POST PRODUCTION - editing with RAW

In these tutorials you have found that the camera cannot record to the same extent, the same tonal range that the human eye can perceive.
Here is an example.
The Chinese lantern festival in Gaillac, southern France is a spectacular event, and by definition means you are in for a night shoot in order to portray the elaborate illumination. But night shoots give you black skies and bright highlights which is a big ratio in photographic terms.

If you exposed for the shadows hoping to show some background or stars, then the highlights would be ‘blown out’ (2) meaning they would be nearly white. And using your camera flash light is out of the question as that will only add more light to an already illuminated subject. Besides you need to bring out the subjects lighting not yours.

But exposing for the highlights, (1) keeps the detail in the displays, but of course the sky is jet black. This is the original .jpg. Note how dark it is, with no visible detail in the shadow areas. But as long as you have the highlights intact, then the shadow detail can be ‘brought out’. So opening the image as a native RAW file, or from a .jpg into a RAW file, gives you a world of options (3). It’s amazing just how much information is actually recorded in the image file, even though you can’t see it in the original. So on location, know that you have this option. The flexibility it gives you is limitless.

1. RAW file as captured

2. Using Levels to increase shadow areas 'burns out' the subject

3. Final edited version with 'balanced' Tonal range similar to what the eye perceived.

But, if you did try to open up the shadow areas with LEVELS, the entire frame will lighten, thereby burning out the highlights. So treating the image as a RAW file is best, alternatively you can use the Highlight & Shadowns command in Photoshop, which offers a good solution as well. Treated as a RAW file in Adobe Bridge, then opened in Adobe Photoshop and this (2) is the result. If I had exposed for the shadows rather than the highlights, any details on the dragon would have been lost.

It was a hand held shot so the depth of field is poor, but the point of the shot was to show this very cool dragon lantern, so it has worked.

4. Najac, France (RAW)

5. Najac, France (edited)

6. Riomaggiorie, Italy (RAW)

7. Riomaggiorie, Italy (edited)

8. Bali (RAW)

9. Bali (edited)

The same applies to the above sequences. Some need a lot of ‘bringing out’ as a RAW file and can look overdone (5). But at the end of the day if the edited version looks to you like you saw it on the day of capture, then it has worked.

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