Photography Workflow

Just under a month ago, I wrote about planning to change the way I use my camera a bit by starting to use the RAW file format as well as normal JPG.

Along the way, I got very lucky. I’d decided to use Phase One’s Capture One LE software to process the RAW files – I’d heard good things about it, and for starting to learn about RAW processing, it seemed like a good deal for a fairly decent price at about €99 + VAT. At the same time, because of the extra memory requirements (in the camera) for processing RAW and JPG, I ordered a couple of SanDisk 2Gb Extreme III CompactFlash memory cards (I could’ve got one 4Gb card, but it was actually more expensive than two 2Gb cards) and they came with a promotion for CaptureOne LE to get it for free. So I spent £20 to get a licensed copy of Capture One LE instead of €99. Bonus.

So anyway, I got started using RAW captures as well, and the first real time of using them was at my parent’s 40th Anniversary, and it was a life-saver. The room they had the reception in, while lovely, was a lighting nightmare – lots of windows with daylight blazing in, and thus a large amount of really harsh light coming in.

Looking at the JPG results, the photos are OK, but there’s a lot of glare, dodgy contrasts and so on. The results would’ve been OK, but nothing really worth printing or using.

By contrast, the RAW files can be adjusted on the computer, and I can change the exposure, contrast, colour balance (not overly necessary in this case, but still) as well as doing all the cropping, sharpening etc. that might prove necessary. And it’s meant that I’ve been able to send my parents some photos from the event that they’re really pleased with, and want more copies of to send around.

If it had been an event I were getting paid for, RAW and Capture One would have been the difference between an impressed and happy customer and one who wondered if they could’ve gone elsewhere and got better results.