Comments on: This Week in the Digital Photography School Forums

By: PRH

PRH — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 23:40:04 +0000

x verses y debate continually irks me. “I use x! X is the best therefore EVERYONE should use x. No sane person would ever use y”.
Canon vs Nikon
Mac vs PC
Raw vs JPEG has become just another fanboy phenomenon.

Use whatever suits your workflow and skill set and stop complaining about what everyone else does. AAARRRG!!!

By: Peter

Peter — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 23:50:39 +0000

For Nikon you can use Capture NX2. It processes RAW in a manner like the camera’s hardware does. Capture NX has controls for RAW files that are not available for JPG. It’s completely possible to get the same JPG or other variations that are based on camera defaults (e.g., Vivid). The downside is the time to generate a JPG (even using defaults) is huge when compared to the time it takes the camera’s hardware. On the other hand if you have bad or mediocre file, post processing the RAW gives you more data to work from than a JPG. I found this useful for pictures taken in the snow where the twilight caused a strong blue tint in the native JPG of my D40. By setting the neutral grey for one RAW I was able to get good balance for one that didn’t have the blue tint and then copy the settings to other pictures in the series.

By: Mark Jaquith

Mark Jaquith — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 07:29:01 +0000

You can actually make lightroom “develop” a RAW file just that same as if the camera is developing a RAW file by installing your camera’s profile into Lightroom.

No, you can’t. Those profiles are guesses. Someone may have worked very hard making it as good as they can, but it can not, and without Canon and Nikon’s help, never will produce an image the same as the camera would have produced.

By: Sime

Sime — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 09:37:19 +0000

Hey Kirstin, I dropped you an email. but for everyone else, you can always find the current assignment in our forum section…

http://digital-photography-school.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=22

Hope this helps!

Sime

By: Kirstin

Kirstin — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 23:57:26 +0000

When is next week’s assignment going to be posted? Usually it’s posted at the end of “This Week in the Digital Photography School Forums”… or am I just missing it??? I always need time to plan my next DPS shot…

By: JE

JE — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 14:19:33 +0000

You can actually make lightroom “develop” a RAW file just that same as if the camera is developing a RAW file by installing your camera’s profile into Lightroom. (Nikon and Canon profles are available) Check out Matt Kloskowski’s Lightroom Killer Tip:

http://www.lightroomkillertips.com/2008/presets-updated-camera-profiles/

By: Sime

Sime — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 03:27:36 +0000

Lilia, Sorry – I couldn’t get them to all fit nicely.

Sime

By: Lilia

Lilia — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 03:26:14 +0000

hey, am I missing the runner up thumbnail photos showing? Or is it purposely just links to the images?
Would be nice to keep that feature of thumbnails (maybe because it’s 5 they couldn’t fit?)

By: Teewinot

Teewinot — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 21:29:44 +0000

Gosh, thanks for mentioning my little tutorial!

By: Mark Jaquith

Mark Jaquith — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 19:40:25 +0000

I don’t shoot in RAW anymore. My photos are better, and I spend less time getting them to where I want them. The problem is that RAW conversion software isn’t there yet. RAW isn’t a format… it just means raw. Unprocessed. Aperture and Lightroom don’t know how the camera normally processes JPGs, so they can’t process them the same way. They have to guess. And their guesses aren’t as good as Nikon or Canon’s intimate knowledge of their own cameras.

If cameras standardized around a RAW format and published their processing algorithms as open source software, we’d be in business. But without that, you’re better off letting the camera do the processing as only it knows how, and taking it from there with a JPG that every post-processing software application will read the same way.

I can see maybe shooting JPG+RAW to have the maximum number of options down the road. But shooting RAW alone is going to take a lot more work to get the same results as shooting JPG.