One of the things you should ask when shopping for a wedding photographer is this:

Do you shoot RAW images or JPEGs?

The answer will have much to do on how well your wedding images can be processed. Some photographers shoot in jpeg because they claim it cuts down on their processing time and they can give you a set of proofs very fast if not on the actual day of the wedding. That can be true but, and this is big but, for the best wedding shots or for artistic post processing, RAW files are the only way to go. When the photographer shoots on JPEG, they are literally throwing away over half of the data that makes up your image. The photographer who shoots in RAW knows that it will take a bit more time to deliver the proofs and probably will not offer proofs on the day of the wedding. But, he/she also knows that with RAW files, they can pull out details that might not be useable otherwise to get that winning picture. So with RAW, even if the image is under-exposed or over-exposed, the photographer can use software to bring back the image to the proper look. This cannot be done in JPEG easily or at all depending on the setting used to create the JPEG.

It used to be that to process RAW files took a long time to process in post but with new computers and software, that just is not a valid excuse anymore of not shooting RAW. I can typically process 1500 RAW images in a day which includes filtering our the bad shots, color correcting shots and applying the basic processing like sharpening, contrast and cropping. When the bride (you) comes back after viewing the proofs and wants something special like turning a portrait into a painting or a really nice dialed in portraits, I can then can go back to the RAW file and I have all the data available that the camera was capable of giving me from that day.

Some photographers will say that since they shoot the image correctly in the camera, they dont need anything from a RAW because they got it right the first time. And while on the surface, that is true, no photographer hits the mark 100% of the time and especially in the whirl wind of a wedding in progress. Between changing light, people moving around, the photographer moving around, clouds, inside lighting and more, the typical photographer will need to rely on the fact that RAW files makes it easier to recover from partial blown shot. Or, the photographer knowing the limits of his/her equipment makes a intentional choice to make a mistake according to the camera knowing they can pull out the shot in the post workflow because of RAW. Shooting in very low light without being allowed to use a flash comes to mind where RAW is a wonderful thing to have available. Even though the camera says the picture is under exposed, it can still be corrected in post so you would never know it.

So while shooting RAW or JPEG should not be the only thing to base your choice of photographers on, the choice does give you some insight to how the photographer will handle the processing of your once in a lifetime images. Shooting RAW is just another tool that a professional photographer has at his or her disposal to make your images the best they can be. Do you want just an average picture or do you want someone who cares enough to make it the best that they can?

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