Raw

Are you guys shooting in RAW format?

I just got a D-80 and have been messing with white balance. Do you guys shot your wake photos in RAW?

For wakeboarding, I just shoot jpeg basic or normal

You might want to take a look here too:
http://dcresource.com/reviews/nikon/d80-review/index.shtml

depends on the situation, but for boarding I usually shoot jpeg. I shoot RAW for almost everything else, and sometimes RAW for wakeboarding. You just have so much more latitude for post processing with raw.

Unles you have PS CS2 (which should be upgraded soon) or Capture NX, you won't be able to edit RAW with Picture Project.

I can assure you that most of the "professional" sports photographers always shoot raw. In fact several wakeboarding magazines will only acept photos in raw. If you are shooting for fun, than shoot Jpeg and save the memory, if you are turning to a mag or into a poster, than raw is the way.

The benefits of shooting RAW once you learn the work flow are just too numerous to go over in one post. Even though you can fix a myriad of problems in PS even with Jpegs it's just much easier with a RAW image. Besides there are many applications like Apple's Aperture which do wonderful RAW conversions automatically using intelligent algorithms dialed in for each camera type.

I wouldn't shoot jpeg for sharpening reasons alone, the in camera sharpening just never looks that good.

Okay here is a question I have:

If I start shooting RAW, does this mean I need to purchase more PP programs, or is photochop 7 enough to bring the pictures to at-least or better quality than the cameras processing?

I have a rebel xt with the 70-200 f4

My comments about RAW+PS C2 are reference to Nikon D80. I'm sorry for this mix up.

(Message edited by phantom5815 on September 14, 2006)

Matt, your camera should have come with the neccesary software to do the Raw conversions. I think the one I have is called Canonviewer or something like that.

I'm not sure about the XT, but there is no plug-in in PS 7.0 to do 20D Raw Conversions, you have to move up to CS or CS2 for that.

Daniel

(Message edited by mississippireb on September 14, 2006)

Daniel, yes I believe I have the converter, does that program perform all the same functions that the camera does in processing an image, just with the ability to adjust it?

I guess I should have said it like this:

I have all the software that came with my camera and adobe 7.0, will this be enough to properly process images taken in RAW? And will I be giving anything up in the processing department by going this route?

Also: listed above is all the pp programs I have. Are there any extra programs such as noise ninja that you guys have found to be a great deal of help? I want the biggest bang for my buck when it comes to pp programs since I rarely perform the tasks.

Thanks for the info.

The original camera RAW plugin will give you RAW processing with PS7 but you'll need to hack the plugin to make it work with your cam since Adobe hasn't supported the stand alone plugin for a while now. Canon's software is pretty good now and even has some batch features which make it way easier to use. A lot of guys swear by it. if you use a Mac I'd highly rec. Aperture.

Yes, Canon Photo Professional is MUCH better than it used to be. I prefer it over the raw plugin for CS2.

Matt, yes, you have the ability to adjust all the parameters that the camera does, including but not limited to exposure (to a point), white blance, contrast, sharpening, and color tone.

My workflow looks something like this: Download the photos to my computer, open the Canon Raw Processing software, tweak the images, process them down to jpegs (for smaller prints) or tiffs (for larger prints). Once I've done that, they are ready for touch up and cropping in Photoshop.

According to my sources, and you know who you are , noise ninja is good for processing when you have shot at iso 800 or higher and need to remove excess noise from the image.

Hope this helps

Daniel

So CS2 can't open raw ?

Sweet! thanks for the info guys. I plan on trying out RAW this weekend and seeing how things work out.

Thanks again!

walt- CS2 can open raw files. if it says you cant open a certain raw file, the go to the adobe website and update your ACR.

Thanks Scott.

Romi here is a site about RAW, 3rd party RAW converters and Nikon.

http://www.nikonians.org/dcforum/DCForumID36/16777.html

Thanks for all the input guys... I am going to shot raw for while... and see how it works out for me. Now i need a better pc to process.

once you start shooting RAW you'll need a bigger hard drive!