Hello everybody!
Quite a striking title eh?
Don't worry, I don't have any scandal to reveal to you!
I always found it funny that many of you think that I'm a photoshop expert, a scholar photographer, and that I've always used raw, so I guess it would be constructive to let you know a few things:
1- Photography has always been a art that gives me the most absolute pleasure, be it outside while shooting, be it at home choosing which photo to submit, and fine-tuning it... it's an escape from work, from all the study I have to do, from the extremely demanding professional life I have... As such, I've always had an extreme resistance to approach photography in a more academic way, as it felt like I was doing "work" with it... I was never able to finish an entire technical photography book, I usually only look at the photos of the photographer's books I buy, I never read a post-processing book, I didn't read the classics (in photography, of course), I used a 3 megapixel compact camera for 2 years, a bridge camera for another 2, and only then I bought my dSLR. Photography gives me absolute peace and excitement at the same time, it's a natural process and in an ideal world I'd have been born with the perfect camera in my hands and all the technical knowledge needed to let myself simply create my images. Still, even though I prefer a free approach to photography, and considering my current position in this art, I do also know how to act professionally when I have to. Invitations, commissions, paid projects are appearing more and more, and I honour them with work and 100% dedication. 2- I only buy new gear when I feel that the old gear is currently limiting my output in terms of quality, instead of choosing gear that is well ahead of what I can do with it, hoping it will make me better. 3- I've always used Paint Shop Pro X to post-process my images, and I never used layers... I open one image, start editing edit, do a few saves in the process, and then finish it, be it in 10 minutes, be it in 2 hours. 4- I always used JPEG, quick, efficient, good quality, small size - only in the last months I started surrendering to RAW (more on that later)... 5- All that I've learned was by asking in forums, watching other people's works, commenting and receiving critiques on photosig.com, reading photography sites, and only a few individual chapters from the random book. 6- I make strong auto-criticism (without any suffering ) about some of the points above, and I don't think that they are the right way to evolve in the world of photography. I just need to feel free, this has led me to spend the most time taking photos, choosing them, opening them, experimenting, publishing and enjoying...
And this leads me to the next part of this journal...
RAW vs JPEG - a discovery
I always found RAW files extremely heavy, they made my CPU and hard drive bleed every time I tried to open one, the raw converters were extremely limited, and I always ended up doing everything directly in Paint Shop Pro. Besides that, by doing side-to-side comparisons, I saw that I could achieve what I wanted through jpeg editing, toning and sharpness wise. Everyone around me was shouting "RAW IS BETTER BECAUSE... YES", but my life as always been led by following what I believe in, and the things I believe in are usually those that I've witnessed with my eyes or mind... and this was not the case with RAW.
But time goes on... we get more and more passionate about what we do, we get more demanding with our own works, and we start looking for ways to improve our images. I had heard great things about the new photoshop CS4, and specially about CameraRaw 5.2... I had just bought my Apple Cinema 30 and upgraded my computer, and that was when I thought I should try it once more...
And then I discovered its power!
CameraRaw 5.2 adjustments are quite simply amazing, and I found that there are some things about raw that make it fully worth:
More information on each image, allowing bigger margin to do strong levels/contrast editing on it... applying strong local contrast enhancement in some jpeg images (specially the underexposed ones) would sometimes cause banding and posterization (specially in the sky), that would strongly degrade image quality and print output. Easier adjustment of white balance Greater flexibility - some amazing adjustments like fill light, clarity, vibrance, brushes, that make the process of making images become alive much easier The most important to me, the capability of recovering highlights and, specially shadows, with much less noise and image degradation
As such, right now I'm only using RAW, I think it compensates the huge file size and the much bigger CPU demand. I think that jpeg still has its place in photography, and many people should think twice about using raw-only, specially if they aren't thinking of publishing their photos or printing in large sizes. A correctly exposed and post-processed jpeg can be as good as any raw processed file, but raw allows us to have a greater margin of recovery in those images whose exposure didn't get spot on.
I've just bought RealWorld CameraRaw for Photoshop CS4, which many people recommended me, so I'm starting to change a few things I've pointed in the first part of the journal.
It's a book about RAW, from a very practical point of view, being very thorough at the same time.
There's still a lot to learn, and I'll keep on searching and trying to improve. Someday I even might become a scholar photographer!
FeaturesIt's always a tremendous pleasure to spend some time selecting the favourites among my favourites. These are works of art that deserve all the exposure they can get!
Go show your support to the amazing artists behind those images!
José Ramos
Inebriantia/AmphionBe welcome to visit my
gallery at -
[link] - your feedback is appreciated!
My
here -->
[link]
Truth about me as a photograher + RAW vs JPEG 
Love
Devious Comments
Yep, Camera Raw 5.2 with Photoshop CS4 is a beast piece of software, all the functions, and options you listed are absolutely fantastic for bringing a great image to life, and changing it from 'great', to 'incredible'.
Your work is really coming along, and I love your waterscapes/landscapes, you have a lot of talent in these subjects, and I look forward to seeing a lot more from you. I hope you have the time to have a peek round my gallery at some point, and letting me know what you think.
Oh, and some really nice features, going to check them out now!
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Philip Stewart
Scotland, UK
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Whatever doesn't kill you, is gonna leave a scar.
Death once had a near Dean Winchester experience.
When the Boogeyman goes to sleep every night, he checks his closet for Dean Winchester.
Btw, you got some great images in your gallery!. They're simply impressive!.
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"an amateur worries about sharpness, a professional worries about money and a photographer worries about light"
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Four out of five emoticons agree that you should visit my Gallery
To have my work appreciated by the likes of you, who's work I hold in very high regard, is absolutely wonderful! I can't thank you enough for your kind support.
Paulo.
My main program used to be Adobe Photoshop (CS4 been the latest I use) but I have slightly turned to Capture One Pro which is fantastic and needs really nothing to provide the best color quality of the shots. I use Capture One to initially process my RAW images (saturation, contrast, maybe highlights and lens distortions) and then I proceed in CS4 for noise reduction (if needed), sharpening, and maybe a slight curves adjustment.
Shooting wise learned me that afterwards you only need around 10 minutes to be ready with a shot
JPG has its place, but I mostly use it for shots I place with friends or those that are not to be printed in large scale sizes
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Eternity is very long, especially near the end. -- Woody Allen
I don't know that there's anything that would persuade me to go back to shooting JPG now.
You've made the right choice
Pete
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