50 DIGITAL CAMERA^ APRIL 2020 http://www.digitalcameraworld.com
SHOOT IN RAW!!ƏȅƺȸƏ
Raw
ƺɴȵǼƏǣȇƺƳ
aw photography means
extra effort processing
images. For simple
edits, this might only
take a few moments- but when it comes to screen time,
raw often means more.
If you know you’ll need to work on
your image later, however, raw brings a
finer level of quality. JPEGs might look
fine straight-out-of-camera, but once
you begin to perform edits – a boost
in contrast, say, or a change to the
brightness or an increase in saturation - the cracks may soon start to show.
Banding can occur in tonal gradations,
and artifacts may be amplified.
Think of it this way: when you edit a
JPEG, you’re working up an image that
has effectively been worked up once
before by your camera, which will have
already made decisions on contrast,
colour, saturation and sharpening
for you, then discarded all of the
excess data. So you’d be making more
changes on top of the enhancements
that were made for you.
By contrast, a raw contains all of
the fresh image data that your camera
is able to record, which gives you
greater editing headroom.
There are several excellent raw
processors out there. One of the
most powerful yet user-friendly
is Photoshop’s Camera Raw (or
the near-identical Develop Module
within Lightroom). Here are some
of the key raw tools on offer...
R
PROFILE BROWSER
This offers a range of
excellent starting points for
your raw photos, such as
Adobe Landscape and
Adobe Portrait. The Camera
Matching set mirrors the
picture style options on
your camera model.SPOT REMOVAL TOOL
The Spot Removal Tool enables
you to quickly fix small blemishes
or sensor marks. Tick Visualise
Spots for a handy black-and-white
view. If you have a recurring sensor
mark, you can fix it on one image,
then sync the edit to an entire
image set to correct them all.WHITE BALANCE PRESETS
This allows you to choose a
different white balance preset
after the fact. You can also
use the Temperature and
Tint sliders in Camera Raw
to fine-tune white balance,
either to correct a colour
cast or to add a creative shift.