Exposing to the right is really good advice, actually, as long as you don't clip the highlights. You need to look at your histogram to see if you have enough latitude to do it. Exposing to the right ensures more detail in the darker areas and less noise overall.
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Using RAW format - my experience
- Thread starter BJMRamage
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Exposing to the right is really good advice, actually, as long as you don't clip the highlights. You need to look at your histogram to see if you have enough latitude to do it. Exposing to the right ensures more detail in the darker areas and less noise overall.
The Luminous Landscape article certainly convinced me. I regularly make sure I've pushed my exposure over the right side, and then just adjust the overall 'look' of the exposure in post. This isn't so novel. When I was shooting 4x5 BW film (which wasn't that often) I would often expose for the shadows, and then develop for the highlights. (In theory if not always in practice... ) This is essentially the same as 'expose to the right'... you are simply making sure that the sensor/film records as much info as possible. In the darkroom you could then expose the paper for longer or shorter times to make the scene darker or lighter.... to match what the scene needs. This technique created dense negatives, that would require long exposure times in the enlarger.
However, like the old wet stuff.. before adopting 'expose to the right' I should do some testing... which I haven't done. Digital is making me lazy. Shouldn't be that hard to work out a good test scene. I may even remember to post back here, eh?
Trust me, I get the concept.
Which is why I explicitly said "overly to the right". There's obviously a balance, in technical terms, and in the sense that your exposure - bright or dark - needs to reflect your artistic vision for that photo.That said, in the last two years I've made something in the ballpark of 250k images. Exposing to the right doesn't always work best. What works best is getting a proper exposure that most closely matches what you had in mind for that frame. With my processing, overly exposed images end up making more work for me, since it changes color balance and tone.
The only plus to jpg is size and space is cheap. If you can afford a camera with raw mode, you can afford double the data card and drive space to hold them.
You might want to profile your lenses and sensors with something like the X-Rite Passport to get rid of that problem when you import.
Paul
Just wanted to say that there are other apps for dealing with RAW files apart from Lightroom, Aperture or the camera manufacturer's own offering. My favourite is Capture One, and has been for some years. My workflow would be to import the files from the memory card, then go through and discard the obvious duds.
(If I'm being disciplined about it, I might apply star ratings such as * for ones I know I don't want to keep, and ** for ones I might want. Having deleted the * images, I might go through again and reconsider the ** images, either promoting them to *** or demoting them to * and deleting them. If I'm not being disciplined, I just plunge in and work on the images I like!)
With the images I want to keep I'd do what I need to do in Capture One, such as adjust exposure, contrast, colour temperature, crop, straightening and so on. If necessary, I can apply adjustments to just one part of the image, for example darkening a sky that is too bright without affecting the rest of the image. (Of course you can do all this kind of thing in Lightroom, and other apps too, but I like the way that Capture One presents the tools to me, and I like the results I get.)
Finally, I'll process the file as a JPG if I want to put it online, view it on a computer etc. If I want a high quality print, I might process it as a TIFF.
One of the things I like about Capture One is that I can easily process the same fie in different ways - for example as a full size JPG and as a smaller one suitably sized for web use, or as a JPG and a TIFF.
I also like it being easy to make variants of an image and try different looks for it, like a different crop, or a different white balance, degree of sharpening, contrast, etc, or process it as black-and-white. All of this is non-destructive, so I still have my original RAW file intact. (Again, other apps can do this too.)
I very rarely find any need to do anything to a photo with some other app (like Photoshop Elements, GIMP, etc). The main things I might need to do are cloning out an unwanted element in a picture (but some small blemishes can be removed in Capture One) or dealing with red eyes. But I can't remember when I actually did use another app to deal with one of my own photos.
I do find that using RAW, I can make an image better than it would have been if I had just had a JPG. You try to get the exposure, composition, etc right when you take the photo, of course, but it doesn't always work out like that. With a JPG I could to some extent adjust things like contrast, saturation and so on. But in the compression process of a JPG file, some of the information captured by my (to me) expensive camera - also a Nikon D7000 in my case - is thrown away, whereas with RAW it is all available to work with. In particular, with a JPG you have less chance of recovering shadow or highlight detail or changing the white balance successfully.
My 2p (or 2c, depending on where you are situated) worth.
Ian
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More than double, probably, but good point.
(If I'm being disciplined about it, I might apply star ratings such as * for ones I know I don't want to keep, and ** for ones I might want. Having deleted the * images, I might go through again and reconsider the ** images, either promoting them to *** or demoting them to * and deleting them. If I'm not being disciplined, I just plunge in and work on the images I like!)
With the images I want to keep I'd do what I need to do in Capture One, such as adjust exposure, contrast, colour temperature, crop, straightening and so on. If necessary, I can apply adjustments to just one part of the image, for example darkening a sky that is too bright without affecting the rest of the image. (Of course you can do all this kind of thing in Lightroom, and other apps too, but I like the way that Capture One presents the tools to me, and I like the results I get.)
Finally, I'll process the file as a JPG if I want to put it online, view it on a computer etc. If I want a high quality print, I might process it as a TIFF.
One of the things I like about Capture One is that I can easily process the same fie in different ways - for example as a full size JPG and as a smaller one suitably sized for web use, or as a JPG and a TIFF.
I also like it being easy to make variants of an image and try different looks for it, like a different crop, or a different white balance, degree of sharpening, contrast, etc, or process it as black-and-white. All of this is non-destructive, so I still have my original RAW file intact. (Again, other apps can do this too.)
I very rarely find any need to do anything to a photo with some other app (like Photoshop Elements, GIMP, etc). The main things I might need to do are cloning out an unwanted element in a picture (but some small blemishes can be removed in Capture One) or dealing with red eyes. But I can't remember when I actually did use another app to deal with one of my own photos.
I do find that using RAW, I can make an image better than it would have been if I had just had a JPG. You try to get the exposure, composition, etc right when you take the photo, of course, but it doesn't always work out like that. With a JPG I could to some extent adjust things like contrast, saturation and so on. But in the compression process of a JPG file, some of the information captured by my (to me) expensive camera - also a Nikon D7000 in my case - is thrown away, whereas with RAW it is all available to work with. In particular, with a JPG you have less chance of recovering shadow or highlight detail or changing the white balance successfully.
My 2p (or 2c, depending on where you are situated) worth.
Ian
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More than double, probably, but good point.
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Yes but many light meters tend to already clip highlights, so it is rare that you can add more exposure, It is more common to have to move to the left.
But I agree, always expose as much as you can so long as not highlights in any channels are clipped. At exception would be that light source like light bults or the sun can be allowed to clip.
In fact I'd say the "do not clip" rules is so important that it is worth under exposing in cases where you can't reshoot. You can recover dark areas but can't recover a clipped area.
That said you still expose as much as you can (move to the right) even if that means moving a little to the left.
Do ETTR, be careful to not get confused by the histogram reading specular highlights and fooling one into underexposing, SMALL details like the sun reflected on paint work are best ignored. The OP image was a classic case in point where as much information as possible will need to be preserved in the highlights and image quality will be better in all the exposure values because of this the LCD will look like you are over exposing but once in the RAW converter of your choice you will be able to recover/reveal lots of detail, how far you can push this takes a bit of practice but heck it cost nought to shoot a few extra frames to get the perfect exposure. I use Lightroom for RAW conversion and the highlight detail that can be held on to is amazing.
Plus a pseudo deconvolution sharpen in LR sharpen panel can reveal amazing detail,best to only use on low ISO images and use the masking slider to stop the sky (for example getting unwanted sharpening.)
RAW the digital negative is the best thing about modern photography, i shot slides for many years and it demanded everything to be right at the point of exposure the options now are totally liberating
Plus a pseudo deconvolution sharpen in LR sharpen panel can reveal amazing detail,best to only use on low ISO images and use the masking slider to stop the sky (for example getting unwanted sharpening.)
RAW the digital negative is the best thing about modern photography, i shot slides for many years and it demanded everything to be right at the point of exposure the options now are totally liberating
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I shoot unexposed, my settings for raw are
exposure -0.3
WB Auto +1
Saturation -1
Contrast Neutral
Depends on the camera but i always shoot slightly under-exposed, with reduced saturation for colour clipping and normally cool the WB as cameras always tend to want to make the image warmer.
Contrast usually has no difference.
If you can preserve your highlights and prevent colour clipping this gives you a lot more to work with in Aperture or Lightroom.
The RAW file from my Nikon is actually underexposed naturally but all raw convertors i have used apart from RPP correct this. RPP does not which is handy.
In Aperture i apply my own compression curve where i contract the start point of black and compress the very upper highlights by setting the out point under the full range. This usually helps me prevent blowing highlights as i begin to edit and adjust exposure.
I couple this with a colour profile adjustment to correct the colours and add luminance to screen ranges.
When you shoot 14-bit raw you can really see what is possible to extract from a lossless FF NEF.
exposure -0.3
WB Auto +1
Saturation -1
Contrast Neutral
Depends on the camera but i always shoot slightly under-exposed, with reduced saturation for colour clipping and normally cool the WB as cameras always tend to want to make the image warmer.
Contrast usually has no difference.
If you can preserve your highlights and prevent colour clipping this gives you a lot more to work with in Aperture or Lightroom.
The RAW file from my Nikon is actually underexposed naturally but all raw convertors i have used apart from RPP correct this. RPP does not which is handy.
In Aperture i apply my own compression curve where i contract the start point of black and compress the very upper highlights by setting the out point under the full range. This usually helps me prevent blowing highlights as i begin to edit and adjust exposure.
I couple this with a colour profile adjustment to correct the colours and add luminance to screen ranges.
When you shoot 14-bit raw you can really see what is possible to extract from a lossless FF NEF.
So, I am going through the year of photos so I can make a photo book and a DVD Slideshow for my daughter's first birthday.
Anyway, I come across some images that were "OFF" on the color. I went to make some corrections but it was pretty difficult...then it hit me: I was shooting JPEG at the time.
Now I can understand when folks say once you switch to RAW you don't want to go back to JPG.
Anyway, I come across some images that were "OFF" on the color. I went to make some corrections but it was pretty difficult...then it hit me: I was shooting JPEG at the time.
Now I can understand when folks say once you switch to RAW you don't want to go back to JPG.
Great comparison for people who don't understand the advantage....I only shoot RAW, its not a conscious decision now. RAW Only, I can't stand 8-bit video and photo's, JPEGs are 8-bit 4:2:0, the very bit depth and chroma space that video guys like me hate in video because its so hard to manipulate. Going from 8-bit 4:2:0 to 16-bit 4:4:4 is massive in editing...I mean if you shoot a picture and plan to just show the picture as is with very little to no adjustment it usually looks fine (provided you aren't a pixel peeper looking at it on a 10-bit barco projector/monitor :O) but 8-bit is just inadequate.
bringing this post back a bit from some time but have a few more shots to post.
These were all edited in Aperture based on a RAW file.
Some are more artsy than simply corrected/edited as I switched some to B&W and perhaps some of this could have been done to a JPG photo.
Here's the top link:
https://flic.kr/s/aHsjVFcneX
fixing a color cast in an aquarium shot:
taking an OK shot and running it with B&W process:
I've split the photos to see how they compare.
These were all edited in Aperture based on a RAW file.
Some are more artsy than simply corrected/edited as I switched some to B&W and perhaps some of this could have been done to a JPG photo.
Here's the top link:
https://flic.kr/s/aHsjVFcneX
fixing a color cast in an aquarium shot:
taking an OK shot and running it with B&W process:
I've split the photos to see how they compare.
Always a good idea:
Shoot raw on one card (faster, larger one)
+ jpeg on the other card (slower, maybe smaller one)
That way you can give the jpeg away quicker if people like the pic out of the camera.
Happened to me yesterday. I offered to post process but they wanted it 'as is'.
Shoot raw on one card (faster, larger one)
+ jpeg on the other card (slower, maybe smaller one)
That way you can give the jpeg away quicker if people like the pic out of the camera.
Happened to me yesterday. I offered to post process but they wanted it 'as is'.