Laura Vegas

i keep reading about shooting pictures in the "raw" format on the camera. i heard there’s no reason to be afraid of doing it. i heard it’s great for being able to edit everything … fixing things like exposure and white balance if you happen to not get it right from the start. i heard it’s better to have those "raw" files (even though they are absolutely huge!) … because the jpegs loose information every time you open them or save them or whatever it is. and yet i was scared to try it. maybe because it sounded complicated. maybe because it involves converting them from "raw" to "tiffs" to "jpegs" … all sounds confusing and foreign to me.

but today i switched over the setting on my camera to shoot "raw + jpeg". now i figured from what little info was in my manual … that i would basically have 2 files for every picture that i took. the "raw image" and then also a "jpeg image". and i thought they would be exactly the same image … just different file sizes and that one of them would have more options when it came to editing, have to opened first in another program, etc.

but i didn’t realize that the same image would look so different straight out of the camera. the first picture is my "jpeg image" … notice how much darker it is. the second one is the "raw image" … so much closer to what i actually see on my screen on the back of my camera. i didn’t actually do anything to either one of these pictures. normally i would take that first picture and edit it until it looked slightly like the second one.  i guess i saved myself some time … although i can still do some editing on the second pic … not saying it’s technically perfect.

i’ve been doing some reading over on the photo boards about this whole "raw" thing, so i’m sure i’ll figure it out eventually. but if anyone else shoots in raw and has any tips, i’d totally appreciate it. do they normally look that much different than what a normal jpeg would like? just seems strange to me. could be my settings i had it on too. forgot i had played with my flash buttons yesterday and forgot to change them back … sounds like me, right?!?! lol!

i’ll keep playing with it. gotta give ady her props too … she’s my new favorite model! the big kids just run from me. but she can’t get away and isn’t old enough to figure it out i guess. hope jenn doesn’t mind getting tons of photos of her … because everything i’ve taken in january has been of ady! lol! and doesn’t she looks so snuggly in her sweater!