PS Elements 6 or 7 . . . RAW?

[Steve Randles]

A few years ago I was out for the day watching some rally cars, I was lazy and shot is "Sport" mode (JPEG). I posted some on one particular forum and after a couple of days I had an email for a magazine who wanted to publish them. They where quite unassuming shots, they wanted three of the six I posted, and only one had a car in it as they other two where crowd shots. They where ok for web/general use but no good for the magazine as they wanted the higher res of RAWS or tiffs from RAWS....I lost the sale.

 

This would have been for national magazine usage and worth literally hundreds of pounds for three unassuming photo's of a crowd at an event, there would have been enough money to buy a new camera or several new lens. There are many photo's of Rally cars flying around a forest or over jumps, not so many of the actual crowds or photos that capture the day well enough to be used in a natioanl magazine/publication.

 

This is why I shoot exclusively in RAW now, and advise others to do the same.

 

Steve...

[Sutton Warrior]

A few years ago I was out for the day watching some rally cars, I was lazy and shot is "Sport" mode (JPEG). I posted some on one particular forum and after a couple of days I had an email for a magazine who wanted to publish them. They where quite unassuming shots, they wanted three of the six I posted, and only one had a car in it as they other two where crowd shots. They where ok for web/general use but no good for the magazine as they wanted the higher res of RAWS or tiffs from RAWS....I lost the sale.

 

This would have been for national magazine usage and worth literally hundreds of pounds for three unassuming photo's of a crowd at an event, there would have been enough money to buy a new camera or several new lens. There are many photo's of Rally cars flying around a forest or over jumps, not so many of the actual crowds or photos that capture the day well enough to be used in a natioanl magazine/publication.

 

This is why I shoot exclusively in RAW now, and advise others to do the same.

 

Steve...

 

Point taken Steve, I have spent the last hour or so, cleaning up my computer, unistalling Nikon NX in particular, and removing all the little cache references to NX . . . what a change The Adobe plugins now work in a logical way, I can make adjustments to a picture in its RAW file state, it then gives me the option to open in 'Elements 7' to make crop and size changes etc. The head is spinning a bit at the mo., but its a transformation from the frustrations I have been looking at over the past few days.

 

Looks like its going to be worth while stiking with it a little more intensly, the ball of string has only a few nots in it now

 

A question one must ask, I have put it forward before . . . "if I shoot in RAW, make adjustments, then convert to JPEG, adust the picture size to the competition requirements, is that picture leagal in the competition"? I have used and taken advantage of the improved picture quality of RAW, although the final submision is JPEG. An old chestnut, but one that still rangles un resolved in my mind, especialy as it looks like I might be going this rout in the not to distant future.

 

As for using 'Elements 7', I have stated and do prefer 'v5' as a presentation . . . ? However, if thats what it takes, I will have to get used to 'Elements 7' wont I 'all in a days work' as they say, 'onwards and up wards' . . .

 

Roll on my 10 days Christmas/New Year holiday; photography, fhishing, January sales shoping, and my Hazel is making great progress after her op, to good realy!! having trouble keeping her 'down'

 

SW

[Steve Randles]

If conversion from RAW files was not allowed...then there would be no competition at all. Without exception ALL digital cameras take the photo in RAW mode, its just that some then process it and compress it to jpeg before the user has downloaded it to their PC/MAC, some cameras go a little further than that and can set sharpening and other variables such as tone...not forgetting of course whitebalance.

 

Some cameras allow the uncompressed RAW file to be downloaded which in mine and many users opinions is the better option, any editing I do in either adobe RAW or Photoshop is minimal, I still prefer to get it correct "in camera"...even cropping is done at the composition stage by either zooming in or out or by walking closer/further away. Only time I crop is if its unavoidable, for example the following Photo would have looked odd with a full width landscape photo and the extra bits of cave either side of it, which incidentally would have just been black space. So it was cropped in Photoshop.

 

 

Go with the elements 7 I say, there is very little knowledge needed to use it and resize photo's or do a few basic edits, depending of course...on the photo.

 

Steve...

[Sutton Warrior]

Thanks for the reply Steve, I feel happy now to continue with my faltering steps into the world of RAW. I agree with you on the minimum of PhotoShoping, although I do like to crop!!! more experiance and a little more time spent framing me thinks

 

SW

[Sutton Warrior]

Hay Ho I got it wrong, I can shoot RAW with three levels of JPEG; . . . RAW + JAPEG fine, normal or basic No excuse now, here we go!!!!

 

Gona eat SD cards, at 109 shots per 2GB!! a couple of extra cards needed me thinks

 

O'well, no excuse to upgrade to a D300 now . . .

 

SW

 

PS, 2 new SD cards from FleeBay @ £16 a pop, inc., HC card reader, SanDisk Extreem III 4GB, getting the bit beetween the teeth

Edited December 20, 2008 by Sutton Warrior

[Sutton Warrior]

You should read what 'Ken Rockwell' has to say about RAW . . . phew . . . follow his links, he seems to be able to back it up as well

 

Not changing my stance, but if his name was 'Billy Graham', there would be 'a lot leaving their seats and going to the front' . . .

 

SW