Lightroom 2 Raw Workflow

A debate continues in the photography world. One that seems to never end. To be or not to be a Raw shooter. There’s a lot of deep emotion sometimes in Lightroom 2 raw workflow, and its understandable if you know the details behind the argument.

First, JPEG is a smaller file size. It allows you to process more images in the same amount of time raw files would consume. Think of it as a large JPEG being one crate of data, while a raw file is 3 crates. Now imagine you have to toss around those crates as you put them on your table for review. Wouldn’t it be nice to do only 1/3 of the work? That’s the idea.

The down side of these smaller files is that you loose much of the control on your image. JPEG’s hold 1/16th the data found compared to raw files. It’s easy to loose detail on tone variations like you might find in clouds in the sky, which would otherwise be easily recovered with a few development adjustments.

One of my biggest problems with shooting in JPEG is the presets onboard the camera.  In most cases, we have little control as to the sharpening, clipping, noise processing, & etc. that occurs on the fly as we shoot.  Since this processing happens before its downloaded, Lightroom doesn’t add any more presets until instructed.  Hence, raw is the only format that recieves automatic adjustments such as sharpening when the images are loaded:  prevents overkill.

Raw on the other hand will boost you up by capturing all the extra information that even our eyes don’t often see. Each raw channel picks up to 4096 levels to be recorded. You can image what that does for nighttime photography: subtle-tonals-r-us!

The down side is the file sizes themselves. Without processing in the camera, the raw files are huge. For me, we’re talking about 10+ MB per raw image. The files have the potential to slow down your computer, suck up your hard drive memory, burn up all of your compact flash cards, and eat DVD data discs like candy. I just shot a wedding and chewed up 10 GB of memory: ouch!

So, where do I stand?  I always shoot raw.  I’m addicted to the detail.  I can’t push myself to pass up on the ability to recover a unique shot that came by luck and timing.  I know that these recovered images stand less of a chance to impress high end clients, but in all reality most of us don’t focus on the likes of National Geographic all day long.  So for now, my Lightroom 2 raw workflow is going to stay with raw.  Heck, you know computers are just going to get faster and help us out in the long run.