Member-only story
Shooting RAW is a great thing, provided you know how to handle it when it comes to the editing.
When you ask for tips to improve your photography in an online forum (social media for example) one of the most commonly said things is “shoot RAW” or “make sure you’re shooting RAW”. It’s something that many more advanced photographers will tell you absolutely has to be done to get the best out of your camera/photos.
For new photographers or photographers who have never shot RAW before, it can be a source of confusion and concern. There are good reasons to shoot RAW, as long as you also accept that it will mean more time editing.
Here are some tips that you might find helpful.
#1 — Don’t trust the preview
When shooting RAW, you’re capturing the RAW sensor data from the camera that is organized into a digital file that can be interpreted by editing software into a visible image. BUT, that is a lot of processing to expect the camera body to do, and for reasons, wouldn’t look great when previewed on the camera LCD.
So, in order to give you a preview of the image which is visible on the back of the camera, the camera stores the RAW information along with a processed version of it that is based on the chosen image profile set at the time.
