| ▲ | Zak 11 days ago | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The main reason people shoot raw is to have more creative control over the final product. A simple example is white balance. The sensor doesn't know anything about it, but typical postprocessing makes both a 2700K incandescent and a 5700K strobe look white. A photographer might prefer to make the incandescent lights look more yellow. There's a white balance setting in the camera to do that when taking the picture, but it's a lot easier to get it perfect later in front of a large color-calibrated display than in the field. Another example is dealing with a scene containing a lot of dynamic range, such as direct sunlight and dark shadows. The camera's sensor can capture a greater range of brightness than a computer screen can display or a printer can represent, so a photographer might prefer to delay decisions about what's dark grey with some details and what's clipped to black. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ▲ | grandempire 11 days ago | parent | next [-] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
?? This was not asked. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ▲ | harrall 11 days ago | parent | prev [-] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Everything you said is supported by regular image formats. You can adjust white balance of any photo and you think image formats are only limited to 16-bit and sRGB? That’s not why we use RAW. It’s partly because (1) if you used Adobe RGB or Rec. 709 on a JPEG, a lot of people would screw it up, (2) you get a little extra raw data from the pre-filtering of Bayer, X-Trans, etc. data, (3) it’s less development work for camera manufacturers, and (4) partly historical. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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