RAW pics

[Abubilla]

January 14, 2013 at 12:52 am

Hi all,

I was playing around with my new camera and accidently left it on to take RAW photos. I didn’t realise this until I came home to check my photos on my pc. Can anyone please advise me on an easy way to convert these? I am not that pc-minded, so probably best to keep it fairly basic. I have occassionally used photoshop but more for fun reasons.

Thanks. :D

[martinkingphotos]

January 14, 2013 at 12:54 pm

Hi – you could download and install a free program called Faststone Image Viewer. In the Tools section there is a facility to
batch convert a number of raw files to jpg. Alternatively, photoshop as you mentioned.
Hope this helps.
Martin.

[Abubilla]

January 15, 2013 at 1:25 am

Thanks for the reply Martin,

I have messed around with a few programs before but solely for fun. That’s good to know that I can ‘batch convert’ my photos as I don’t think I have the patience to go too much into it. It all just seems like creating more ‘work’ for me. Maybe when my photography improves a bit more I might be encouraged. I suppose the disc that was supplied with my canon camera will do the same thing – Digital Photo Professional?

I was just wondering another thing. I know RAW photos are basically photos which have not been ‘processed’ yet, a bit like a negative in film photography. However, what I was also wondering is, what is the purpose of them? They seem, to me, to defeat the purpose of photography if you are can ‘manipulate’ them to a ‘false’ image. Maybe I am wrong there. And can’t we also ‘manipulate’ our jpeg images too so what difference does it make? And are they the same as HDR? So many questions. So confusing for me…..

Thanks
Abubilla

[miki g]

January 15, 2013 at 5:09 am

RAW files are basically uncompressed & contain all of the data that the sensor received when you took the shot. The Jpegs will lose some data (detail) when processed & will lose even more data everytime you alter & save it. HDR are a number of exposures that have been blended together to give detail in the highlight & shadow areas, but the HDR file will not be a RAW file.

[Anonymous]

January 15, 2013 at 9:58 am

What are you shooting with Ab’
Surely there was free software that came with your purchase?

[Abubilla]

January 15, 2013 at 9:07 pm

Thanks lads,

Ah, I think I understand the RAW and HDR photos a bit better now. Nice explaination. Gave me a bit more insight into it. Still not fully there, but will get there in time. Thanks Miki.

Yeah John17, as mentioned above, the camera (Canon 650D) came with a CD which I have downloaded onto my PC. It’s called ‘Digital Photo Professional’. But I was curious whether this is basically the same as Photoshop and others? Are they all much the same?

Thanks for your input all.

[Anonymous]

January 16, 2013 at 1:07 pm

It’s not the same as photoshop but it has good editing tools.
Keep shooting in RAW though as it gives you better editing options.

[Abubilla]

January 27, 2013 at 8:30 pm

Thanks John, but I don’t know enough about the editing stuff yet so, for now, I think I’ll leave shooting in RAW until after I get my head completely around it. :oops: