You’re probably thinking this is a silly argument. If it’s decisions I want, what’s to stop me making a decision about how my photos should look when I process my RAW files? If I want black-and-white, I can have it. If I want vintage, faded color, I can have it. RAW files enable me to choose whatever style I like – so what’s the problem?
Well it’s become apparent to me that there are two problems in particular. Whatever the technical advantages of shooting RAW, it’s certainly made me indecisive.
Some of the best photo editing software applications are now fully non-destructive – and some, like Adobe Lightroom Classic, Capture One and DxO PhotoLab, enable you to create endless 'virtual' copies of the same image.
My Lightroom catalog is littered with RAW editing experiments, often with multiple versions of the same image styled in all sorts of different ways. With RAW files you can undo, redo, re-edit and revise, and it’s hard to stop. I started out as a photographer but I’ve ended up as a digital dabbler who can never quite commit to a final version of anything.
Maybe it’s just me, but I doubt it. With every new editing technique we learn, there’s that irresistible itch to go back over your old RAW files and re-do them; with every new Lightroom feature, you think about all your past RAW files that could benefit.
Non-destructive editing sounds like a blessing, but it can also be a curse. The urge to keep experimenting can become stronger than the desire to finally finish, export and commit to an edited image.
That’s bad enough, but there’s something worse. I strongly believe from my own photography that the processing style, the subject and the way you shoot it are locked together. If you shoot with color in mind and then decide on a black-and-white treatment later (for example), it’s not as good as shooting for black-and-white in the first place.
With digital cameras, and especially with the EVFs on digital cameras, we’ve got it made. We can choose an in-camera picture style and the camera will ‘visualize’ that style for us when we shoot.
Shooting to match a style will change your framing, your composition, your exposure, your white balance – maybe even your shutter speed and lens aperture. I’m no longer convinced that you can shoot a generic RAW file with the intention of applying a style later and expect it to be as effective.
So here’s a third thing. In the past I’ve always recommended RAW files because of their wider tonal range, the extra shadow and highlight detail you can bring out later. But does this make photographs better?
If you choose and compose a shot for the lighting, the contrast between light and shade, for an etheral high-key look or moody low-key, why mess it up later with your RAW processing? Is it the urge to placate the silent rebuke of your clipped histogram, or a persistent memory of camera club judges insisting on detail in the shadows and the highlights?
Perhaps the most telling point is that if I go back later and compare my in-camera JPEGs with my processed RAW versions, the RAW files have a wider tonal range and more editing potential from a technical standpoint, but very often it’s the JPEGs, for all their flaws, that capture the spirit of what I was trying to achieve.
What I would suggest is, don’t stop shooting RAW, but shoot JPEGs at the same time – and take a long, hard look at both sets of images later to see which captures your subject best. Not technically, but creatively.
RAW files are great for getting you out of a hole where you’ve shot with the wrong settings, or for trying out a dozen different editing styles on the same images.
But maybe – just saying – it might be better to hone your camera work so that you don’t need the safety net of RAW files. And maybe it’s better to commit to a style at the moment of shooting when you match your photographic approach to that style – and then stick to it.
Maybe shoot RAW+JPEG with the aim of keeping the JPEGs and having the RAWs as backups? I'll try anything if it brings me back to being a photographer, not a digital dabbler.
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Want great in-camera JPEGs? Take a look at the best Fujifilm cameras, loaded with Film Simulations, or the best cameras for black and white photography for ultimate mono shooting.
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