Hi Some time ago there was a brief discussion on the merits of shooting in raw format. I thought I'd recount a recent example that might be of interest to people nearer the start of the digital learning curve?
I was recently asked to cover the AGM of a big local charity. It would seem that they had tried taking photos in previous years but they had never worked (?!?) The meeting was in a big school sports hall and was lit with loads of fluorescent lighting that looked more akin to high pressure sodium lighting in colour. They wanted plenty of crowd shots as well as the usual 'dignitaries', so firing off a huge flash during the meeting was not on. With shots of people coming in to the meeting as well (in daylight) I just left the White balance setting at auto. Almost all shots were in raw format, with a few indoor ones set at maximum quality JPEG (just to see how well they came out) The results were just as I expected, with a dull yellow caste to everything indoors. The raw files could be got to a pretty good colour balance using the sliders in the Adobe raw import (ACR) plugin. The Jpegs took some pretty aggressive curves to get close. The problems with the jpegs 8 bit/colour setting was quite apparent upon enlargement, with the hefty adjustments in the blue channel bringing out sensor noise in the blue. By using raw format I was able to defer any white balance settings until I was back at base (the auto WB setting just records the cameras estimate with the file in raw). It happened that once I'd got an optimal setting I was able to batch convert the indoor images. I still however had the raw files to produce custom adjustments for individual images that the client eventually decided to use. The client was pleased with the results, and realised why sometimes you do have to pay to get someone to come in and do it properly :-)) bye for now Keith Cooper Northlight Images http://northlight-images.co.uk Photography - Digital Imaging - Apple Mac Consultancy Tel +44 (0)116 291 9092 Mobile +44 (0)780 162 9397 =============================================================== GO TO http://www.prodig.org for ~ GUIDELINES ~ un/SUBSCRIBING ~ ITEMS for SALE
