue of Popular Photography and the article is: Why Raw Works. Here are a few quotes from that article: "Sometimes there are good reasons to shoot JPEGs. You might be running out of space on your memory card, or you know you'llnever make prints of the pictures or maybe you're just a really, really, self-assured photographer. But the JPEG format has limits. Since the file gets compressed the moment it's taken, your camera's settings are written in stone. Make the wrong call on the white balance, for instance, and it will be a Sisyphean effort to fix the tone in Adobe PS. Want to rein in your contrast and saturation-happy JPEGs? You can either become adept at manipulating your camera's image settings on the fly, or forget JPEG and shoot RAW to take permanent charge of your shadows and highlights." What follows are examples of mistakes made in the camera when shooting on a blue-sky day but not taking into account that his subject was in shade near water. The result was that the camera's auto white balance was tricked into making the sky-reflecting water a ghastly blue. RAW let the shooter correct the shot from cooler to warmer, easily. From this I think I learned the following: - for important shots, use RAW. - most shots would be fine in "fine" JPEG. - when processing my RAW images later, I will need a RAW conversion program such as Faststone. - Photoshop Elements 5 or 6 is fine to do the post processing but not to make the RAW conversion. - I can save the RAW images as RAW, JPEG, TIFF depending upon the space I have and the uses I wish to make of the images. I hope I have this correct. It's all quite new to me. Question: When my new camera arrives (k10d) will the software that comes with it, allow me to make RAW conversion to JPEGs? Will this software also allow me to do post processing like changing white balance? Thanks so much. Question two: is the Raw button on the side of the camera like a toggle button. Press once for a RAW shot if the camera is "set" for JPEGs. If the camera is set for RAW, press once for a JPEG? __________________ JamesD