JPEG or RAW

[gregory_c]

OK, its the lifelong question, what is the best/easiest way to process RAW

images ? I always shoot JPEG at weddings, 80% of the time they are great, but

its that 20% I need help on !! Someone suggested shooting RAW when there is

strange lighting, can the RAW be post processed on PS Elements2 or PSP 9 ?

What is the easiest way to process a large number of pics ?

Thanks,,GC

[rainer_t]

PSE2 doesn't work with Adobes Camera Raw (ACR), but PSE3 does.

 

Depending on what camera you use, it might be possible to shoot RAW and large/fine JPG at the same time. That way, you would still have the convenience to use straight camera jpg of the 80% that turn out good,

and do the raw processing with the other 20%.

 

Rainer

[w.smith]

"PSE2 doesn't work with Adobes Camera Raw (ACR), but PSE3 does."

 

PhotoLine32 works with RAW too. An excellent photo editor, and FREE downloadable

shareware with unrestricted trial: http://www.pl32.com/.

 

"Depending on what camera you use, it might be possible to shoot RAW and large/fine JPG

at the same time."

 

The downside is that that fills up your memory card quicker, of course. Plus it requires

more time per shot to write to memory. Also the JPG's don't add any quality. So it's prolly

more sensible to only shoot RAW, and convert those you need as JPG to it. Those JPG's will

be far better quality than the ones your camera takes in combo with RAW's.

 

Have fun.

[rob loxley]

Adobe Lightroom?

[steve_levine]

Check the archives, this has been discussed thoroughly in the past.

[stephen dohring]

Yeah what Rob said - Lightroom is really great your can batch process easily and even adjust your Jpg white balance non destructively so you don't even need RAW, This would be huge for you. THere are tons of free video tutorials on light room so that will help. However the RAW is the better quality to work with There is a free beta version to try until they charge next month for it. Not sure how much but I would think less than CS2 Capture one is a great standalone program which some like better than adobe's Raw converter. I have done only one wedding but shoot outdoors a lot and I notice my Auto White Balance changes often in the same area, even cloud changes can throw it off. I don't think I would ever not shoot RAW but again lightroom lets your change everything that you could on raw, on any type of file.

[ben_rubinstein___mancheste1664880652]

Lightroom or Bridge 2.0 (coming with CS3) will do what you want. That said with the incredibly low prices of CF cards these days (about $30 for a sandisk Ultra II in B&H at the moment!) given that your workflow will be almost exactly the same between jpg and RAW with these two programs you might as well get the better quality and wiggle room of the RAW file for those 20% that needed help, the Adobe highlight recovery works incredibly well with RAW files but is probably pretty useless with jpgs even with these new programs. Point is that it's a bit silly to burn in certain contrast/saturation/sharpness settings in camera just to change them again in Lightroom thereby making changes to changes which can never be as good as doing it from scratch yourself, i.e. with a RAW file.

[kelvinphoto - arlington, t]

do you print poster size? if not, then jpeg. if yes, then raw. raw = more wasted time. so, it is depend on your works flow.

 

I shoot jpeg only for weddings & events. I spend less than 2 hours on 1000 images and I am done.

 

But I shoot RAW+JPEG for bridal & studio portrait because all my client wants poster size up to 40x60. This is when I process the RAW file.

 

RAW: slow processing, waste Megaspace, tone of infos that you don't need if you print up to 8x10. Great for poster size!

 

Jpeg: good for up to 24x30 if correctly expose.

 

RAW/JPEG is up to you to decide. if nothing wrong with your work flow as jpeg, then why change? "if it is not broken, then don't fix it"

 

You'll find yourself run into more trouble with RAW if you don't have the right tools for it.

[edrodgers]

Steve Dohring Said:

"...even adjust your Jpg white balance non destructively so you don't even need RAW, This would be huge for you...."

 

That's not exactly true. It's non-destructive to the original file, sure, but the print output will then not be the original file, and color information will be lost, just like if you do level adjustments on the original.

 

RAW has more data than a JPEG in general. So if you adjust you 16 bit RAW file, you may lose some information, but you can still generate a rich 8 bit JPEG. Adjust your 8 bit JPEG, and you are left with a sub-perfect image no matter what.

[conraderb]

G cottis - I shoot raw for everything, but that's because I have the card space and because I have the time to process them. personally, 75% of the 6 hours it takes to post process a wedding is just throwing out the bad stuff - I estimate that shooting in raw versus jpg only adds 90 minutes, maybe 2 hours max to my workflow, and it saves me a headache b/c I don't worry about white balance or 100% perfect exposure.

 

for my first two weddings, I shot JPGs, and if I was more than 1/3 of a stop off, I wouldn't show it to the client.

 

now I shoot raw and my files are pretty much on, but for the occasional shot that is up to a stop over or 1.5 stops under - raw saves the day.

 

another thing - raw files are INDEPENDENT of color space. hence, you can use them to create sRGB files to print at a lab, or Adobe RGB files to print on a high end offset printer like what graphistudio uses.

 

ANYWAY - that said, I use photomechanic to do my initial edit of 1000+ exposures down to 350-450. then I use either aperture or canon DPP to do the tweaks to the files and convert to high res JPGs to upload to pictage.

 

photomechanic is the fastest raw browser I have ever seen - I highly recommend it.

[ben_rubinstein___mancheste1664880652]

Kevin, you did read that he said that he needs 'help' on 20% of his images didn't you?

[picturesque]

I'd first define what the problem is with the 20%. If you can identify that it was because the lighting is strange, then it would make sense to change to RAW in those situations and use Digital Photo Professional (the software that came with your 20D) to process just those files and re-integrate them with your JPEGS. If you can't define the problems that easily, then that is another story. You can shoot all RAW and use DPP (it is free, but do update it--free from Canon's site).

[robbie_caswell]

Now that I have switched primarily to Canon I need a better programming options.

 

But... cards are cheap relative to most camera goodies. Riodata 8 GB cards have done well for me all year and are affordable.

 

It's worth the extra expense to buy the space and shoot RAW.

[w.smith]

"photomechanic is the fastest raw browser I have ever seen - I highly recommend it."

 

Second that.

http://www.camerabits.com/pages/PM4.html

[mister_lane]

You don't shoot jpeg; it's impossible to do such a thing. You shoot RAW and use the RAW converter built into your camera. It is, on a related note, the worst RAW processor in existence, which is natural since it has to perform at speed in firmware, powered by a battery. The best way to answer the question of what RAW can do for you is to understand completely all the tasks that are involved in RAW processing. Namely the linear conversion algorithm, matrix conversion algorithm, white balance, exposure, contrast, saturation, and finally lossy/destructive compression. <br>

<br>

Your RAW converter can affect so much more than just exposure levels - de-moire algorithms will keep moire patterns out of shots, something that's nearly impossible to remove from a JPEG. There are a still wedding pros who shoot film because of the white-on-white moire problems that can exist in a traditional wedding setting.<br>

<br>

Here are some starting points

<br>

<a href="http://www.adobe.com/digitalimag/pdfs/phscs2ip_hilight.pdf">http://www.adobe.com/digitalimag/pdfs/phscs2ip_hilight.pdf</a><br>

<a href="http://www.dpreview.com/learn/?/key=moire">http://www.dpreview.com/learn/?/key=moire</a><br>

<a href="http://www.adobe.com/digitalimag/pdfs/phscs2ip_filmtodig.pdf">http://www.adobe.com/digitalimag/pdfs/phscs2ip_filmtodig.pdf</a><br>

<br>

good luck!

[Brad_]

<I> de-moire algorithms will keep moire patterns out of shots, something that's nearly

impossible to remove from a JPEG. </I><P>

 

Curious as to the principles of how these de-moire algorithms work. Can you enlighten, as it

would appear to violate Nyquist? Which RAW converters employ that? References/citations

would be great.

[mister_lane]

brad:

<a href="http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canoneosd60/page15.asp">http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canoneosd60/page15.asp</a><br>

There's no cure yet for <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyquist-Shannon_sampling_theorem"> the consequences of not enough pixels</a>, however you can do a heck of a lot better at removing moire in software with access to all three sensor feeds. And so they do.<br>

HTH

[jimstrutz]

I don't think shooting RAW takes me any more time to process than shooting JPG. Either way I would have to go through them all one at a time, deleting the rejects, adjusting color and exposure, straightening and cropping each one that needs it. I'm using RawShooter Premium now, and will probably switch to Lightroom later, but the processing is all done in the background while I'm adjusting the next image. Actually, doing this with RAW is a lot faster than messing with with JPG. You just need a decent RAW processor.

 

Can't imagine doing all this in PSP or PSE. that would be way too slow.