So I just got my first DSLR. I have been shooting in Raw thinking I would PP the images, the only problem? I know very little about how to use Photoshop or the lightscribe beta I downloaded. Unfortunately, the camera I was given doesn't do raw+jpeg. For know, While I learn how to use the camera, should I just shoot in Jpeg and let Pentax PP the shots for me? Any opinions from our photogs?
I think it depends on the software you use. I use RAW software (aperture on a g5). I find that i can tweek images more with RAW than jpg and i get more detail if i do the processing on the computer and not on the camera. If i get the exposure a little off or i want to mess with contrast, highlights, etc, raw gives me more room to play around. Having a RAW processor will help a lot and if it does its job, you shouldn't even know you're shooting raw or jpeg. It should just work jpeg is fine to shoot with. If i can dig up this article on raw vs jpg i will post it up. Have fun with it
I'd say for the time being, jpeg is perfectly fine. Perhaps when you're knowledge branches out more then you can dip into this.
I'd say shoot in raw. Then you could resize it in photoshop (should be simple enough for you to do) later and then 'Save As' as a .jpeg and it'll show you a scale for how fine you want the .jpeg quality. I would lower it down to whatever the free hosting I used allowed per image. Unless you have your own server/host.
Thats kinda what I understand, but I think my skill level currently is more "snapshoooter" than photographer...
Well, the main difference is that in one case your camera does the 'post processing': applying the color balance adjustment, sharpening, compression etc... in RAW mode you're doing the post processing on your computer and have acess to the full raw data, which lets you do things like tweak the color balance afterwards in a nice manner. You could always have the best of both world and shoot in RAW+JPEG if your camera has that setting. That way you have JPEGs handy and the RAW there if you have a really special shot you want to make as perfect as possible. Whichever you use, please don't keep re-saving as JPEG in Photoshop or your image program of choice.. it's a lossy format, so if you do shoot JPEG save it as a TIFF or something non-lossy while working on the image.
Bad photographers make mistakes and have to tweak colors and levels afterwards. Its always a good idea to try and nail shots on the first try, not to waste time trying to rescue it later. It's easier and better to get it right the first time. It you have to tweak an image later, by all means shoot at the larger sizes to give yourself more leeway. Tweaking will exaggerate any imperfections in direct proportion to how far you have to tweak. If you underexpose by two stops and have to pull your histogram from the middle back to the right then you'll also double the visibility of any jpg artifacts. If you don't have to make huge corrections than the increase in artifacts is negligible for normal editing. If you create your images by playing in Photoshop instead of in the field and spend most of your time in post production, by all means shoot raw. Just know that you don't have to unless you feel like it.
ALL photographers make mistakes. Period. "Do it right the first time" is sound advice in theory, but in practice it doesn't quite work out that way. You ever see Ansel Adams' "Moonrise over Hernandez"? He spent many hours fiddling with the badly underexposed negative to get a reasonable print out of it. Perfect shot, many people think, but they don't know that he pretty much botched it... And "playing in Photoshop" is no different from "playing in the darkroom": both are part of the photography process. Pushing the shutter button gives you the raw material to work with; the actual print itself is the end result of what you refer to as "playing". Again, refer to Ansel Adams: the guy wrote an entire book dedicated to just the negative, and another dedicated to the print. Just because we live in a 'digital world' doesn't mean that the fundamental process itself has changed. The tools are different, the process and philosophy remain the same.. that is, if you want take the step into serious photography. Just my $.02, having done this as a hobby for many years, small and large formats...
You cut out your quote and included what fit your argument. I didnt simply say bad photographers make mistakes. Of course all photographers make mistakes. If you included the entire quote, what I said is correct. Any good photographer knows how to adjust for levels, colors, and white balance as they are shooting, not later in front of the computer, DIGITALLY SPEAKING. Digital photographers don't just shoot blind and hope for the best until they get in the "darkroom". That's the beauty of shooting digital, we have these new found inventions called LCDs and if those are too small we have histograms to at least tell proper exposure. Dont compare formats to digital. Format and digital capture are completely different media. They are used for similar purposes, but they themselves are completely unrelated to each other. Okay? Kudos? Not sure why you felt the need to post a small resume.
Unfortunately neither that 'new found invention', nor the fancy histogram (both which are nice tools) will tell you whether your white balance was correct. You can eyeball it, but unless you're shooting a grey card and have the ability to verify in-camera what 'color' it ends up digitally there's no telling for sure. Also, shooting in RAW lets you apply the appropriate sharpening and any other adjustments later on with no loss of quality. You're dealing with the raw image data rather than what your camera saw appropriate to apply to it. It's obvious we aren't going to agree on this, though. I think that for any serious work it's an abomination and a disservice to shoot JPEG when you have the capability to do better. This whole argument has occurred over and over and over again, and I will gladly defer to somebody far more qualified than I am to tout the advantages of RAW: http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/understanding-series/u-raw-files.shtml Check out the 'pros and cons' section.
Thanks for all the replies everyone. I have decided that, for me, taking pictures of my daughter mainly, and knowing that I will probably need the extra help that PP offers, I am going to shoot in RAW mode. Using the Adobe Lightscribe Beta, I significantly improved a few of the images and that pretty much sold me on RAW. Moose and Nemesis, I think Moose's statement is correct that this debate is almost as old as Photoshop itself. I can see both sides, but I am thankful for the ability to "cheat" in PP for now....