Interested in making money with your photography? Looking to start your own photography studio?
If you are a keen photographer, and have been shooting lots of photos, and you may have already been asked to shoot a wedding for a friend. The question is, which format to use. Using the RAW format can be more than a little daunting. Most people have never really had anything to do with this format, because the smaller consumer digital cameras generally do not have this option. Most will have JPEG at various resolutions, and some may have a Tiff option, but few have a RAW option. RAW is usually the domain of the DSLR or high end consumer cameras. The other caveat is that most computer software is only designed to process JPEG images. However, when you are shooting something as important as a wedding, then you need the flexibility that the RAW option gives you.
There are many benefits to shooting RAW.
Firstly, ALL the scene information is captured, unlike the JPEG format. Even in the highest resolution setting, JPEG format still is deleting some of the file information in order to allow more images to be captured on the memory card by creating a smaller file. This can make image editing a more difficult process later.
Secondly, the range of manipulations available with RAW image software, is far and away greater than with standard image editors. If you do not shoot in the RAW format, you will lose the ability to be able to use the many RAW specific adjustments available for this format, which can literally be in the hundreds of adjustments.
So, image quality is geater because all the file manipulations are done by the photographer on the computer at a later stage, not by the camera at the time of the shot. On the computer, you have much greater control over brightness and contrast, and overall color tint. Exposure can be left as shot or changed to match tricky lighting situations, such as inder tungsten light, or in shadow or with flash.
Editing you files is also non-destructive in RAW image editors. This means you can apply all sorts of corrections, crops, color balance, brightness and contrast etc. without affecting the original file. You can therefore, easily delete all the edits on an image, and still have the original file. You can then perform further edits, or take the image into Photoshop for further manipulation.
Two of the most popular RAW programs today, are Apple's Aperture and Adobe's Photoshop Lightroom. Aperture is Macintosh, so if you are a Mac user, like me, then you can use Aperture. Lightroom, on the other hand, is available on both the Mac and the PC. Both are extremely good at editing RAW files, and the latest iterations of these programs are introducing filters as add ons. So they will become even more capable.
I am often asked by keen amateur photographers how they can make money with their hobby. One answer is wedding photography. Many professionals began their careers by shooting weddings and you can make a substantial income, without a lot of overhead. If you are ready to take the next step, then my wedding photography course can help get you off to a great start. Please visit my site for more information.
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