How many people shoot this way?

[theregsy]

With a new 32Gb CF card I may well be shooting RAW soon, have a festival called Velntine Rock coming up but thats going to be busy and my festival laptop can't work with RAW in a hurry, but after that I have Carlisle Blues Festival, which is a much more relaxed and chilled out affair so it give my time to play, experiement and generally see what i can do with the camera. Looking forward to it

 

[GeneralSQL]

I shoot both raw and jpg fine for most of my shooting. I like to be able to quickly look through my jpg images without waiting for the loading time of the raw files. If I am shooting my daughters dance competitions, I turn off raw and only shoot jpg so I can get faster writes to the cards. I archive both raw and jpg in separate folders under the main folder for the shoot so I don't have to re-create jpg's again. If I work with jpg files in CS5, I open the image, save it as a psd file, then I can work to my hearts content without worrying about degrading the image quality. Once I have done what I need to do with the image, I then save it out as a jpg again.

 

[Johnathan Aulabaugh]

I shoot RAW only. only convert to JPG for internet uploads. I keep only the best images in NEF on a backup storage and store PSD on the computer.

 

[darlenec59]

I never thought I'd say this as I really didn't think I'd see a difference but I just started shooting in raw and wish I had started sooner! I've found that some shots that I didn't think could be saved for various reasons (once, forgot to change the white balance) could have been saved as I have much more latitude in processing raw files. I overexposed a couple shots of my cat and after editing the raw file I ended up with a very lovely shot with richer color. I'm still learning and only just started using raw this weekend and plan to shoot exclusively in raw now.

 

[fotojack]

I've tried shooting RAW, but I don't really have the patience to process my shots because I don't have PS. I use Paint Shop Digital Pro X3. It's a pain in the ass to process a pile of shots with this program...........mainly because I don't really know how to use it properly. So I usually stick to jpg's because it's easier for me to process my shots in Irfanview. Besides.......I get more shots on a 4GB card.
It's not that I'm lazy...........I just find it confusing using these big programs to process pictures. Maybe if I was making a living at it, things would be different........I don't know.
I'd need someone sitting next to me, showing me how to use the program.

 

[Johnathan Aulabaugh]

I've tried shooting RAW, but I don't really have the patience to process my shots because I don't have PS. I use Paint Shop Digital Pro X3. It's a pain in the ass to process a pile of shots with this program...........mainly because I don't really know how to use it properly. So I usually stick to jpg's because it's easier for me to process my shots in Irfanview. Besides.......I get more shots on a 4GB card.
It's not that I'm lazy...........I just find it confusing using these big programs to process pictures. Maybe if I was making a living at it, things would be different........I don't know.
I'd need someone sitting next to me, showing me how to use the program.

You would be amazed how often I hear this from a lot of people. As far as learning the in's and out's of as program, there are many many different ways to learn. You tube has tons of info on both PS and PS Elements. Elements can do much more than most can understand and is 1/6th the cost of a CS program. I started off Irfanview and a few others way back when they first started, then moved to an elements program 4-5 years ago, maybe more. Then went a head with CS4 when it was released. Shooting raw IMO is very important. If you shoot a DSLR, shoot raw.

 

[fotojack]

I know there are many different ways to learn, and I'm one of the ones that need someone showing me the how's and the why's. I'm a visual learner. I had Lightroom, and couldn't figure it out either! Oh some things I can do........just not the right things that I need it to do. I just need to find someone that lives near me to help me with the program I have.
Not everyone shares the same opinion of HAVING to shoot RAW. Jpeg works for me, for what I use my photography for. Shooting jpeg doesn't make me any less of a photographer than those who choose to shoot RAW.

 

[theregsy]

Just did a job for my employer, a school extension that turns into a theatre, I had shots unconverted but only had a small window to get in and get pics of it set in theatre mode, decided to shoot RAW for a change, worked the shots through Lightroom and got pretty good results, I don't know that they would have been worse as Jpegs but they have impressed the boss which is the main thing
Jack, Lightroom is my main editing package and its took me a while to get to grips, its is very good for fast batch editing and I rarely use anything but for my pictures, unless I want HDR or photostitching. While I have used Photoshop CS5 its just too cumbersome for working on large numbers of files and as for shooting Jpegs instead of RAW well I'll be back to jpegs for this weekends festival, Valentine Rock (its at the Valentine Cricket Ground for those wondering if Valentines day had moved LOL) I use and will continue to use Jpegs for festivals because I can fit more on my cards, transfer them faster, work on them faster, shoot more as they write faster and my laptop can handle them faster. Its all horses for courses

 

[Johnathan Aulabaugh]

I know there are many different ways to learn, and I'm one of the ones that need someone showing me the how's and the why's. I'm a visual learner. I had Lightroom, and couldn't figure it out either! Oh some things I can do........just not the right things that I need it to do. I just need to find someone that lives near me to help me with the program I have.
Not everyone shares the same opinion of HAVING to shoot RAW. Jpeg works for me, for what I use my photography for. Shooting jpeg doesn't make me any less of a photographer than those who choose to shoot RAW.

It does not make you any less of a photographer but it does severely limit your ability in post processing. I mean we all try, or should try, to get it right in camera. Sometimes thats not always possible. Lightroom screws with my head to. I have been trying to figure it out for a week now to see if I like it over my current system. So far I am unimpressed. CS w/ bridge does a great job for me.

 

[Eduard]

I know there are many different ways to learn, and I'm one of the ones that need someone showing me the how's and the why's. I'm a visual learner.

Jack: When I was first learning Lightroom I used two different methods. The combination worked very well. The first was Adobe's "Classroom In A Book" series. They are incredibly well done. The other was Colin Smith's Lightroom 3 for Digital Photographers DVD. I can't say enough about the LR2 version.

 

[fotojack]

Thanks, guys. I appreciate all the comments and good tips (I may just put some of those tips to good use). Maybe someday I'll wrap my head around one of those programs, but for now, jpeg and Irfanview does the trick for me.

 

[Iman60]

I shoot in RAW only. This allows me to have an original file to go back to if I have run it thru photoshop and screwed it up. It also allows me to convert to BW etc. More latitude in post production is also a huge plus for me.

 

[westmill]

I shoot whatever I think is right for the job at hand. I often shoot JPG for studio portraits as Raw offers little advantage
here. I shall be covering the Grand National horse race this sat. I shall certainly be shooting JPG for that.
High shooting speed and press office ten miniutes later lol.
I have CS4 and Capture NX2 for processing. I use Capture NX2 mostly, especialy for RAW files.
I genraly shoot an average of something in the region of 2000 pics a wk. Thats a lot of edditing !
I find using Capture NX2, twice as fast as using CS4 so I highly recomend it.

 

[RickSawThat]

I use the setting that gives me a RAW and JPEG file. For the Project 365 I mostly use the JPEG's and do a quick PP. If I'm going to print the shot I will go back and work with the RAW file to get the most out of it as I can. As most of you know the majority of my work ends up in B&W. I do download and save my pics on a separate hard drive every few days and then format the SD card to start again. I have 3 or 4 16GB SD cards but it seems I just keep using the same one over and over.

For travel I do use multiple cards but bring a computer and external HD if possible and do double backups since I know I'll most likely never be in those exact same places again.