Photo tips for watery bloggers -- shooting RAW

To contact us Click HERE
There is an ongoing debate in photo circles of whether to shoot directly to JPG and let the camera do all the work, or shoot to RAW and do all the work yourself in post-processing.  The straight-to-JPG route is undeniably fast and convenient, while the straight-to-RAW route is much more time consuming but can deliver images that are superior in every way.

Here is an example of what can be done with a RAW image:


I exposed the image above for the sky and didn't want any of the sunset to be blown out, knowing that I was going to be doing a lot of post-processing on the image once I got it back home.  But as plain untouched straight-out-of-the-camera images go, it's pretty unimpressive.

And this is what it looks like after post-processing:


This is the same single image.  No multiple-image HDR tricks.  What I've done here is the modern day equivalent of simply dodging and burning in a darkroom, performed electronically rather than with chemicals.