Shooting RAW

[Mr Happy]

I've tried shooting in raw a few times, but every time I've tried to process the image in PS, it comes out as near as dammit black and unviewable.

Any hints or tips? How do you get good results from raw? Is it down to the lighting (and as such is it pointless shooting raw indoors)?

[jurbie]

If your shots are coming out almost black then that suggests your exposure is way off and nothing at all to do with you shooting RAW. There is no trick to shooting RAW it's just another way of creating an image file.

[Mr Happy]

I thought raw totally got rid of any on-device processing and left it all up to the end user? I'll have a play. I will admit, I've only played with shooting raw indoors, in which case the light may not be as good as it could be - I'll see about shooting outdoors.

[S13_Alan]

They certainly should not come out like that, and being indoors has no bearing on it. If you are getting an exposure to come out ok in jpeg mode then RAW should (I'd hope obviously) be fine also with the same light and settings.

As to RAW I didn't really understand what the fuss was about to begin with either and a criticism of I've seen of RAW is that it needs tweaked to look good, and tend to be very flat straight out the camera because no image processing is applied.

On the other hand once you give it a go and figure out how to make the best from it, it really really works and is totally worth it. The extra detail you can get in the shadows and highlights that otherwise would have been thrown away can totally make an otherwise uninspiring photo, and it gives you a bit more room for error.

I use Lightroom so can't say exactly what you may have done to get them dark but hopefully someone else can help on that part.... but I can't recommend LR highly enough if ever you were to consider it.

This was taken in RAW on my S95, and there's just no way I would have got this image to turn out had I shot it in jpeg mode for example. I would have lost loads of detail in the clouds I think. - http://ajl959.com/tinto.jpg

[kybo]

The image is PS should open as it looked from your camera's screen - did the in-camera review show the image as black?

If the image looked OK on the camera can you tell us what processing you did in PS?

This will help the experts point you in the right direction.

Thanks,
Scott

Edited by kybo on Sunday 12th February 15:55

[Mr Happy]

I don't have the image anymore unfortunately as I deleted it as a lost cause. It didn't show as black on the display however.

I'll shoot some more and see what happens, if it comes out unviewable again I'll post up what I come out with.

Thanks

[Simpo Two]

If the JPG is OK and the equivalent RAW is black, I suspect your version of PS needs updating, or a plugin or summink, for your make of camera.