First Photography Workshop- The RAW File and Using Smart Objects

This first photography workshop began by covering the use of RAW file in photography, and how we can use it to push our photographs even further in post-production. We talked about the use of jpegs vs the use of raw files, and then we were told to go and take some photographs in jpeg and raw in order to try and work with both in photoshop and see what our results would be.

We were told to try and use adjustment layers to recover our photographs in jpeg, which were purposefully shot using the wrong light balance settings. This was the result:

Although this is slightly better than the original image, the blue of the tungsten lighting setting really shows through. Also the darks are far too dark.

When we started editing our photographs in Photoshop, we were confronted by the camera Raw menu: 

This was explained to us as almost like being back behind the camera again. You can change your white balance settings, and many other features in order to improve the look of your photograph. The lecturer told us to use the histogram to see how much information we are getting, and what we are doing to our photographs when we change certain settings.

This second image, which was edited using camera raw in Photoshop shows a staggering difference between the two, and demonstrates clearly how much better shooting in Raw is, compared with jpeg.