Often I like to show my clients a couple of their photos SOOC (Straight out of camera) so they can see what their poses looked like. I have to be honest though, every time I do it, I’m afraid that they’ll say “it’s dark”, “the colour is weird” or some other variation. So I wanted to blog a little about the differences between shooting in RAW vs JPEG, as well as show an example of a RAW image vs a retouched image. This may also help potential clients understand that the time your photographer puts in isn’t limited to just the shoot!
First off, to understand the importance of post processing, you have to understand what a jpeg is as opposed to a RAW photo. The easiest way to describe RAW is to think of the old days – film. Your RAW photos are digital film. They camera doesn’t make any colour corrections (temperature) or add any blacks, fill light, contrast etc. It’s a straight picture exactly as it’s seen. That being said, the beautiful thing about RAW photos is that all the information is captured at the time of the photo. Small variations in exposure, contrast and all that can be added in later in post processing. This is a wonderful tool for anyone thats shooting in an ever changing lighting condition – because those moments don’t wait for you to adjust your camera settings!
JPEGs are what the majority of point and shoot camera’s take. They take a picture, make the colour pop a bit, adjust to the temperature the camera thinks is appropriate, add contrast, fill light etc. They are pictures that are taken and printable. They don’t allow for the finesse that you can achieve post processing a RAW image, but they can be just as beautiful! By comparison, a jpeg image from my camera at 100% can be anywhere from 5-15mb, a raw image hits 25mb – each picture. Thats a whole lot more data to be held in one photo!
Next, I wanted to show you a photo that is SOOC vs Retouched. The SOOC photo is a little on the blue side, because it was a shady day. There’s very little contrast in the photo, certain area’s are a little too dark and I could up the exposure just a bit. I added some warmth, put some blacks and fill light in, and adjusted the contrast. I also removed some blemishes on the little one’s face and masked out some of the magenta that all babies have in their skin. The first photo is still a beautiful photo, but the retouched image is striking 🙂
Hopefully this helps you better understand what goes on after the shoot, and maybe you have a little better understanding of the difference between JPEG and RAW images! If anyone would like a short tutorial on any of the editing I mentioned, please don’t hesitate to post your questions! I’m considering adding a ‘photoshop/lightroom tutorial” to my weekly or bi-weekly blogs for anyone that may be interested! Until then, thanks for reading!
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