I always want to get the best results possible for my fine art landscape photography so I always have the camera set in RAW mode. RAW mode records the raw, unprocessed data just as it’s captured by the sensor so I can process the image myself. Digital cameras are great, but my camera doesn’t know what I want from the scene.
This is a good example of a typical scene. The photo on the left shows before processing and represents what you’d get if you’re not shooting in RAW mode. The version on the right shows how much can be done with just basic editing in Adobe’s Photoshop Lightroom program. The result is a good representation of the scene I experienced when I was there.