RAW Power

How to Restore Original Color by Taking Pictures with the RAW Setting of DSLR Cameras

Before	After

I didn't notice the flower image (left) had poor exposure until after I'd left the 300-image photoshoot location, and unloaded it onto a computer. I couldn't go back to retake the picture. I was disappointed, because it looked as if the picture could have been great. I'd taken most of the pics in Manual, but on this occasion forgot to check the lighting, leaving the shot overexposed. Typical adjustments in Photoshop didn't fix it.

Then I remembered the photo had been captured in RAW. I had deliberately set the picture type to RAW at the beginning of the shoot instead of jpg, knowing that the RAW setting allows more options for color restoration and correction than any other.

Double-clicking on the file brought up the RAW editing options. A few quick adjustments later for the tone, saturation, and color brought life back to the image for both the subject and background.

RAW is so forgiving! It offers so much power to fix your mistakes. Some photographers only shoot in RAW. If you are serious about color, you should, too. Some cameras let you shoot RAW+jpg at the same time. This is fine if you have enough card memory to handle the extra file size per picture. With some photos you have no hope of getting a good shot in post-processing unless the photo was captured in RAW.

Shoot first in RAW. Ask color questions later.