The latest word on RAW vs. JPEG from Thom Hogan

<p>Things have changed over the years. Here's the very latest from Thom Hogan:</p>

<p>http://www.dslrbodies.com/accessories/software-for-nikon-dslrs/software-articles/raw-or-jpeg.html</p>

<p>Spoiler: "The answer is still raw if you’re trying to get the most out of your images that you can."</p>

<p>The JPEG is produced from raw data! How well it's rendered, that's a different story.<br /> <br />Ideally you want to stick with the raw data. The JPEG engine that processes the raw massively clips and compresses highlights. We often don't when editing the raw. This compression can clump midtones as much as 1 stop while compressing shadow details! People incorrectly state that raw has more highlight data but the fact is, the DR captured is an attribute of the capture system; it's all there in the raw but maybe not in a camera proceed JPEG.</p>

<p>A raw capture that's 10 or 11 stops of dynamic range can be compressed to 7 stops from this JPEG processing which is a significant amount of data and tonal loss! So when we hear people state that a raw has more DR than a JPEG, it's due to the poor rendering or handling of the data to create that JPEG. The rendering of this data and the reduction of dynamic range is from the JPEG engine that isn't handling the DR data that does exists as well as we can from the raw! Another reason to capture and render the raw data, <strong>assuming people care about how the image is rendered!</strong></p>

<p>Marc, thanks, interesting opinions and info -- Thom usually delivers a worthwhile read. Frankly, I was never a great fan of RAW, but for the last six months or so, based on recommendations from respected peers, I have been shooting Raw with one camera, RAW and JPEG with the other. My primary viewing / processing software will only recognize RAW files from the older camera, so it has been a sort of contest. RAW causes the software to run more slowly and takes up more drive space. In exchange, I have more options for manipulation, though the process is more time consuming. JPEG is quicker but a bit less flexible in terms of post processing. Both deliver satisfactory results for my uses. I don't care to do extensive Post Processing, so either performs quite well for me. My greatest pleasure comes from "Naked Photos", those that are just what I wanted direct from the camera, preferably without even minor post processing tweaks. Concentrating on just that, my success rate has improved. In any case, the benefit of being able to retrieve and enhance images that don't meet my standards has value, though as an amateur it is certainly not critical. To each his own!</p>

<p>For travel, vacation and family shots, JPEG is usually fine although I shoot JPEG + Raw just in case. </p>

<p>For me, the RAW files are a backup, in case (when) I screw up the exposure.</p>

<p>It's a current article but basically the same information Thom has been sharing for a decade and a half - about as long as I've been reading him.<br>

I bought a User Guide from him for my D2x in '05 when I finally succumbed to the digital era. It seemed a prudent purchase to support a $7200 investment (CDN funds...) and I've only ever shot RAW files since - on 5 other pro/semi-pro bodies. I have 8 portable storage drives in front of me. It's all in your intended purpose. For me, I'm only happy with the best I can possible achieve and the thought of capturing a prize shot in .jpg format would hound me forever.<br>

Of course, if you are content with a cell phone image, RAW is not for you. RAW requires copious amounts of computer time and skill with 3rd party software (usually) and the expense of that software, computer power and storage, as Thom mentions. <br>

In my experience, with several other shooting friends, everyone eventually comes to RAW if photography continues to inspire them. The others take snapshots of family, pets and holiday locales and are completely content with those records. </p>

<p>With Sandy's "Naked Photos" and everyone else's raw photos, I'm wondering if we should post some of them? ;-)</p>

<p>More seriously, a few people mentioned that processing raws is slower and takes more skill. I haven't noticed that, mostly because in Lightroom JPEGs and raws are processed exactly the same way. When I make changes to a raw using the various sliders, the effects are instantaneous.</p>

<p>But maybe that's because I have a highly optimized system for Lightroom, though very inexpensive. An Intel i7 NUC with 16GB RAM and an SSD + hard drive. Very cheap and very fast.</p>

<p>"Data are a terrible thing to waste"</p>

<p>I never for a moment would have thought JPG would be preferable to RAW<br>

Except for special circumstances where saving RAW becomes too slow, I shoot regular RAW in digital and also save a small jpeg for quick posts to P.net or other sites where you wouldn't want to post RAW..., for example.</p>

<p>My scans of film are typically done at 4000 ppi and saved as "12" jpegs. TIFF is just so large, and I do have the original slides still.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Marc -- ex the ones from the DF in recent months, a gallery full posted here, many I am satisfied with. A large portion with no tweaks or very minor ones. <br>

In photography, as with many skills there are numerous methodologies, belief systems, and paths to personal success / satisfaction. I begrudge no one theirs and am still pursuing on mine.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>In my experience, with several other shooting friends, everyone eventually comes to RAW if photography continues to inspire them. The others take snapshots of family, pets and holiday locales and are completely content with those records.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>That's just a cheap shot. Sliders on RAW files messaging the image don't make for inspired photography. That comes from content, lighting and composition. You might be able to bring out shadows and DR a little working with a RAW image. But you can't make a silk purse from a sow's ear. Inspiration comes from the heart not from technology. </p>

<blockquote>

<p>But you can't make a silk purse from a sow's ear.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Funny, I would have applied that to jpeg-only images being shot. No matter how "inspired" the concept, if it was shot with 3-level jpeg there are going to be severe limitations to what good it might be.<br>

Storage is cheap these days.<br>

My mantra : "Scan high, scan once" can be generalized to photography in general:<br>

It's the photographic equivalent of the carpenter's "measure twice, cut once".</p>

 

<p>I personally can't think of shooting anything but RAW. Just the thought that my master file could be an 8-bit, compressed JPEG gives me shivers. But that's me.</p>

<p>This past Monday I had lunch with a lady friend of mine. She is an accomplished, talented photographer that has traveled widely and has had several successful gallery shows, had a book published and recently had some of her work hung at the Art Institute of Chicago. Naturally, the conversation turns to photography and she, in fact, had her camera with her. It's the same model I use. She asked me about a menu setting and I took the camera to show her when I discovered she had the camera set to JPEG only. "Oh sure", she says, "that's all I ever use. It saves me a ton of time". I resisted rising to my RAW soapbox and thought, heck, it seems to be working well for her. I thought of the tons of good phone shots taken by good photographers in JPEG format too. All I said was "oh, I see" and continued to enjoy a pleasant lunch.</p>

<p>Some folks don't want to fuss around with their images much and JPEGS work for them. I say, Mazeltov! </p>

<p>Your opinion, of course, Mr. Klein.<br>

Nowhere did I mention 'inspired photography'.</p>

<p>Gup, yes I see you didn't say inspired photography but rather from the standpoint of the photographer being inspired. It's true that if the photographer is shooting inspired photos, then RAW could help make it technically better. Sorry if I misunderstood your point.</p>

<p>I guess the point I was making was that many people, myself included, often get caught up in technical improvements being the answer to taking great pictures. And that's just not true. Technical can distract us. It's easier to discuss and compare. Resolution, DR range, etc. We don't focus on how to shoot an inspired picture which would look great in JPEG as well. </p>

<p>I shoot only raw. I can't contemplate giving up an ounce of quality or flexibility to make the most of my photographs until I've appraised them properly. Compositions that don't work and gross exposure or focus errors don't make it onto my computer. Everything else gets a chance. </p>

<p>Since I started out developing and printing in the 60's, I liken my raw files to negatives. Working with the raw files gives me the feeling that I am working with my "negatives." Jpgs are more like working with slides in my analogy. Just a thought.</p>

<p>Steve -- brilliant analogy! Ex incredibly expensive, rare, expert manipulation, slides had to be done right the first time. An uncompromising standard, with parameters that were quite narrow. As with many things today, a largely vanished professional skillset.</p>

<p>The brilliance and inspiration of some photographers (think Ansel Adams) derived equally from the capture and the darkroom; not true of all and probably less so in the digital era. Nevertheless, I have managed to convert a few of my "sow's ear" results to very acceptable (if not "silk purse") images, thanks to the flexibility of raw processing. </p>

<p>I used to shoot RAW only with my old Canon Xti (400D). A few months ago I bought a T6s (760D) and, considering the huge files (three times the size of the Xti, I reverted to JPG, with a few RAWs here and there.<br>

But now I am coming back to RAW, if only for one reason: white balance, especially for pictures taken inside.<br>

The T6s produces very nice and clean JPG, but their WB is difficult to adjust in Lightroom (at least for me).<br>

RAW offers a very consistent white balance. Other advantages too, but I would say WB is the first one.</p>

<p>I shoot RAW+JPG and send JPEGs via my EiFi to my tablet so I can post (Facebook say) and view and share without having to go home and fire up camera RAW. One big issue with shooting both JPG vs RAW is, why have two processing flows? Yes if I am on vacation and want to post a shot, I will post the JPG to Facebook so my girlfriend gets off my back about not being able to post right away. When I am home I import with my python script and suck all the files and videos to a working directories. Now which do I process? Which folder? Which do I archive? The RAW has all the data so after DNG conversion, that is what gets archived. I also like doing my initial processing in ACR. <br>

What I need to do more in my process is select all the RAW files that have not been marked as good or processed and hit the delete key. </p>

<p>Why everything boils down to extremes is odd. If you use a digital camera like mine you have the choice of RAW, RAW+ jpeg, Jpeg extra fine, Jpeg fine and Jpeg standard. At least 4 levels of quality of which 3 of differing degrees of compression. Yes, standard or highly compressed jpeg is far from RAW quality and likely the best for many casual snapshots or low resolution screen uploads or transfers. I am not sure of the degree of compression of Jpeg extra fine on a full frame camera of 42 MP, but I think I can comfortably assure those who run down all jpeg compressions that the results are often very impressive, provided other factors (including quality of the optics, light and exposure conditions, the in camera math used to transfer the analogue pixel information to digital values, the quality of the rest of the camera firmware) are all at high level or compatible with the range of values in the digital image.</p>

<p>Not all of our trials and explorations in photography end up in the creation of images for 20 x 30 inch prints, just as it is not imperative to seek the perfection of RAW in all cases. I often reserve the latter for the more serious image creations and use the extrafine jpeg, even at lower set MP resolutions, for other work.</p>

<p>I recently mounted a fairly large exhibition (54 images) of C41 and inkjet prints, mainly 12 x 18 inch, but also 20 x 30 inches, made from this extra fine jpeg capture mode and the image quality was extremely fine. In the few cases where my darkroom B&W prints were compared to similar digital derived B&W prints, at similar sizes (16 x 20), no real difference in tonality or resolution was evident. RAW may have been better, </p>

<p>I think though Arthur, that its almost rare at the point of capture to understand with any certainty what the most demanding use of any photograph you make is going to be- or could be if only you'd taken/stored the biggest and best photograph you could. And its not like there's a real downside- your camera doesn't wear our faster, storage capacity is cheap and the closest to a problem I can think of is that you'll need to insert a new card a bit more often. The cost impact of shooting raw is pretty trivial, so its an easy decision to take IMO.</p>

<p>However the same philosophy doesn't always work. I can recall getting scans and prints made (very nicely) by West Coast Imaging who promoted a perspective I can summarise as "scan once, at max size, for many purposes and you'll never need to buy a scan again". Which is true on those occasions when it's relevant. Most images I scan, if scanned once at the size to fit the task in hand, won't need to be scanned again anyway. So its a theoretical strategy the chief impact of which is that it'll cost you a deal more now. Great for the lab- a little more work; a lot more money. I have an alternative philosophy of not scanning anything till I have a clear need for the scan and then scan to that size. Works much better for me. </p>

<p>Similarly Thom Hogan's much repeated maxim that the way to save money on tripods is to buy the very best first time, and avoid the cost of all the initial and intermediate steps that don't work. It works for those people who will actually need the very best. It just consumes money unnecessarily for those people whose needs are actually well satisfied by something middle of the road or even low end, and for those people its a really bad idea. I think there's a lot of those people. </p>

<p>But I don't think the raw debate is the same because the financial considerations are not the same or even similar. I don't believe it costs me any significant money or effort to shoot raw , and its better, so I do. The fact that for much of what I do, a jpeg would do as well is not in itself important.</p>

<p>From a practical point of view this always has and always will be Horses for Courses. 90% of my photos are for the Web and so what is the point in using more than jpeg? Once it has been cropped and had the life compressed out of it for a 800X600 or 1024X756 image any fine detail has gone up in smoke and the viewer will not have a high quality monitor correctly adjusted to see the benefits of the true colour rendering. The thing that worries me about raw is, that will software exist in 10, 20, 30 years time to decode the data? Oh and while I am on this particular soapbox what about the live of CD/DVDs? The computer industry gives a life of about 7 years for a disc unless you have bought certified archival media. Also the cloud is dependent on the company that runs the service not going out of business or the data centre being hit by a catastrophic disaster. Disaster recovery/prevention at this level costs a small fortune. (From experience in the industry I can tell you that the protection is inverse proportion to the marketing hype.)<br>

There are solutions; hard disks and RAID arrays are probably the best bet in the long term. If you can use it to set up your own private cloud off site better still. Using Solid State drives in Raid arrays could be an answer but that technology is still in a great deal of flux.<br>

Which brings me around to my particular solution, which is if I really, really want it I shoot it on film and if quality is absolutely desperate then that film has to be Slide! (Oh and medium format (645) to boot. Based on the fact that I have some 50 year old Kodachrome that is still as good as the day I shot them and I can scan or get them scanned at very high resolution if I need them!<br>

<br />Final thought: don't lose sleep just take loads of photos and delete the ones that are rubbish!</p>

<p>Jim</p>

 

<p>All you folks shooting raw+JPEG, you're well aware that you're <strong>not exposing</strong> the raw <strong>optimally</strong>, only the JPEG right? </p>

<blockquote>

<p> 90% of my photos are for the Web and so what is the point in using more than jpeg?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Simple, the art and science of <strong>rendering</strong> <strong>the image</strong> as the image creator desires:<br>

http://www.lumita.com/site_media/work/whitepapers/files/pscs3_rendering_image.pdf</p>