RAW vs Jpeg (All in one thread)

And the JPG is only half cooked. You can still edit a JPG, just not so effectively as RAW.

KCook wrote: And the JPG is only half cooked. You can still edit a JPG, just not so effectively as RAW.

Yeh get the white balance more than a little bit wrong and you're screwed.

Late in the discussion, but it's RAW all the way for me. You can turn RAW files into JPEG files, but you can't turn JPEG files into RAW files. I also once had someone wrongly accuse me of stealing an image, I was able to prove it was in fact mine because I had the RAW file

Raw is a "Digital" negative that provide very positive tools to make GREAT photos!!! I had been using films for many years and I like to compare Raw photo to the old negative and Photoshop as my darkroom... Full light, no mess, no chemical... Heaven!!!

dansudbury wrote: Raw is a "Digital" negative that provide very positive tools to make GREAT photos!!! I had been using films for many years and I like to compare Raw photo to the old negative and Photoshop as my darkroom... Full light, no mess, no chemical... Heaven!!!

Yes I agree.

I’ve read this whole blog and many people (who know what they’re doing), have tried to share their wisdom.
Like most free advice, I don’t think a whole lot of it ‘sticks’.

The human race is a strange group.
We don’t know,.. what we ‘don’t know’.

On the subject of Raw vs Jpeg.


Fact
Jpeg is a COMPRESSION routine.
It’s the most uniformly accepted, but understand.
The FILE IS COMPRESSED AND COMPROMISED from it’s ‘original’.

Hmmm, ‘original’
"I have a ‘point and shoot’, the jpeg is all it gives me,.. how can you say it’s not the ‘original’??"
Because the ‘original’ raw was flushed as soon as the jpeg was generated.

Only better cameras give you access to, and the ability to work with, the raw file.
Many of these better camera’s allow you to save jpeg, raw, or both at the same time.
Understand,.. the camera SHOOTS raw,.saves the raw, and converts to jpeg on the fly.

If you truly enjoy spending the maximum money on mediocre pictures, might I suggest hooking your camera to your printer directly with pict-bridge? ? ?
You won’t have to trouble yourself with any of the silly ‘tweaking’ everybody has been complaining about.
If you goal is to embrace ‘easy’ and avoid ‘excellence’,.. THAT’S the way to go.

I have a Canon. I am familiar with their ‘system’ and that’s what I’m going to use for illustration.
Canon has several free software routines they bundle with their camera’s that (imho) are excellent and easy to use. They also have free ‘classes’ to assist learning to use the cameras and software at Canon Image Gateway: www.cig.usa.canon.com Tips on things like getting White Balance, adjusting highlights, how to understand and use the histograms, etc.

If you want QUALITY,.. Learn to work with raw.

When you work in Raw, you need to evaluate your shots on the computer.
Adjust min and max. (as needed)
Adjust overall exposure (as needed)
Adjust white balance. (as needed)
Adjust sharpness. (as needed)
Adjust for noise reduction (again,… as needed)
(experience is the key to the ,..."as needed" part,.. sorry, no shortcut)

These adjustments ARE NOT APPLIED TO YOUR SHOTS,… they’re stored in a ‘recipe’ which are THEN applied to your shots. (think OVERLAY)
When you ‘open’ your picture, the effects are the same, but Raw files are NEVER modified.
If you have image files that are needed for a Court case, Raw files are the only files admissible in court.
THEY ARE UNTAMPERABLE.
It’s very quick, and easy to apply all the modifications you need to get the best ‘enhancement’s to your file in raw,…
Once you’ve done that, Convert (to jpeg, tiff, etc) and save. You’ll get a lot more precise corrections this way. (by the way, you can’t print Raw files directly, you have to convert to jpeg first)

When you convert to jpeg or tiff FIRST,… corrections are still possible,.. BUT,.
They’re more difficult to make, less precise, and you degrade the quality of the file.
Each modification to the jpeg file takes it’s toll.
You get further and further from the original. And there’s no going back, unless you store duplicates.
If you think things are confusing NOW,.. wait till you’ve got multiple sets of ‘backup’s.

Once you’ve established a ‘recipe’ for a shot, it only takes three or four mouse clicks to apply it to this entire ‘batch’ of shots. If the batch is 200-400 shots, it makes your life a lot easier.

Canon is very helpful and instructive.
I don’t know how well Nikon explains these issues,.. I’m somewhat underwhelmed with Ken Rockwell.

We adopted a cat from one of our neighbors that was moving far away to a big city and couldn't take him. The other day I decided to take some snap shots of the cat to post to FB so our old neighbor could see that the cat was getting along well. I haven't shot jpeg since a few days after buying my first DSLR, but I thought to myself that pet snaps to be posted to FB might be the perfect time to use jpeg. I couldn't bring myself to go all the way, so I set my Sony NEX to raw+jpeg. Looking at 100% samples of cat fur you can really see sharpening issues. I am very surprised by the image quality differences. I didn't think it would so drastic. I was shooting ISO 1600 and the jpeg is just mush; the in-camera noise reduction and sharpening destroyed a lot of detail compared to my standard ACR nr and sharpening. If I had seen only the jpeg I might have thought the lens was damaged. The raw file processed by me appears to have at least twice the resolution of the in-camera processed jpeg.

Depends on the project and the end usage intended for the files.

I agree 100% Henry why let your camera decide what you want the picture to look like. Saying that the pictures I take that I call snapshots I will use jpeg. but for a quality picture I go with raw....

I'm a recent RAW convert having only recently got back into photography, a friend of mine recommended me using it. I emailed him one of my pics in RAW we set up a Skype call had the same picture up on the screen and he talked me through the editing process, It really does give you more control over the end result, also having shot some RAW + pictures and compared the difference is quite marked

The bottom line for me is, they both have their place. That being said, I just shoot RAW exclusively now. While I try hard to get things right in camera, I like the freedom of RAW to manipulate the files however I wish. For example, if I shoot something in RAW and do virtually no editing to it because I did get it right, that doesn't mean that down the road I won't revisit that photo and edit it dramatically to completely change the look and feel of it. Having it in RAW allows me complete and total freedom. But I've also shot in JPEG because that's what the client required and I had to transmit the files to them immediately after shooting. I really don't think there is a right or wrong answer to this. Depends on your needs, and your clients needs.

I really like this video explanation of raw vs. jpeg. Using the egg to explain the concept is brilliant!

Advice from the American Society of Media Photographers. Lots of other great info on this site too.

dpbestflow.org/camera/raw-vs-rendered

jpeg photo is better then raw you can edit jpeg photo through photoshop easily and jpeg photo is very give more good effect in wedding photo shoot. you can see more quality pic on my site

So I am taking a photography class right now and we just learned about taking photos and having them be jpeg or raw. Depending on the camera you can actually do both which is what I do. The raw is easier to edit with and the jpeg has very minimal editing that you can do. So I would say raw is the better way to go cause even if you do edit the raw you will ALWAYS have the original no matter what.