Killer Lightroom’s Tips for New Users #7: You Shoot in RAW But, Lightroom Shows the JPEG Version First

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A few weeks ago I shared a new article from new user tips series by Scott Kelby and his team that can be found on the Lightroom Killer Tips website. The series is now complete so if you want to skip ahead see the rest of the articles, just click on the link to get started.

You Shoot in RAW But, Lightroom Shows the JPEG Version First

Do you shoot Raw + JPEG? If so, have you ever noticed that after you shot an image it shows the JPEG first and noticed that the JPEG files look pretty good. Then you compare the two the JPEG images looks better?

When you shoot in JPEG the camera will apply contrast, noise reduction, sharpening, and anything else in the camera tools to make your image look its best. With RAW, the camera  is being told that all those goodies will be applied to the RAW file during the editing process.

With Lightroom, it does the same thing. It will load and display your JPEG images first then load and display your RAW files next. This can be a bit confusing for new users.

For me I separate my images into JPEG and RAW files into separate folders. That way if I need to access the JPEG files their there. Now I can directly edit from the RAW folder not see or worry about the JPEG files.

If you rather keep everything in one folder, Scott Kelby explains how you can change the way Lightroom displays the images. If you want RAW to load first, check out his article, 10 Things I Would Tell New Lightroom Users: #7: Even though you shot in RAW, Lightroom shows you the JPEG version first. It’s a quick read and very easy to setup.