Learning Curve

Yesterday I was able to take some pictures at a small wedding.  It was very small, in the Relief Society room, with 15-20 people tops.
I've learned a few things in the process.  First, lighting in the R.S. room stinks.  No surprise right?  I knew that going into it.  I did the best I could with the venue and my lack of experience.  At least the moments were being captured right?  It was also later in the day.  We were able to go outside after the wedding but it was closer to 5:00 and the sun was setting and it was freezing.  We worked quickly, the images where a little dark but nothing that Photoshop won't take care of. 
The second thing I learned is don't shoot in raw format when you don't really know what that means.  I had read a lot of blogs that said they LOVE raw.  That way you can take the picture and manipulate it how you want.  Everything is manual....you are in full control.  I thought that would be great.(Except for the fact that I don't have the photoshop to edit the pictures.  I don't know what I was thinking!) 
When I got home to put them on my computer it wouldn't even register there where pictures on my camera.  After the panic of thinking all the pictures had somehow been deleted I looked at my camera and luckily they were all still there.
I had to google raw and found this....(why I hadn't done this before I don't know!)

• RAW files need to be imported into a computer program like Adobe Lightroom or Adobe Camera Raw and then either instantly exported as jpegs (yikes!)
• …or perfected according to your vision for the image with editing and then exported as a jpg or other printer-friendly format.
• So just to make sure you get it I’ll say it this way: a raw file isn’t an image. It’s information gathered by the sensor and delivered to you on a memory card. It’s totally your job to then do what you want with that information before compressing it into an ‘image’.
• Also, a raw file won’t usually have included the in-camera sharpening that jpeg compression provides. So don’t fret when you think your image isn’t as sharp as it should be – this also needs to be done by you in the post production editing process.

I have none of the programs mentioned above but luckily found you could import them into picasa which I did.  However with picasa you can't do as much editing so I am going to use my cousins photoshop too.  The pictures are good overall, especially the outside ones, but I'm glad that I can sharpen them because on my computer they aren't as sharp as other pictures I take.  Thankfully I will do that on photoshop.

Here are some rough shots edited in Picasa.  However, they will be way better after I edit them on Photoshop....hopefully.(I know nothing about Photoshop but I can learn as I go I guess.)