Obsessed with Raw ?

My "obsession" with raw goes back to the early days of digital - when cameras' auto white balance capabilities were not good. And if you just shoot jpgs, that setting is baked into the file, and any significant changes to it will do damage to the file. Flesh tones are so delicate, and they are easily messed up. To be able to change the white balance in 16 bit and with a SLIDER and not have it adversely affect the data in the photo is amazing.

If you go back farther into (gasp) FILM days, you had to pick a film balanced for a certain light - and that's all it was good for. Or you had to use daylight film and put filters on the lens to balance it correctly. Sheesh, what a pain! And you're right that a lot of pictures looked good from back then, but if you look with a critical eye, in MANY shots, the white balance is completely messed up. I know, I have color-corrected many old photos. Real film photographers generally would match the film-type to the lighting, or have a good set of filters to balance it correctly. There were even "color meters" to help you judge exactly what you needed.

Anyway, back to obsessions - I also do preliminary sharpening, tonal adjustments, contrast, exposure, clarity, lighten (unintentional) shadows, change black level, and, with my Canon 5DII files, change the lens profile and even camera profile. (I know - and am amazed - that lens profiles are done in-camera in m2/3)

It sounds like a lot of work - but it just takes a minute, and in Adobe Camera Raw, you can copy the changes from one file to DOZENS at a time if the lighting is all the same.

It also ONLY works if you a hardware calibrated system so that the color on your monitor is actually correct and corresponds to your printer (if you print).

If I wasn't doing a lot of printing and making archival prints, and if I was only displaying on the web or on-screen, I'm not sure I'd bother with raw. The jpg engines are really pretty good now - but since I DO print, I want it the best I can make them. Every once in a while, I see a jpg file that looks better than I can easily make it from raw and I'll use that.

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Larry Becker