Ugly old coot!- Example of the advantages of RAW

Rohirrim

I was practicing flash technique at a local pond and ended up with what I feel is a good example of why its a good idea to always shoot RAW. Keep in mind that the first three images are the same picture, but with some post processing tweaks.

The medium size shots below don't show the difference as well as I'd hoped. If you view the original size images (link below each image), you'll be able to see the difference even more.

You can see that the original shot is badly overexposed. The highlights are complelty blown and almost all detail is lost in those highlights.

Full size Image

This second version of the image is with a -1.3 exposure adjustment using Raw Shooter Premium. No other tweaks yet. As you can see the RAW converter was able to save the detail in those highlights. The background is still too bright, but I think this still illustrates the idea pretty well.

Full Size Image

This last version is just with a little crop, a little contrast and sharpened.

Full size image

Now you might say, "Who cares, it's only an ugly old Coot!" But what if this was that one in a lifetime shot of a Bald Eagle catching a fish and you overexposed it. You would be able to save it if you were shooting RAW, whereas if you were shooting JPEG you would never be able to get those details in the highlights back.

Thanks for looking and I hope I was able to demonstrate this effectivley.

bfjr

Nice info and input Steve
I always shoot Raw myself, never know when that Eagle will fly by :wow

Harryb

Hey Steve,

Those coots are tough to shoot. I haven't gotten a picture of a coot that I've liked yet. The processed shot is an improvement but you can't restore blown highlights even with RAW. You can cool the highlights down so that they don't read 255 but you can't bring back the lost details. I've flushed many an egret shots because of that. I could cool down the blown areas but I couldn't bring back the lost feather details.