Give your photos the professional treatment
Each month, we delve into the world of your camera’s menu—those cryptic settings beyond AUTO mode that can change the way you take pictures. This month, we’re tackling RAW, a method of creating images that are precisely corrected for white balance, tint, contrast, and other elements.
Professional photographers often shoot in RAW because they can make the lighting, exposure, and colour balance perfect afterwards. Today, good quality photo editing software is readily available, which means anyone with a dSLR can shoot images in RAW and give them the professional treatment before printing.
What is RAW?
Your camera gives you the option of saving your images in several formats. Most of us save in jpeg, but dSLR cameras also allow you to save in RAW. And if you’ve ventured into unknown territory and taken shots in RAW, you were likely blown away by two things: the massive size of the image, which can easily run 8 to 10 MB, and the dull, flat image quality.
To understand RAW images, let’s first think about how a camera saves a jpeg image.
- The sensor picks up an enormous amount of information when you press the shutter—an 8 megapixel camera will capture about 8 MB of information.
- The camera’s internal software calculates white balance, looks for redundant information, sharpens the image, corrects the lighting, adjusts the tint.
- The camera deletes unnecessary pixels, saving a fraction of the visual information.
- The resulting jpeg is relatively small, already processed, and ready to print.
A RAW file stops your camera from making visual decisions about your image. The result is all of the information, unprocessed, in one big file. RAW files are big because they contain all the bits the camera deletes out of a jpeg image; they seem flat and dull because they are unprocessed. But contained in that big file are all the tools to create a gorgeous, perfectly balanced photo.
What do you do with RAW files?
To handle your RAW files, you will need photo editing software. To start out, you may wish to download free photo editing software—a quick internet search will generate dozens of basic programs that can handle RAW files.
Each of these programs can auto correct your images. You can also tweak the different elements yourself, like sharpness, contrast, saturation, and tint. Let your creativity flow—the mood and feel of your photos can be enhanced in post production, bringing drama to already fantastic images.
When you are done experimenting with your RAW files, upload them to the London Drugs site and print out tests. This will give you a good idea about how your on-screen changes translate into print. London Drugs also provides our specific printer profiles so you can calibrate the colour on your screen to our machines. These are called “ICC Profiles”.
Intimidated about RAW? We’ll do it for you!
Our photolab accepts your unprocessed RAW files. We will analyze and correct your images for you, hand-inspecting each one to make sure it’s perfect. The result is truly gorgeous photos, perfected and printed by professionals.
For all of your photo questions, drop by the London Drugs Photolab. Our Camera Department, Computer Department, and Photolab work closely together to help you go from snapshot, to hard drive, to print, easily and effortlessly.
