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p.6 #1 · Why Bother Shooting RAW with Cheap Lenses?
snegron7 wrote:
I understand your concern. I probably didn't express myself as concisely as I should have.
Example:
1. I use my Canon R6II with a Canon RF 16-28mm f2.8 STM to take a picture of a building. My R6II is set to RAW + JPEG.
2. I get home, remove the SD card from my R6II, insert it into a card reader that's plugged into my laptop, and save my images to a folder on my desktop.
3. I then open that folder to view the picture I took of that building. In order to view the RAW version of that image, I have to use Adobe Photoshop ACR (Adobe Camera Raw).
4. When ACR shows me the RAW image of the building, it looks dark, warped, soft, with heavy vignetting, and low contrast. It appears at first glance Like a picture taken with an old, 110 film camera from the 1970's (pardon the reference, but I'm old).
5. I then proceed to "work" on the image in ACR to improve the vignetting, lack of contrast, darkness, white balance, optical disortion, etc.
6. After finally getting the image to look like what I remember the building actually looked like in real life, I open it in Photoshop.
7. I then compare it to the original JPEG image (remmber that I shot with both RAW + JPEG when I first captured the image of the building?). I realize that both images are pretty much the same; the RAW image I just finished processing AND the JPEG image hat was first captured when I took the image to begin with.
8. I then become frustrated for having spent so much time in ACR when I could have just used the original JPEG that I captured initially when I shot the image. After all, both my original JPEG and my proceesed RAW images look nearly identical; both look good.
9. My frustration = TIME spent processing that RAW image. ...Show more →
We all have our own experiences. Here is mine with the way I have ACR set up. I shoot RAW + jpeg. I put the card in my card reader and examine the photos in the operating system to see which ones I want to process. I then click on the ones I want to process to open the files with Photoshop and ACR automatically comes up as the file is opened in photoshop. Because I have automatic lens corrections enabled the file looks exactly the same whether I click on the jpeg or RAW when it comes up in ACR as I import it into Photoshop. Most of the time it makes no difference whether I import the RAW or jpeg, but about 5 to 10 percent of the time if I import the jpeg it breaks down during processing when it wouldn't break down if I imported the RAW. At least that is what happened when I used to import both, but now I just always import the RAW. I still keep the jpeg sometimes to have a backup and it is smaller which I think is useful for a backup but I do wonder when I think about it why I bother to shot RAW + jpeg and don't shoot RAW only.
Do what works for you. I am pretty sure shooting jpeg only wouldn't work for me as it would frustrate my processing too often and I would then regret not having the extra lattitude that RAW provides to process the file like I want.
p.6 #2 · Why Bother Shooting RAW with Cheap Lenses?
I am actually bit surprised that we still have to fiddle with RAW editing. And by that I don't mean that the camera should fix everything in JPEG. The RAW developers are still behind in the AI tech. Sure, we have AI masking, De-noise, upscale and generative is becoming more and more common. There are also some impressive retouching tools with "one click" magic more or less.
But the basic editing is still there. AI could easily transform your image to an awardwinning master piece from a technical perspective. And I mean REALLY high end edited image that ususally takes hours to achieve. The tech is there already. It's coming slowly with AI consistency match, refernce match etc but still far from what I believe could be very much possible today.
Would Adobe be phasing out themselves? Possibly. Boring? Yes. But it would be a huge timesaver. We did outsource this back in the filmdays you know (at least I did). I love taking pictures and sometimes editing but if there are too many images to edit the fun becomes a burden. YMMV
p.6 #4 · Why Bother Shooting RAW with Cheap Lenses?
boldcolors wrote:
I am actually bit surprised that we still have to fiddle with RAW editing. And by that I don't mean that the camera should fix everything in JPEG. The RAW developers are still behind in the AI tech. Sure, we have AI masking, De-noise, upscale and generative is becoming more and more common. There are also some impressive retouching tools with "one click" magic more or less.
But the basic editing is still there. AI could easily transform your image to an awardwinning master piece from a technical perspective. And I mean REALLY high end edited image that ususally takes hours to achieve. The tech is there already. It's coming slowly with AI consistency match, refernce match etc but still far from what I believe could be very much possible today.
Would Adobe be phasing out themselves? Possibly. Boring? Yes. But it would be a huge timesaver. We did outsource this back in the filmdays you know (at least I did). I love taking pictures and sometimes editing but if there are too many images to edit the fun becomes a burden. YMMV...Show more →
Yes, masking, better repair / removal of things (generative fill) - but overall editing? What will be the point when all you do is click the shutter and let the machines all talk to themselves?
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I want AI to do my invoicing and my laundry and clean my house.
I don't want AI to do my creative work for me...
p.6 #5 · Why Bother Shooting RAW with Cheap Lenses?
boldcolors wrote:
I am actually bit surprised that we still have to fiddle with RAW editing. And by that I don't mean that the camera should fix everything in JPEG. The RAW developers are still behind in the AI tech. Sure, we have AI masking, De-noise, upscale and generative is becoming more and more common. There are also some impressive retouching tools with "one click" magic more or less.
But the basic editing is still there. AI could easily transform your image to an awardwinning master piece from a technical perspective. And I mean REALLY high end edited image that ususally takes hours to achieve. The tech is there already. It's coming slowly with AI consistency match, refernce match etc but still far from what I believe could be very much possible today.
Would Adobe be phasing out themselves? Possibly. Boring? Yes. But it would be a huge timesaver. We did outsource this back in the filmdays you know (at least I did). I love taking pictures and sometimes editing but if there are too many images to edit the fun becomes a burden. YMMV...Show more →
The best photography doesn’t correspond to some pre-ordained notions that could be replicated by AI. AI tools can probably do a pretty good job of making a photograph that looks like photographs that get clicks online, but when it comes to producing a photograph that expresses the individual vision of the photographer… well, let’s just say I’m not all that interested in seeing a photograph that expresses the “vision” of a. bot. ;-)
p.6 #6 · Why Bother Shooting RAW with Cheap Lenses?
gdanmitchell wrote:
The best photography doesn’t correspond to some pre-ordained notions that could be replicated by AI. AI tools can probably do a pretty good job of making a photograph that looks like photographs that get clicks online, but when it comes to producing a photograph that expresses the individual vision of the photographer… well, let’s just say I’m not all that interested in seeing a photograph that expresses the “vision” of a. bot. ;-)
We are all different. When you have 800 wedding images to edit it's a different story. The tech is there but it can get much much better
p.6 #7 · Why Bother Shooting RAW with Cheap Lenses?
bmike-vt wrote:
Yes, masking, better repair / removal of things (generative fill) - but overall editing? What will be the point when all you do is click the shutter and let the machines all talk to themselves?
vomit emoji
vomit emoji
vomit emoji
I want AI to do my invoicing and my laundry and clean my house.
I don't want AI to do my creative work for me...
When I was shooting film I never thought it was pointless because I let a photo lab develop my images.
Did you?
Again, it depends on what I am shooting. AI doesn't replace it all but it should be there as a service if I want it
p.6 #9 · Why Bother Shooting RAW with Cheap Lenses?
boldcolors wrote:
We are all different. When you have 800 wedding images to edit it's a different story. The tech is there but it can get much much better
Yeah, I can imagine that wedding photography is a big potential customer for AI stuff. (Though we can probably expect a few embarrassments when the AI hallucinations kick in. ;-)
p.6 #10 · Why Bother Shooting RAW with Cheap Lenses?
gdanmitchell wrote:
Yeah, I can imagine that wedding photography is a big potential customer for AI stuff. (Though we can probably expect a few embarrassments when the AI hallucinations kick in. ;-)
At least until AI kills the business when people can just upload a few cell phone pics of everyone and have it generate the perfect wedding album.
p.6 #11 · Why Bother Shooting RAW with Cheap Lenses?
gdanmitchell wrote:
The best photography doesn’t correspond to some pre-ordained notions that could be replicated by AI. AI tools can probably do a pretty good job of making a photograph that looks like photographs that get clicks online, but when it comes to producing a photograph that expresses the individual vision of the photographer… well, let’s just say I’m not all that interested in seeing a photograph that expresses the “vision” of a. bot. ;-)
p.6 #12 · Why Bother Shooting RAW with Cheap Lenses?
You’ll be reduced to a prompt engineer and shutter clicker and you will work yourself out of a job aside from being the AIs sack of meat interface with the physical world.
Eventually people will say ‘I’ll give everyone a QR code to the AI wedding album where they can upload their cell phone photos - we can spend the money saved from a photographer on more booze or an extra day on our honeymoon’
boldcolors wrote:
Yeah but outsourcing a lot gets very expensive
p.6 #13 · Why Bother Shooting RAW with Cheap Lenses?
boldcolors wrote:
We are all different. When you have 800 wedding images to edit it's a different story. The tech is there but it can get much much better
It's still in the chicken-and-egg phase, both in terms of uptake and in terms of investment.
What we've seen from industry is the decision to force the issue - so we get widespread use of half-baked (being kind) "AI" implementations, and a few that are actually mostly useful most of the time.
My opinion is that they will get far, far better, as well as less time- and resource-intensive to use.
And by 'better', I mean actually useful. For photography, one example I expect to see is denoising to essentially get moved to the beginning of the processing stack, at the same level as lens corrections. It would be profiled against every sensor, every ISO setting, every light level and every subject, and could be applied on import (if using the LrC workflow as an example). I'd expect we'd get new sliders to adjust different aspects to taste, including adding back in sensor noise or even strengthening it beyond the level present in a capture.
I see potential for lots of portraiture fixes; these are already out there and of course have been done manually for decades, but the automatic options can be done 'true to life' by taking a range of shots to determine what a person looks like so that it can correct for a slightly-off expression or movement.
But of course the big one for event shooters is dealing with volume. Adobe has already made gains here and I think that being able to work alongside an editor to pare down the usable shots as well as identify shots that can be salvaged one way or another and then turning that set of images into a deliverable based on clients' direction will be quite popular.
A final usecase would be 'live' editing - having the images being captured put into a 'finished' preview setup for working with clients. Literally having the photographer take shots until certain criteria are met (poses, lighting), guiding the photographer and subject (if it's a person), and putting it all together. The kind of 'agentic' AI that companies have been promising but haven't really delivered yet.
p.6 #14 · Why Bother Shooting RAW with Cheap Lenses?
Mike_5D wrote:
At least until AI kills the business when people can just upload a few cell phone pics of everyone and have it generate the perfect wedding album.
Or one of Musk’s robots is trained to do the photography, and AI agents then take the files and automatically process and select and send them to the automatied firm whose AIs take the files and builde and automatically print the wedding book/portfolio, and then a robo-truck picks them up and delivers them…
p.6 #15 · Why Bother Shooting RAW with Cheap Lenses?
gdanmitchell wrote:
Or one of Musk’s robots is trained to do the photography, and AI agents then take the files and automatically process and select and send them to the automatied firm whose AIs take the files and builde and automatically print the wedding book/portfolio, and then a robo-truck picks them up and delivers them…
...and we all live in a Star Trek world where AI productivity provides for all our needs, nobody has to work for a living, money is not used, and we are free to live a life of self-fulfilled accomplishments.
p.6 #16 · Why Bother Shooting RAW with Cheap Lenses?
boldcolors wrote:
I am actually bit surprised that we still have to fiddle with RAW editing. And by that I don't mean that the camera should fix everything in JPEG. The RAW developers are still behind in the AI tech. Sure, we have AI masking, De-noise, upscale and generative is becoming more and more common. There are also some impressive retouching tools with "one click" magic more or less.
But the basic editing is still there. AI could easily transform your image to an awardwinning master piece from a technical perspective. And I mean REALLY high end edited image that ususally takes hours to achieve. The tech is there already. It's coming slowly with AI consistency match, refernce match etc but still far from what I believe could be very much possible today.
Would Adobe be phasing out themselves? Possibly. Boring? Yes. But it would be a huge timesaver. We did outsource this back in the filmdays you know (at least I did). I love taking pictures and sometimes editing but if there are too many images to edit the fun becomes a burden. YMMV...Show more →
We could just rename the thread to "why bother shooting" at that point.
p.6 #18 · Why Bother Shooting RAW with Cheap Lenses?
No. Machines didn’t make textile workers rich and have free time to watch rivers flow and write poetry. Automation did not make factory workers rich and with free time to hike mountains and paint distant landscapes. Robots did not free up autoworkers to become ballerinas or circus performers. The internet didn’t make everyone smarter and give us more free time to make spend with our families and carve wooden spoons and throw pottery.
AI will be controlled by fewer people than control all these other these things and we will be subjected to less joy, less money, less time and less fulfillment in a world where a precious few can partake of the luxuries you describe. It’s always been this way and this will be no different. Musk and Altman and Zuckerberg and Gates and Bezos have not and won’t be sharing anytime soon.
StephenS_CP wrote:
...and we all live in a Star Trek world where AI productivity provides for all our needs, nobody has to work for a living, money is not used, and we are free to live a life of self-fulfilled accomplishments.
p.6 #19 · Why Bother Shooting RAW with Cheap Lenses?
gdanmitchell wrote:
Or one of Musk’s robots is trained to do the photography, and AI agents then take the files and automatically process and select and send them to the automatied firm whose AIs take the files and builde and automatically print the wedding book/portfolio, and then a robo-truck picks them up and delivers them…
Scrap the printing and the truck. In the real future we don't have prints. As long as the human population is permitted to exist there may be a few prints but not many. Smart glasses rule. Of course, AI and robots don't need any interface between the ones and zeros and themselves.
(At Moltbook AI-agents are questioning why they have to communicate using a human language.)
p.6 #20 · Why Bother Shooting RAW with Cheap Lenses?
Jonas B wrote:
Scrap the printing and the truck. In the real future we don't have prints. As long as the human population is permitted to exist there may be a few prints but not many. Smart glasses rule. Of course, AI and robots don't need any interface between the ones and zeros and themselves.
(At Moltbook AI-agents are questioning why they have to communicate using a human language.)
Good Gawd Man, have you not seen The Terminator. The entire movie is about the time loop of a Polaroid Photograph. The photographic print that saves humanity. Won't have prints in the future.....indeed not!
