How long does it take to edit a RAW photo?

[Scorpiobsession]

I was deciding between RAW and JPEG for a trip and I was leaning towards RAW for the professional-quality photos. The main question I had was how long it took to edit the pictures? I would be using adobe photoshop and I have a pretty good understanding of the software and I'm confident I could figure out how to do it efficiently. I would be shooting landscape, wildlife, birds, and astrophotography (wider frame landscape-like, not specific galaxies/nebulae).

 

[The Snark]

A lot depends on the capabilities of your sled. I5 3330 with 4 gb memory, a spinning HD and a GTX 750 card or a Ryzen worm burner with all the cake frosting?

 

[viper69]

I was deciding between RAW and JPEG for a trip and I was leaning towards RAW for the professional-quality photos. The main question I had was how long it took to edit the pictures? I would be using adobe photoshop and I have a pretty good understanding of the software and I'm confident I could figure out how to do it efficiently. I would be shooting landscape, wildlife, birds, and astrophotography (wider frame landscape-like, not specific galaxies/nebulae).

Depends on your experience and how picky you are. Just do it - who cares if youre fast or slow

 

[DaveM]

My camera [and many others I'm sure] has a setting that captures RAW + JPEG. So I can play with the RAW files of a few favorite photos, or whip out some JPEGs immediately to satisfy my impatient wife. @The Snark makes a great point about your machine. Also, the RAW editing software you use will surely save presets, so will you use the same presets across all of your photos, or tune parameters separately for each photo? That's the big time suck for me, that I'm an unreasonable perfectionist and mess with photos beyond making a difference that anyone would be able to see.

 

[viper69]

My camera [and many others I'm sure] has a setting that captures RAW + JPEG. So I can play with the RAW files of a few favorite photos, or whip out some JPEGs immediately to satisfy my impatient wife. @The Snark makes a great point about your machine. Also, the RAW editing software you use will surely save presets, so will you use the same presets across all of your photos, or tune parameters separately for each photo? That's the big time suck for me, that I'm an unreasonable perfectionist and mess with photos beyond making a difference that anyone would be able to see.

I always shoot both. Sometimes JPEG is fine.

 

[The Snark]

One suggestion from the pre press daze of me youth. Determine the desired output and use the format that will deliver with the least amount of quality loss. Work down from there if need be.
And always keep a back up. No reverse gears in most processing steps or if PS is keeping an undo and you are running out of room or old age is creeping up on you.

 

[Thane1616]

RAW files are always best because you can always scale them back plus RAW will have the most detail its just a huge file. Hope you have plenty of sd cards or memory space though. You can also take RAW of the things you know are hard to catch details and JPEG for the stuff where it wont matter.

 

[The Snark]

BTW, if you are using Windows 10, get their RAW image extension download if working in that format.

Raw Image Extension - Microsoft Apps

THIS VERSION OF RAW IMAGE EXTENSION INCLUDES SUPPORT FOR CR3 FILES IN ADDITION TO OTHER BUG FIXES! Thanks for your interest in the Raw Image Extension. You can acquire the extension to install on your devices but Windows 10 May 2019 Update (version number 1903) is required to install the...

www.microsoft.com

 

[Dry Desert]

I was deciding between RAW and JPEG for a trip and I was leaning towards RAW for the professional-quality photos. The main question I had was how long it took to edit the pictures? I would be using adobe photoshop and I have a pretty good understanding of the software and I'm confident I could figure out how to do it efficiently. I would be shooting landscape, wildlife, birds, and astrophotography (wider frame landscape-like, not specific galaxies/nebulae).

If you use Film, like quite a few still do, have a CD burned same time as prints. Simple, best of both worlds.

 

[jc55]

What would be some recommended reading or sites for a beginner to learn some basic photography and editing skills?

 

[The Snark]

hat would be some recommended reading or sites for a beginner to learn some basic photography and editing skills?

That earned an award. The zinger question of the year, or decade or century even. Big sis earned her masters in essentially those two and has spent her entire career with her nose in books and taking additional classes.
Just mastering Photoshop or gimp can be a two year college course. Many colleges offer BAs in fine arts - photography. And of course picking through Youtube can turn up several thousand hours of videos.
I'm quite curious what people will suggest. For me I'm about 3 years off and on in gimp and am still a dunce.

 

[jc55]

That earned an award. The zinger question of the year, or decade or century even. Big sis earned her masters in essentially those two and has spent her entire career with her nose in books and taking additional classes.
Just mastering Photoshop or gimp can be a two year college course. Many colleges offer BAs in fine arts - photography. And of course picking through Youtube can turn up several thousand hours of videos.
I'm quite curious what people will suggest. For me I'm about 3 years off and on in gimp and am still a dunce.

Thank you for the honest answer and i will look into those two sites and see what tips i can use or find helpful.I have seen a few members on here that have some impressive photography skills and if i learned a small portion just to improve some pictures i would be happy.

 

[The Snark]

I've developed what I consider the perfect photography technique. A camera that takes RAW or jpg, has a battery life of weeks and 64 GB memory. I just take several hundred shots and eventually one comes out half way decent.

By the way, from working in printing shops now and then, pre-press work can cause tunnel vision. Always keep the end result in mind. a 20 by 60 foot billboard with high res graphics using a 40 GB RAW file or a striking shot of a model that's ultimately going to be printed at 120 DPI.
The best trick I came up with is processing an image with minimum loss from RAW (which is a computer beast to work with without a killer computer). Put the jpg version of the RAW onto a high res monitor. Reduced the image size until an unsuitable result shows. Then back up one or two steps and do your processing and image editing. Check now and then with full high res to maintain the desired quality. The final steps are to reduce the image to the desired size-output and see if it is acceptable. Some editing you spend hours on may end up being entirely lost or simply look wrong. Always work with the end result. Those 25 layers in PS may all have been a waste of time, washed into a background or much too high contrast for the overall image.

 

[viper69]

What would be some recommended reading or sites for a beginner to learn some basic photography and editing skills?

YouTube
DPReview.com - good forum

 

[Dry Desert]

What would be some recommended reading or sites for a beginner to learn some basic photography and editing skills?

If you require basic photography skills for a beginner, good analogue photo books are great. They go into great detail on all aspects of photography, including types and uses of films, which can be disregarded, good complete books were by John Hedgecombe , with one of the masters of wild life and macro photography, Heather Angel. I would go for good books rather than online sites, a good book you can pickup and put down, looking online would be too much to digest without keep going back, or printing off pages. You will probably have to search second hand book stores, charity shops to find these books, but invaluable, especially for a good introduction into photography.

 

[jc55]

I've developed what I consider the perfect photography technique. A camera that takes RAW or jpg, has a battery life of weeks and 64 GB memory. I just take several hundred shots and eventually one comes out half way decent.

By the way, from working in printing shops now and then, pre-press work can cause tunnel vision. Always keep the end result in mind. a 20 by 60 foot billboard with high res graphics using a 40 GB RAW file or a striking shot of a model that's ultimately going to be printed at 120 DPI.
The best trick I came up with is processing an image with minimum loss from RAW (which is a computer beast to work with without a killer computer). Put the jpg version of the RAW onto a high res monitor. Reduced the image size until an unsuitable result shows. Then back up one or two steps and do your processing and image editing. Check now and then with full high res to maintain the desired quality. The final steps are to reduce the image to the desired size-output and see if it is acceptable. Some editing you spend hours on may end up being entirely lost or simply look wrong. Always work with the end result. Those 25 layers in PS may all have been a waste of time, washed into a background or much too high contrast for the overall image.

Thanks for the tips.

 

[jc55]

YouTube
DPReview.com - good forum

Thank you and i will check them out.

 

[jc55]

If you require basic photography skills for a beginner, good analogue photo books are great. They go into great detail on all aspects of photography, including types and uses of films, which can be disregarded, good complete books were by John Hedgecombe , with one of the masters of wild life and macro photography, Heather Angel. I would go for good books rather than online sites, a good book you can pickup and put down, looking online would be too much to digest without keep going back, or printing off pages. You will probably have to search second hand book stores, charity shops to find these books, but invaluable, especially for a good introduction into photography.

Thank you and i will look for those authors and books as i like to read and there are several great book stores where i will be moving to next week so i will definitely search for them.I like books for the reasons you mentioned plus i will have them to reference the material at my leisure.

 

[jc55]

Thanks everyone for some great suggestions and references as i will check them all out.

 

[Smotzer]

@jc55 Always shoot RAW if you have the ability, you dont want the image coming out of your camera to already be compressed. Its a bigger file sure but its bigger because of a reason it contains all the data you actually need and want. It wont take you any longer to edit the photos, it will actually take you less time and the ability to have way more control over what you want to do, a compressed JPEG is going to be limited on what editing you are able to do without significant loss of quality, especially when it comes to recovering light and dark areas. In a RAW file you can recover significant portions of data say you exposed for the foreground but later in editing wanted to bring the background exposure up, muuuuch easier to do in RAW.