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Hi there
We are having some problems with some photos of portraits recently taken. They were taken on a 6mp camera, but after some colour balancing, look quite grainy.
Someone recently told me if the pictures had been taken in RAW format, we wouldn't be having these problems.
Can anyone shed some light on this?
Thanks,
RAW is unprocessed sensor data from the camera. My camera is 8MP and a RAW file is about 10MB. A high quality JPEG is about 3.5MB, and is the result of processing in the camera. Using RAW data would give the same starting point. As far as I know, you still need to post process the RAW file.
I usually save to JPEG. I normally shoot in natural light. I believe you can get a more grainy appearance with a faster ASA setting. I see that if I am shooting in low light and try to increase the brightness.
If you save to a more lossy compression ratio, you would lose image quality. I din't know how far you can go on compression. You might try a save to a lossless compression.
Rich
The RAW plugin in PSCS. The latest version appears to be 2.4. PSCS2 was about 3.5.
Rich
http://www.pixmantec.com/purchase/downloads.asp
Looks like RAWShooter was acquired by Adobe. It said RAWShooter Essentials 2006 was freeware. You might want to check it out. A version was offered by Corel for a while, but not any longer.
Rich
All digital cameras suffer from noise. This is exacerbated when using large aperture settings, slow shutter speeds, high ASA values, shooting in low light situations or any combination. Given any of the above conditions you will get more visible noise whether you shoot in RAW or JPEG.
In general, a fast shutter speed, combined with a small aperture, in a bright sunlit situation will give you the least amount of visible noise. The use of a capable flash unit in low light situations will also do the job. You'll notice that I use the phrase "visible noise", that's because noise is always there in digital photography.
I find that it's a trade-off, between the type of shot I'm looking for and the amount of visible noise that I'm willing to accept. Having said that, there are a few excellent utilities on the market to help deal with noise, like Noise Ninja, Neat Image or Grain Surgery.
The main advantage of RAW, as Rich says, is that it is the unprocessed data direct from the camera and you would process this and save as a JPEG or whatever, leaving the original RAW image untouched.
hi,
doesn't the camera being used have to support the RAW format? I have 3 digital camara (not expensive ones) and none support RAW fromat that I can see. The only camaras that support the RAW fromat are some of the high end newer ones..right:)
Jim
Yes Jim, you're correct. The digital RAW format is, at the moment, mainly offered by medium to high-end digital SLR cameras from the likes of Canon, Nikon etc.Quote:
Originally Posted by Scotty
One thing I forgot to mention about the RAW format is that it contains, in general, far more image information than an equivalent JPEG. Although, in practical terms, for the average photographer the difference is negligable IMO.