Using RAW mode?

[Spinning]

I have been reading...looking at the great tutorial that was added to here...When is the best time to use this? Just for those artistic type shots? Would I want to use it if I am just taking pictures of the kids?
If you shoot in this mode you then need to do a lot of editing once it is down loaded?

[unclebrudy]

Shooting RAW allows you to get an exact representation of what your camera's CCD sensor captures, without any in-camera processing, such as .jpg compression algorithms, demosaicing, sharpening, saturation adjustments, etc.

This gives you complete control over the final image- you decide the saturation, desired sharpness- essentially you can do all the editing your heart desires without sacrificing quality of your final output. (I'm sure you know this, but just in case: re-saving .jpg files deteriorates their quality every time you save.)

Be prepared though. RAW files are huge, so the storage implications on both your memory card and your editing computer must be factored in. Also, the manipulation of these big files are often time-consuming affairs and your computer better be up to snuff as far as computing power in order to ensure efficient handling of these files. I have a homebuilt desktop system with a modest Intel dual-core processor and 4gb of RAM as well as my laptop which is a single-core 1.86GHz Pentium M with 2gb of RAM, and while at home I can work on RAW files all day, I get tired of the lag (10 seconds to open each RAW file, making image tweaks and having to wait a few seconds to see the change reflected on screen, etc.) on my laptop after an hour or so. But that is also entirely dependent on your patience level as well.

Don't be intimidated though! You can always batch-process a whole set of RAW files using a program like Adobe Camera Raw and more often than not, the .jpg files that are produced are superior to what the camera produces.

So to answer your question, I just think of the way I shoot. When my daughter is playing with her cousins at the park or something after school, I already know that these pics are destined for the online family photo gallery for sharing with the in-laws or are never going to be printed out larger than 4x6. The camera's .jpg processing would more than suffice in these types of situations, because you get punchy colors and low noise out of the camera without any additional work on your part. As Paul mentioned in his tutorial, you may want to set in-camera sharpening to "LOW" just so you have that extra leeway in the event you do need to do some post-processing.

When my daughter graduates (yikes!) or some other important family event, I'd definitely shoot RAW so I can have a gigantic file that I can manipulate and produce into a great photo that could stand up to criticism when enlarged to something like 8x10 or even larger. It would behoove you to also shoot RAW when shooting landscapes or anything with intricate detail because then you're guaranteed not to lose any of the fine highlight/shadow nuances and textures that often get smudged because of noise reduction and the camera's contrast tone curve during processing. Check out this (http://flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=374270712&size=o) picture I took of a fountain at Downtown Disney. Water was running over the tiny tile mosaic patterns and that made it all the more difficult to actually get a clear shot of them. You can see this exacerbated in the further perspectives of the tiles, as they get blurrier and smudged, especially where the lights were casting shadows, I lost almost all tile detail. Still, it's a nice picture (IMO, of course.:D ) and all I had to do was sharpen it a bit in Photoshop, so you can see that you can get great pictures without RAW. Had this been a photo I planned on entering into a contest, or one that I wanted to print large, I could've shot it in RAW and teased tons more detail out of it. Another situation to shoot RAW are in very low light shots in which the s6000 tends to smudge all fine detail because of noise reduction.

So to sum it all up: Shoot RAW when you want uncompromising detail and open ended options after the fact, and shoot .jpg for your everyday great-pictures-out-of-the-camera type shots.

Oh, and about the "Chrome" setting. I find it tends to make my family look sunburnt, especially for indoor portraits, but I use it for flower macros and things where I want punchy colors without having to post process much. I tend to stay away from it though. Take this set for instance: chrome (http://flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=379408831&context=photostream&size=o) and standard. (http://flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=379408769&size=o) I think Catalina looks a hell of a lot nicer and more natural in the second one, and I can assure you the sky did not look like it does in the first one.

Hope that helps a little.

Man, I talk too much.

-Brian

[DavidNJ]

I find that RAW helps a lot in low light situations. However, you give up exposure bracketing and the wait while saving is huge. I haven't timed it but it feels like 10 seconds. So if you need to should multiple shots quickly, RAW is not a solution.

But in a dark environment, the grain in much more even in RAW. As a result the PC-based noise reduction (I use NeatImage but Noiseware was my second choice) does a much better job.

David

[Ray999]

I'll shoot RAW when I:

1) get sufficient memory to store RAW images
2) don't mind to spend time for PP
3) can wait for 4-5 seconds to take another shot
4) enjoy/need high quality large output, e.g. on screen 100% display

In fact, original JPEG image from camera is already very nice for printputs up to 8"x12", RAW image process might not make noticeable difference in this range.

To certain extent, RAW image processing is a kind of hobbit to me now.

[flippedgazelle]

Kind of a "hobbit" to you? Overdosing on LoTR? :D

Sometimes shooting RAW is the only way to get a photo. I took several shots of my brother's Himalayan cat last night in low indoor light, at ISO 1600, and RAW was the only way to get a decent pic.

RAW process can be very noticeable, even in computer monitor-sized photos.

P.S. Brian, don't worry, you don't talk too much!

[P_Schneider]

Usually the only time I don't shoot raw is when I want to use the high speed shooting function of the camera. Otherwise I always shoot raw, it's so much easier to make up for mistakes in exposure and stuff like that when you have the negative to work with.