Anyone go back to JPEG after shooting in RAW?

<p>I've found as far as my workflow and ease of editing, working with JPEG has been much easier (not to mention the amount of pics I can fit on one compact flash). I worked with RAW for awhile but found it to be a bigger pain in the butt than I was wanting to take on. For one, I do all my cropping, sorting, and burning through Picasa...which doesn't support RAW files. So, I moved over to Adobe bridge, but that got rid of my ability to quickly crop, quickly sharpen, and move on to PS quickly.<br>

Maybe it's laziness...maybe I'm stuck in my ways...maybe Adobe Bridge needs to be more like Picasa as far as quick cropping....<br>

Anyone return to JPEG?</p>

<p>I am a believer in shooting the highest quality jpgs for almost all uses. If you blow the exposure or get the colour balance badly out of whack, then raw....boiled....or fried....will not recover the image.<br>

Assuming that you have some input to your cameras controls, such as sharpening, noise reduction etc, then the camera will do an excellent job of rendering the image.<br>

Yes, the camera CAN screw things up.......but so can a human being. Not so long ago the camera computer was a lot less able than it is today, and raw was an answer to that. The problem is largely absent today and for most things I believe raw is un-needed, and perhaps even worse than jpg depending on the users computer skills.....regards, Bob</p>

<p>Wow you should try Lightroom, its like picasas grandady.</p>

<p>For Weddings my RAW files are edited by a third party. BUT all else I shoot, is with with the intention of using the <strong><em>only</em></strong> the JPEG, and with minimal PP, so I apply the same scrutiny and methods to my Wedding shots as if I were shooting for the JPEG only. However, I still always shoot RAW + JPEG (L), for all my work.</p>

<p>I have found, after extensive tests, the JPEG out of the box still requires some attention in Post Production, mostly always Sharpening. <br /><br />I exploit, to fairly rigid formulae, the JPEG manipulations in camera. I use specific JPEG parameters for a set of three general lighting conditions I have determined as requiring differing attention: and each are different, for each camera. <br /><br />I suggest if you do not already have a set of similar guidelines which you have adapted to suit what you want as an end result in your prints / files, you might run some comprehensive tests yourself: in the end, it might save a lot of time in PP, if JPEGs only is your desire. <br /><br />I tend to frame in camera to a particular crop, usually to 7 x 5. But I can easily adjust to 10 x 8 (6 x 4), which is another print I use often – I think that too, saves a lot of PP time. <br /><br />I am fairly critical apropos exposure and quite anal retentive about testing and analysing results - so I have fairly rigid in camera metering methods and again I have found each DSLR is different.<br /><br />The point is, I used to pay a lab technician by the hour, so I guess I am of the school of thought whereby I want to nail it as close to perfect in the box, rather than pay for any adjustments later, but with digital the “later” being I do not want to pay with my TIME.<br /><br />Picasa 2 is too rudimentary for my liking. I find CS3 quite quick to work for what I do on my JPEG files. <br /><br />WW</p>

<p>RAW vs. JPEG is similar to the difference between kit lenses and pro level lenses. sure, you can take great pictures with either one. but to get output of the utmost quality and precision, you want to stick with RAW [and pro lenses] because these don't degrade the quality of your images.</p>

<p>I've never tried Lightroom....need to look into that.<br>

I'm afraid I'm just being lazy...which is terrible of me.</p>

<p>William- The only thing I prefer Picasa for is cropping and their sharpening tool. I just like it. It's quick and I like the result. I also like their batch renaming ability and their quick DVD burning. But if I can find another program that works in a similar way and can support RAW files, I'm all for it.</p>

<p>On occasion, but was always unhappy. Hard to put my finger on what is wrong, certainly not exposure or color bal or too small a file. RAW seems to give me a better pic even if i do minimal work on the file.</p>

<p>Workflow is exactly the same as I open JPEGS in the RAW converter same as RAW. I don`t care about file size. Storage is cheap and this preserves options for the future.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>I also shoot RAW and use Lightroom since there is no difference in workflow what-so-ever ... but there is a huge difference in flexability, WB options, and ability to crop after the fact and interpolate up using the most image data available (RAW).</p>

<p>Batching is no brainer with LR, and you can set a crop ratio (even a custom one) and apply it to every image or any set of selects in seconds. You can rearrange the images and batch re-name them, and open individual images in PS for effects and other retouching, you can select individual images in a smart collection for further work ... like your album selects. Once LR features are understood, there is no reason to use the slower, more finicky Adobe Bridge application at all.</p>

<p>I recently switched to outputing jpgs when finished because the files are getting so huge they eat DVDs and burden the client's computing power. Once you burn the jpg files to a "read only" DVD, they are pretty difficult to tell apart from Tiffs., and can't be altered nor recompressed. I also output a set of DNGs ... where you have the option to embed the original RAW file for future extraction if you wish. </p>

<p>Lightroom saves all adjustments but is non-distructive ... with RAW you can return to the original and start over if a new set of creative demands need to be addressed.</p>

<p>I simply have not found anything faster than LightRoom for this sort of work. </p>

<p> </p>

Why choose?

 

Memory is cheap nowadays, and RAW + JPEG gives you the speed of processing of JPEG, with the option of RAW fall-back if a critical image isn't up to scratch.

<p>Nope, I switched to RAW, use Lightroom 2 and never looked back. With LR, editing RAW's is just as easy as editing jpeg's anyway. I use RAW simply because I want the highest quality file my camera can produce. </p>

<p>A couple of things about Picasa. It absolutely does support RAW. And it is no tool for a professional photographer. The sharpening is atrocious. Cropping and sharpening in LR couldn't be easier...</p>

<p>Even the highest quality in-camera jpgs have poor detail contrast in images that contain a lot of fine detail. Tried that, the raw worked out to better image quality at large print sizes (12x18 inches). For most wedding photography which is never printed that large, it doesn't matter, but due to the variable quality of artificial lights available in many locations, I reserve the option to reset white balance which means it's all raw for me.</p>

<p><strong>Marc and Rick:</strong> DITTO 100% !! I use the following analogy when comparing the functionality of LR to PS for processing RAW images: LR is the surgeon's scalpel compared to PS's very sharp knife. I hasten to add that PS still remains part of my work flow for those images that need PS functions.<br>

<strong>B.J.:</strong> The ease of processing RAW images with LR does away with the need for shooting RAW + JPEG. As well, with shooting RAW only, your work flow is a simplified single stream, no need to treat two different types of images (RAW and JPEG) differently.<br>

Ray</p>

<p>RAW takes more time. Time = money. I use raw where I need the extra detail and latitude, but shoot jpeg's mostly and watch my histogram display all the time to get good exposure.</p>

<p>Rick...can you share how to open RAW in Picasa and open that file into PS3 right from Picasa following a quick cropping in Picasa (boy, that was a weird sentence)</p>

<p>Yes, I have a Nikon D60 and use a Lexar SDHC Professional x133 speed 4GB card and found that in Raw and in jpg Large fine modes the pics are a bit slow to show in the LCD screen of the camera as well as in the computer, despite the use of an 2.0 USB card reader. I don't know why, but I looked in the manual of the camera and on Lexar cards it supports up to 2G despite the camera ability to handle SDHC cards.Nikon Tech support gave mixed answers, one said it should work fine , the other call that The Lexar 4GB SDHC 133x speed Professional card has not been tested in this camera. I find that in jpg med and fine as well as small and fine works more quickly . I have PS CS2 but frankly, I have not got a handle of it well, I'm a bit slow in learning it and therefore I don't use it. I find so far that my jpg pics are well enough for printing even somewhat large prints-which I don't do often-and so far I'm comfortable with that. Maybe when I advance more and become more than a fresh amateur/ocassional shooter, my procedures will change.</p>

<p>I recently printed a 16x20 gallery wrap for a client off of a jpeg and it turned out beautifully....so I'm wondering when it starts to make a difference as far as printed is concerned.</p>

<p>If you go from camera to print, using either the Raw file or the JPEG, then the Raw file won't matter. You can't even print a Raw file; you either export as some sort of image file type (TIFF, PSD, JPEG, etc) or in the case of printer from a Raw convert, the program sends a TIFF version behind the scenes to the printer. And I dare-say in the above scenario that the JPEG may be better as it has some in-camera post-processing applied. Of course you can set up your Raw converter to apply certain pp parameters automatically to the Raw but simply taking the JPEG vs the Raw without any pp, the JPEG will likely look better. Come to think of it, it's only high-end speciality houses that can even print a 16-bit file. Most labs and "home" printers require an 8-bit file. Which simply means the Raw file must be processed in some way. For myself, I don't understand why anyone would purposely throw away information at the time of capture. We shoot Raw+JPEG. Again, for me the reason is simple: an 8-bit JPEG has 16,777,216 possible colors. A 12-bit (not 14-bit!) Raw file can have 68,719,476,740 possible colors. Now either one of those figures actually exceeds the estimated number of colors the human eye can see (estimated at around 10-million). However, if the pinnacle of the pyramid is a print, which would you rather have as the base? The slide below (hopefully!) is from a ComEd class I teach. This is from a wedding my wife attended as a guest, not in any official capacity. Of course our cameras are set up for RAW+JPEG. The upper left image is the JPEG. The upper right images is where we tried to process the JPEG to look like the processed Raw file which is the bottom image. Please keep in mind that this is just one example but the principle applies to every image you take. Recording either Raw or JPEG records more color than the human eye can see anyway. But the tonal variations can be IMMENSE.</p>

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<p>Steve- With LR, RAW doesn't take more time at all. <br>

Betty- when I used Picasa-which I admit was 2 years ago-it it imported and read the CR2 RAW files from my rebel XT exactlt the same as jpegs. When you saved them though, it saved a jpeg copy.</p>

<p>Mike- that's a beautiful example of the power of RAW. I agree, why would anyone throw away information that their cameras sensor is collecting...? Makes no sense to me.</p>

<p>Thanks Rick! Quite possibly the nicest thing anyone has said to me on this forum!</p>

<p>In spite of what the LR people are saying, RAW does require processing time. The reason they say it doesn't add time is because with LR, they have to import a folder of images and then export them once they're post-produced, whether they're RAW or JPEG. The processing and conversion to JPEG has to be done and does require processing power to do so, which takes time depending on your machine's power/ram.</p>

<p>With PS or other programs, You can edit and save a JPEG faster than you can edit a RAW and export it as JPEG. I use ACDSee Pro, which doesn't require all that importing and exporting business just to work on a group of photos.</p>

<p>That said, I only use RAW for difficult lighting situations (mixed tungsten and daylight, or the example Mike posted above for instance). With a 12mp sensor, I simply don't need a 19 megabyte RAW file for every casual shot at a wedding. Nobody ever blows them up enough to show the difference anyway. Only a handful of wedding shots ever get printed beyond 4 x 6.</p>

<p>I shoot both depending on what I'm shooting. One thing I do like about RAW is applying adjustments to other images in Camera Raw/Bridge - if I have multiple shots of something, I can process one and apply those changes to all the others. Granted, you can do that in PS by dragging layers into the other image once opened but once you flatten, you can't grab those changes to apply.</p>

<p>Actually Steve, it is much, much slower to edit and save individual jpegs with PS than to process RAW's with LR...for one simple reason, in LR you can select and apply adjustments to many images at once. It saves processing time like you wouldn't believe.</p>