going RAW (rawr like a tiger!)

This weekend I shot ,for the first time, in RAW.

I’m always confessing here. Oh well, my blog, my stories.

What is RAW? Well, basically, the way I understand it, is that RAW is the kind of picture format that allows you to control every aspect of the photo and gathers a bunch more data than a regular JPEG does. That’s the way I see it, but there are many more (and defined) explanations on the web. But I’ve never tried it. I was always intimidated by it. I felt like my work as JPEG’s was good, solid work and that working with RAW meant working more deeply with Photoshop (I use Elements 10) and that I wanted to be a photographer, not a Photoshop Expert.

Bah-ha-ha.

Yes, I do as much as I can in camera to get the picture right. I know about exposure, f-stops, shutter speed, how to make a picture blurry and pretty, how to make a picture sharp, colour, tone, intensity. All these little things to get an image to look in the camera the way it looks in your head.

But there have always been problem areas for me. Over-exposing white while trying to get skin tone right. Exposing a white dress properly next to a black suit. ‘Tis hard, you know.

And then I read about the Recovery Tool while working with Raw Images. O.M.G. (Yes, I said it). Love that button. Love it. It helps capture lost detail in the white, or that’s how I use it. I’m still trying my best to do it as best I can in-camera and only little edits outside of camera, but that Recovery Tool helps.

And it feels like the images are sharper. I was doing a bunch of different tricks to try to get my focus to be insanely sharp, which I like on certain occasions but it always felt like I was losing a lot of good shots to soft focus no matter what I was doing. I was even trying to manually focus, which is a huge pain in the ass when you wear glasses and can’t really trust your eyes.

So I’m happy. Very happy. Soooo happy. The kind of happy that needs repeat emphasis.

I’m slowly meeting all these goals I’ve set for myself (with photography) in 2012.

One day at a time, one session at a time.