I decided I’d like to write an occasional photography how-to post. Well into year 2 of Project365 it’s obvious I enjoy photography and it seems that some of my readers do as well, so why not?

I’ll tell you one of the secrets to my photos – post-processing.

What that means is that what you see is not necessarily how it came out of the camera. I used to be a bit of a purist, that I had to get the settings exactly right and the only thing I did before publishing was to resize and apply a watermark.

Probably a year ago I became a convert to shooting in RAW mode instead of JPG mode. What’s the difference? This graphic that I found on PetaPixel explains it well (and was the inspiration for this post!)

All those things on the right that the camera does? For the most part, none of those actions can be undone.  SOME editing of JPGs is possible, but no where near the editing that can be done on a RAW file.
- photo was under- or over-exposed?
- white balance settings were incorrect?
- saturation isn’t to your liking?
- should have used a flash for some fill light?
- want to try some ‘artistic’ editing of your images?

These issues and more can be fixed by editing the RAW file, even better use Lightroom and you’re making non-destructive edits, that is the original file from the camera is unchanged, you’re basically editing a copy, making it easy to go back.

So just what is a RAW file? I think of it this way- my Nikon D90 has a 12.1 megapixel sensor. The RAW file contains the original data (for the most part) from every one of those pixels, which is why the resulting RAW file is ~12 megabytes in size.  Every pixel is available for editing, in theory, no data has been lost.

There are some downsides
- large image files, takes a lot of disk space (unless you delete ruthlessly, which I’ll write about one of these days)
- post-processing software is necessary. Nikon has their own program which I think is free, though most people use Photoshop, Photoshop Lightroom, or Adobe Aperture.
- time, probably 50-75% of the photos I post have at least a little processing done, which takes time.
- burst-mode speed is reduced. My D90 can shoot at 4.5 frames per second in burst mode when saving to JPG, which is great for action shots and stuff with the kids. Set to RAW mode and that speed goes waaaay down, due to the large file size and data transfer speed limitations of the processor and the memory card.

Can’t decide which might be for you? Shoot in both RAW and JPG! Most cameras have a setting where both RAW and JPG versions are saved for each image. I did that for a while and unless burst speed is an issue, I’ve switched to always shooting in RAW.

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Confused by any terms?
Have a suggestion for another photography post?
Have other photography technique questions?
Thinking about buying a new camera or lens?

I don’t know where this is going, and I’m certainly not a pro, but I enjoy sharing my experiences and knowledge, so don’t be shy, use the comments to chime in with your thoughts, ask questions, tell me I suck and shouldn’t be doing this, whatever comes to mind.

Have a great Sunday!