Shoot in RAW (Wider Dynamic Range)

There are a bunch of advantages to shooting in RAW format, particularly for landscape images where we’re often capturing a wide dynamic range. The RAW format captures a wider range than JPEG and gives you the highest quality initial image coming out of the camera. Also, RAW files are much more forgiving if you made mistakes (especially when it comes to things like white balance) and you get extra post-processing features (like choosing your own RAW profiles) that you don’t get with JPEG images. Plus, if you need to fix serious problems in post-processing, or if you want to really throw a bunch of Photoshop or Lightroom at an image (letting the artist in you run wild), then you’ll be happy you shot in RAW, since it shows the least signs of damage from pushing all those pixels around. You’ll get smoother gradations in skies with less banding (where you see a visible line where one shade of blue ends and the next one starts), the results look better if you have to recover clipped highlights (see page 152), and it’s just a better quality, more robust format all the way around. Those are some of the reasons pro landscape shooters around the world shoot in RAW. So, in short, for the best results from your landscape images, shoot in RAW. I guess I could have just said that.