CASE STUDY #2:
Astrophotography
Raw helps you tease out detail
and colour in night skies
4 Correct colour shifts
When details like the core of
the Milky Way here are enhanced, it
can sometimes lead to colour shifts.
With raws you have far more colour
information to work with, so it’s easier
to control and correct unnatural shifts.3 Extra detail
When you shoot stars,
the night sky can initially look
rather dim, but raws hold a lot of
information that isn’t immediately
apparent. By increasing clarity
and sharpening, the stars will
stand out from the sky.5 Pulling detail out of shadows
The extra data in a raw means you can
claw back dark details that look unrecoverable
at first glance, making it easier to balance out
a night sky with a detailed foreground. You can use
selective tonal tools like Lightroom’s Adjustment
Brush to tease out the hidden details.JPEGs often look initially look
better than raws because they
are enhanced, sharpened and
saturated in-camera to give
you something approaching
the finished image. As such,
they’re meant for those who
are happy to let their camera
make decisions for them on
how their images should look.Raws, as the name suggests,
are unprocessed images. They
can initially look rather flat,
especially when placed side-to-
side with a JPEG counterpart.
But the flatness is intentional:
it’s a starting point. Camera
makers know raw shooters want
to make their own decisions
about the look of their images.WHY DOES JPEG LOOK BETTER
STRAIGHT OUT OF CAMERA?http://www.digitalcameraworld.com APRIL 2020 DIGITAL CAMERA^45Long term hardware
There’s no getting round
it: storing raws eats
up hard drive space.
You’ll need to invest in
an external hard drive
with at least a couple of
terabytes of space, or consider solutions
like NAS drives and online storage.Raw software
Raws are useless without
dedicated raw software
to process them. Your
camera will come with a
raw processor, but many
choose more advanced
options like Lightroom
or Camera Raw.