Newbie- raw or jpeg

Lot of people like to email their family, relatives and friends, too, with small jpeg files. Having smaller jpeg images is necessary for uploading some photos of yours on this very POTN site!

I don't think that raw is the culprit when it comes to poor exposures. I would point at the fact that digital in general allows you a second chance, without wasting film. I agree that getting the exposure right off the bat is the goal. I think it is more important to study the histogram, and learn to quickly decide whether you got it right from that information. You will only learn if you go back and examine and analyze what was wrong, and what was right about each individual shot. All too often I hear someone say, "that didn't come out, I'll delete it and try a different setting." I don't think they are learning so much as grasping at strings. If I really think about it, all of my exposures are a little to bright, if I follow the ETTR methodology. They are then brought back down during raw processing. But you're right, this knowledge only came with experience. I just think that exposure to all the tools from the start is better than just random attempts to take a picture. If you are going through a bunch of raw images from a shoot that all need a push up on the exposure slider, then perhaps a little bell will go off next time you're in that situation.

If you saved the raw file in ps in jpeg format, would that do the same thing?

Once you converted the RAW into Jpeg using your PS, you'd still need to resize it for posting on this POTN site, or emailing to your whoever depending on the bandwidth of the email provider's bandwidth.

Sure thing. I am new to raw as well and I have been resizing my jpegs for months. Thanks for the info... sorry to interject in someone else's thread

Well here's my take. I really read through the raw section of my book. It makes much more sense now. I do have to say that the settings in pscs2 are darn good on auto considering. I still had to tweak some pics but...on the issue of learning to take correct exposures to begin with...that's the ultimate goal. For me personally shooting raw and seeing what changes have to be made to the picture really gives me the opportunity to see what I was going wrong to begin with. But I"m a newbie and this is just my opinion.

Christi, I think you'll find that as you get more comfortable, you'll notice that the auto settings can be a little harsh on the contrast - relying heavily on the brightness slider to compensate. That's just my personal take on it. You may want to back off on the contrast and adjust the other sliders accordingly. Remeber, if you use any of the sharpening techniques mentioned in the book (It's the Kelby book, right?), you'll actually be adding a lot of contrast to the image anyway. That's actually how USM works. A couple of other tips: make sure nothing spills off the histogram(clipping) by Ctrl-clicking the shadows and exposure sliders, don't bother with the sharpening in ACR, DO use the two noise reduction sliders while veiwing at 50-100% if you shoot at higher ISO (400+), try out the vignette feature for 'old school' look. Good luck.

So I know about the histogram in a general sense but I haven't been able to find anything that really explains the histogram. Do you know of anywhere?

Not off hand. Real World Camera Raw goes into a bit about the histo, and what to strive for. Basically there is no 'perfect histo' though generally you don't want any of spilling off the sides of the chart, theat indicates clipping. Highlights are shown on the right, shadows on the left. So, for example, if it's clipped on the left, there is shadow detail missing. Now, cometimes it's ok to let it clip. Say you have a bright window in the background, it's ok to let the window blow out, if the subject is still well exposed. That's where the ctrl-click on the exposure trick comes in - you can see where and what is clipping.

ah gotcha- so this would explain why we don't want the histogram being too far to the right or the left!!! I've got that book ordered so I am glad to see I"m on the right track.

This is so far the best turorial I have found on histograms.
http://www.luminous-landscape.com …standing-histograms.shtml
Also on the debate regarding raw versus jpeg have a look here
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/essays/r​awtruth1.shtml