Camera Raw files

recently i have been taking a lot of photos with the universities digital camera. The majority of these were taken as camera Raw files.

Why use Raw? 
“The RAW format is your “digital negative”.  It contains all the information that the camera has about a picture.  Information is lost in the conversion to JPEG in the camera.  If you get the settings wrong in the camera and take a picture, it’s too late.  You’re stuck with the picture and can do only a limited amount of correcting in your favorite image editor.  So when you need the best from your camera, shoot RAW.” (Logical designs, http://www.logicaldesigns.com/Imaging1.htm, viewed 21.9.06)

With a Raw file you can manipulate the original data captured by the digital camera, thus giving you the ablity to fine tune tonal ranges, change the exposure etc whilst still retaining the maximum amount of detail.

This link explains most of the settings that you can change in the camera raw option. http://www.outbackphoto.com/artofraw/raw_04/essay.html – viewed 21.9.06