Today’s digital photography equivalent of a film negative is the RAW format image file. RAW images are the most accurate photo record that your camera can produce. Because RAW files can’t be modified, they are a kin to a negative and must be processed to use them effectively (please read articles for a description of some common image file types). JPEG format files should not be used in the field for photo-ID photos. The JPEG format does not capture the reality of the image nearly as well as the RAW format. It does not contain detail that can be edited if the lighting is poor or the animal is distant, and JPEG compression algorithms can tend to add digital artifacts (erroneous markings) that show when the image has been enlarged.Recent advances in photo editing tools allow us to work directly (and efficiently) with RAW files rather than having to pre-process RAW files using the digital camera’s software tools. Photo editing tools now allow users to view, edit and “Batch Convert File Format” to convert RAW files (7-15 Mbytes on average) to “best compressed” JPEG files (about 300-600 Kbytes on average). These compressed JPEG files show an amazing amount of detail even when enlarged over 200%. And if the quality of the compressed JPEG is not sufficient, the RAW file can be edited and re-converted to compressed JPEG.
Here are some guidelines to follow when using digital photography for photo-identification studies:
-Always shoot at the highest resolution of the camera, e.g., RAW. Use fast flash cards (>80x writespeed).
-Think of RAW as your original negative and archive the RAW files the same way you’d archive your negatives
-Convert the RAW images to compressed JPEG to use as your working images. If you need to edityour compressed JPEG image, go back and edit the RAW file and then save a new, edited compressed JPEG file.
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