Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie

Newbie RAW file question

Options
  • 02-07-2013 4:21pm
    #1
    BIRDCAGE1
    Registered Users Posts: 139 ✭✭


    Hi All,
    I've been taking photos for quite a while with my 450D and really enjoy it. I even purchased myself a copy of Lightroom 4 last year (major learning curve, but I'm getting there). Anyway I am very slowly starting to shoot in raw (quite literally only 3 times). My latest experince was yesterday afternoon at a family get together - I said to myself I'll shoot in raw so if I mess up I can fix the images later (my immediate family consider me to be the photographer, so I had to take all the pics)
    So last night my sister wanted to see pictures straight away, so I said I'd email her a few as soon as I got home,..... which I did by taking the raw file pics straight from the SD card and emailing them to her. Unfortunitely she wasn't able to open up the files. The other two occassions I imported the raw files into LR4 and had no issues with them.
    Any suggestions would be grately appreciated - is there something really basic here that I'm missing. :)
    Tagged:


Comments

  • Options
    #2
    magicbastarder
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Arts Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 49,344 CMod ✭✭✭✭magicbastarder


    RAW files are not a 'universal' file format like jpg would be; and most people would not have software to view them, especially since RAW is not a fixed format, but one that is specific to the camera that took it.

    you'd need to process them and save them as jpgs before sharing with any non-photographer types.


  • Options
    #3
    Professey Chin
    Registered Users Posts: 51,054 ✭✭✭✭Professey Chin


    Theres no such thing as a standard RAW file so your sister wouldnt have the codecs to view them. Lightroom has all the required codecs in it to develop raw images but by sending them straight to her youve really just sent her a load of negatives


  • Options
    #4
    pixbyjohn
    Registered Users Posts: 6,250 ✭✭✭pixbyjohn


    You could always set your camera to take RAW and jpg. shots so as you can then send the jpgs to family as in the case you posted.


  • Options
    #5
    BIRDCAGE1
    Registered Users Posts: 139 ✭✭BIRDCAGE1


    Thanks guys, so basically its all in the name 'raw' really does mean raw. I'm assuming that LR gives the option to save raw files as jpegs (at work at the mo and don't have LR on front of me!!).


  • Options
    #6
    kelly1
    Registered Users Posts: 5,026 ✭✭✭kelly1


    Birdcage, the solution is to export the files as JPGs.

    Right click an image (or multiple selected images) and Export...


  • Advertisement
  • Options
    #7
    Kenny Logins
    Registered Users Posts: 9,060 ✭✭✭Kenny Logins


    Think of a RAW file as a negative. With a negative you have to produce a print before giving it to somebody. With a RAW file you need to output a JPEG. As mentioned above ^^, I use both for convenience.


  • Options
    #8
    BIRDCAGE1
    Registered Users Posts: 139 ✭✭BIRDCAGE1


    pixbyjohn wrote: »
    You could always set your camera to take RAW and jpg. shots so as you can then send the jpgs to family as in the case you posted.
    Oh, I wasn't aware I could do, I always assumed it was one or the other ..... that definitely sounds like something that could work for me in the future. thanks for the tip.


  • Options
    #9
    adox
    Registered Users Posts: 19,017 ✭✭✭✭adox


    BIRDCAGE1 wrote: »
    Oh, I wasn't aware I could do, I always assumed it was one or the other ..... that definitely sounds like something that could work for me in the future. thanks for the tip.

    It will take up more space if that's an issue for you. If you have Lightroom it only takes seconds to save them as jpegs.


  • Options
    #10
    BIRDCAGE1
    Registered Users Posts: 139 ✭✭BIRDCAGE1


    adox wrote: »
    It will take up more space if that's an issue for you. If you have Lightroom it only takes seconds to save them as jpegs.
    Space shouldn't be a problem, I just took delivery of a new 1TB mac a few months ago in an attempt to future proof my computing needs ( + I knew one day I would eventually starting shooting in raw...)


  • Options
    #11
    pixbyjohn
    Registered Users Posts: 6,250 ✭✭✭pixbyjohn


    Also regarding a lot of the photos you take there is no need to have them all in RAW. jpgs are just fine for most snap shots, why pay thousands for camera and lens and then have to go through every shot and manipulate it. There is a place for RAW but not for every shot you take. The camera will process most shots good enough for you.


  • Advertisement
  • Options
    #12
    BIRDCAGE1
    Registered Users Posts: 139 ✭✭BIRDCAGE1


    I've been following a photographer, on youtube based in PHX called Mark Wallace (snapfactory) for the last year of so, (he has some great 10 minute vids on some of the basics. IN one of his videos he explains how he uses the raw file format, ..... he'll do all all his setup, make sure he is happy with the shoot, take a few exposures and then swap over to raw at the end of his shoot and captue the image once more for editing purposes.


  • Options
    #13
    Dave!
    Closed Accounts Posts: 27,857 ✭✭✭✭Dave!


    BIRDCAGE1 wrote: »
    Space shouldn't be a problem, I just took delivery of a new 1TB mac a few months ago in an attempt to future proof my computing needs ( + I knew one day I would eventually starting shooting in raw...)

    The poster probably means space on the camera.

    The RAW files take up most of the space, but you might gain yourself an extra 20% capacity by ditching the JPEGs.

    I should have bought a bigger memory card so that I don't have to worry about that kind of thing! :(


  • Options
    #14
    Kenny Logins
    Registered Users Posts: 9,060 ✭✭✭Kenny Logins


    Dave! wrote: »
    The poster probably means space on the camera.

    The RAW files take up most of the space, but you might gain yourself an extra 20% capacity by ditching the JPEGs.

    I should have bought a bigger memory card so that I don't have to worry about that kind of thing! :(

    8gig cards are under a tenner.


  • Options
    #15
    pullandbang
    Hosted Moderators Posts: 4,948 ✭✭✭pullandbang


    Shoot RAW and don't worry about space. Don't bother with the RAW + jpeg. On importing into LR, convert them to DNG which is slightly smaller than RAW and will future proof them. The processing and exporting as jpeg is part of the fun of photography unless you hate processing! In that case you can just batch process everything and export as jpeg in seconds.

    Oh and TAG, don't forget to tag the images with keywords. That's really what LR is for and you'll appreciate it in a few years time when you go looking for a particular shot.


  • Options
    #16
    BIRDCAGE1
    Registered Users Posts: 139 ✭✭BIRDCAGE1


    pullandbang wrote: »
    On importing into LR, convert them to DNG which is slightly smaller than RAW and will future proof them.
    Oh and TAG, don't forget to tag the images with keywords. That's really what LR is for and you'll appreciate it in a few years time when you go looking for a particular shot.

    Not that familier with the DNG format - does it have the same flexiblity as the raw file when you comes to processing the images.

    I'm already a TAGGING supermaster with LR ...... its helps me out so many times when looking for old pics...


  • Options
    #17
    pullandbang
    Hosted Moderators Posts: 4,948 ✭✭✭pullandbang


    BIRDCAGE1 wrote: »
    Not that familier with the DNG format - does it have the same flexiblity as the raw file when you comes to processing the images.

    RAW is camera specific. For example Canon are now on CR2 Raw, Nikon are something else while Fuji are RAF and Olympus are ORF! All different and all specific to that particular camera software.

    DNG is the Adobe equivalent and by converting your files to DNG you basically make them all readable into the future. They are also slightly smaller (not much) without any loss of information. In terms of processing you have exactly the same flexibility with DNG as you do with RAW.


Advertisement