Raw versus Jpeg

[raffal]

Can anyone here BTW define what " perfect" picture is ...I think what photographer should worry the most is to capture "moment" in time...vs is this picture "perfect" or " artistic"....maybe we should rename this site painters.net ???? vs photo.net????.... lol , raf

[mikem77]

If you post-process a significant amount of your pictures and really know how to use Photoshop (curves, levels, layers, etc.), then shoot RAW. Otherwise just shoot JPG.

 

I shoot RAW-only. 85% of the time I don't need it. I'm glad I have the RAW data for the 15%.

[christian_guglieri]

Always go with RAW if you can. RAW is the negative film in digital photography. And you want the negative to be the highest quality.

For post processing like converting and optimizing RAW to JPEG, there are lots of options. From the free one like Irvan View or the expensive one like Image Compressor.

[carbon_dragon]

"No, you're incorrect. It's impossible to print raws. There isn't a printer in the world that supports the bit depth of raw as they're all 8 bit. Printing raw from NX just process it to 8 bit before hand, the same as saving as a jpg."

 

This seems like a meaningless distinction to me. Any program has to convert whatever image it has to print on a printer. I doubt it being RAW makes a difference here.

 

I shoot in raw myself because I don't see any reason why I shouldn't avail myself of all the data the camera captured. Not shooting raw seems like shooting color print film and throwing away the negatives because the prints are "good enough". That said, it seems to me that ex-slide photographers who are capable of (and who pride themselves in having) exposure perfection tend to like JPEG because it's more like what they're used to (and don't we all like what we're used to).

 

Those of us who never acquired that level of perfection who make an occasional mistake, like to have the tools we need to optimize the final product, even at the expense of a few extra minutes (or longer) of post processing.

 

I guess it's up to you which way to go.

[garydem]

to i nissila. the number of bits does not have anything to do with the DR. if it did it would be like saying that if i cut a loaf of bread into 24 slices it is bigger than the same loaf of bread cut into 16 slices.

as for a scene that has more DR than the sensor can handle-that is what hdr and exposure blending is for. besides when digital did not exist what do you think the photogs used to get all the scenes that exceeded the dr of the film in use? as for jpegers being lazy, hogwash. we have to put more effort into the shots because we cannot rely on photoshop to to save and make the picture and correct for our mistakes. we have to get it right inthe first place.

"post processing is an intergal part of photography" not true. pp is compouter talent and software, not photography. photography is being able to get the shot in the camera at the time of the shot, with no excuses. and not even care what pp is going to do later because you don't need it.

 

r konrad. i am an not perfect either. but i most definately know what i am capable of with a camera, and i certainly expect that level of performance under any and all condition. with no excuse. like i did not get the shot because "___________". fill in the blank. and i do not think that you read my far above reply. in which i said that i shoot jpeg and it works for me and why. also it may not work for other people. if i was the op of this thread i would be shooting raw on the trip and anywhere else. he cannot affords to do anything else.

i never said that i never make a mistake. what are you reading? i said i was getting about 95% right in terms of exposure and wb. that is not perfect.

 

m barrera. you said that you took 3hrs to pp the shots. in june of 06 i and my wife went to nigara falls and i took 200 shot over 2 days. i threw out about half, not becuase anything was wrong but the compsoition was better on the others. i take shots of the same scene with different zoom setting and different lenses and moving postion slightly/ also portrait versus landscape. of the 200 i think i missed 3. the rest i get. pp was auto level auto contrast and auto sharpen in pe6. i was done and printing in less than i hr. raw simply takes more time, i wopuld rather be shooting. i fully realize that some people LIKE VERY MUCH PP. i do not. so i make sure that i do as little as possible.

one reason is that before i retired in 2005, i had been using computers since 1978, frankly that is enough. that was in the days when you had to wire with plugin cables your own boards before every use to configure the computers. yuck. not fun. i was doing this 8-10hrs a day.

i kniow that many of the photogs who got into photography since digtal went mainstream do not know that in the "old days" you had to get it as right as possible inthe camera since you simply did not have much choice. especially if you were shooting slides as i did. you cannot fix a slide. you simply put it on the screen and saw how well did or not did. if bad it was thrown out and your money with it. when i went digital my shooting habits transferred to the my dslr. so my background in making it possible to shoot jpegs and do it well. many people do not have my background, which is do it right or else you loose your money. everyone knows that of the shots were not done right there is always pp. and raw can fix a lot of messed up exposes. but i never learned that way. the way i learned was to get it right when shot.

 

as a small help for anyone who wants to saetup the dslror p&s to shoot good jpoegs, i offer the following prewritten how to-

to setup for jpeg with new camera-

there are 4 functions that may be adjusted. the color mode(or whatever it is called) saturation contrast and sharpening. i assume you are using a calibrated monitor. simply select a scene immediately outside your house. hopefully it has lights darks and colors. all settings in the camera are at zero or default. adjust color mode first then check the shot on the monitor, decide if ok, if not adjust reshoot and recheck. go on to each of the other adjustment settings. the object is to get the monitor scene as close a possible to the real scene outside. do not be concerned if the finished monitor scene has enough color for your tastes; the amount of color can be adjusted in pp. you are going for accuracy between the 2 scenes. the real and the one on your monitor; when done the 2 scenes should look identical or as close as possible. do not hurry. the adjustment process could take several hours. but once done leave the settings alone. at this point you know that the camera will accurately make the best most accurate pics possible of the scene. after i set my dslr up 3+ yrs ago about, i have not ever moved the settings. It took me 2-3 hours to setup my dslr.

if i needed/wanted more color or whatever that is what pp is for. i also try very hard to do my composing in the camera and not crop heavily in the pc. my thinking is why buy a 10mp camera and crop away 40%. you are then no better that a 6mp that is not cropped. besides which the cropped 10mp is noisier.

i would not adjust the contrast to get more DR. to me you just have to get used to the idea that digital has DR limitations. i shoot slides for 32yrs; the DR in digital and slides is about equal. i never had a problem. While DR limits exposure, lighting should/can be adjusted to compensate. if you want more headroom in your camera for taking jpegs, use adobeRGB color gamut. it gives slightly more headroom.

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[garrison_k.]

"Garrison, Epson has 16-bit drivers:"

 

Illka, no printer prints the 65,000 bits of info that the raw or 16-bit tif file contains. Many hope we can one day, as the advantages are as clear as shooting in raw vs jpg, higher dynamic range, wider color gamut, etc. For the time being, all printers print 256 bits of info (8-bit) and hence the statement "I print raw files" that I initially responded to, is false.

 

16-bit drivers are just a convenience for those working in 16-bit. But just like sharpening or re-sizing, I'm uncertain if I'd let an epson driver "process" my 16-bit file before it spits out an 8-bit print.

[russ_konrad]

<b>"..."post processing is an intergal part of photography" not true..."</b>

<p>

LOL

<p>

So do you think that the lab that processes your film never made any adjustments or corrections while developing to the print and/or the slide?

[ilkka_nissila]

Epson also say "This highly precise driver technology overcomes previous driver limitations and enables extremely accurate transitions and gradations in the final prints." If you have access to technical information which disproves what Epson says about their own products, I would be glad to read it.

 

In any case, the driver processes the image in the way it sees fit, no way around it unless you write your own device driver.

[garrison_k.]

Illka, again you're contesting topics I did not bring up. I corrected the miss-information that one can print a

raw file. One can not. If you'd rather have the inferior epson driver convert from 16 bit to 8 bit over

Photoshop, go for it! This is exactly what they mean by "extremely accurate transitions and gradations".

 

I however prefer to do the re-sizing, sharpening, colour space, and down sampling to 8-bit in PS and by-pass the

epson driver all together.

 

If you wish to inform me that you can somehow print a raw file or 65,000 bits, while the rest of the world can

not, I'll continue bantering with you.

[ilkka_nissila]

Indeed, the raw file is first converted into an RGB image, which is then sent to the driver. You're claiming that it's converted to 8 bits per color before printing. I am just pointing out that there are drivers available which use more than 8 bits, to obtain smoother tones [as per Epson's claims].

<p>

In any case you're always using a driver if you're printing something. The driver will take an RGB image, whether 16-bit or 8-bit, and apply various image processing algorithms, resampling, sharpening, dithering etc. and there's nothing you can do to avoid it, if you don't use a hand-written driver to by pass Epson's. If you print 8-bit files, you'll get your output faster but lose tonality compared to 16-bit files printed with Epson's new Mac drivers.

<p>

I am not sure why you're contesting something which is clearly described in Epson's web page. Is it that you said something initially (<i>"There isn't a printer in the world that supports the bit depth of raw as they're all 8 bit.</i>) and cannot admit to having been proven wrong. Or do I need to get a mac, print 16-bit and 8-bit, and scan the prints to show that Epson's claims are true?

<p>

Discussions online can be extremely tiring. Show me the evidence which proves that Epson is lying, and in reality you only get 256 tones, as you said.

[ilkka_nissila]

I suppose all printers are ultimately 1-bit per color, there is ink at a point or there is not. So I don't get where the 8 bits comes from.

[russ_konrad]

<b>"... Show me the evidence which proves that Epson is lying, and in reality you only get 256 tones, as you said..."</b>

<p>

You will find that Garrison K. frequently makes claims and assertions on photo.net that he refuses to backup with any evidence of any sort.

<p>

As you said - it becomes very tiring in carrying on a discussion with that type of individual.

[ShunCheung]

Hi Garrison, Ilkka and Russ: what you are debating about printing has little to do with the original topic. Could you take it off line via e-mail?

[ilkka_nissila]

Rafal, there is really no "perfect" picture - image quality is subjective. What I meant by perfect is that the image is the way I want it to be. Choosing a moment is just a small part of what is called photography. I recommend reading the literature about photography and its history. You will see that the idea of an image which is captured by the camera and then printed "as is" is a misundestanding. The concept, I believe, came about in the 1970s when the general population took a lot of color pictures and had the manipulation to make prints done for them by the labs that made the prints. Since they were unaware of what was needed to make a decent print, they assumed there was nothing more to photography than snapping the picture. With digital we finally can do for color what earlier photographers did in the darkroom. Make images which are personal rather than random photons captured. I would recommend reading the classic series by Ansel Adams for information about what more is in traditional photography than snapping the picture.

<p>

The slide, while it may look good in projection, cannot be printed without manipulation either. Your eyes and the brain adopt to the projected image, correct some of the color biases, and exposure errors that you made. It will look good and it's more forgiving that you might think. Then when you print it, you'll realize that sometimes a great deal of adjustments are needed to make it look decent in print. And the adjustments will be different for images in different light. Again, most slide photographers never saw this happen, since they didn't do it themselves. The idea of an unmanipulated print is ... well, it's just a theoretical possibility. In reality, photography doesn't work like that. It takes judgment to make a good print.

<p>

<i>pp was auto level auto contrast and auto sharpen in pe6. i was done and printing in less than i hr. </i>

<p>

If that's the quality level that you're looking for, great for you, an easy life.

<p>

<i> the number of bits does not have anything to do with the DR.</i>

<p>

Do you live near a bookstore or a university library?

<p>

<i>as for jpegers being lazy, hogwash. we have to put more effort into the shots because we cannot rely on photoshop to to save and make the picture and correct for our mistakes. we have to get it right inthe first place.</i>

<p>

It doesn't matter how much "effort" you put into making the shots. If you don't post-process them individually, they will never look as good as they would if you put the time into making the images personal. They're just pictures from a machine, drawn by the light that happened to be where you were when you pushed the button. The selection of camera point, angle of view, direction and timing is nowhere near enough to produce consistently good photography.

[manuel barrera houston,]

dear Gary please post your shots of niagra, I would love to see them, did I mention that they were also posted for the whole world to see if they so desired. two camera four different lens, 3 of which were prime lens. I would love to see your work.

[manuel barrera houston,]

notice some dust on the photo posted, I don't think that should have occurred, a little post processing to remove would make a much better photo.

[garrison_k.]

"Discussions online can be extremely tiring."

 

Yes, Illka, I'm confused where we are going, too. All printers print in 8-bit. How one choose to

get there, with drivers or PS, is up to them.

 

"If you print 8-bit files, you'll get your output faster but lose tonality compared to 16-bit files printed with

Epson's new Mac drivers."

 

I doubt that doing all your corrections (size, changing bit depth from 16 to 8) in PS and using the PS math, with

yield poorer results than relying on Epson to do the same converting. I'd have to do a side-by-side comparison.

But history shows PS has the most elaborate math and produces better results than drivers. Maybe things have changed.

 

"You will find that Garrison K. frequently makes claims and assertions on photo.net that he refuses to backup

with any evidence of any sort."

 

Russ Russ Russ. Big words from someone that can't prove you can print a raw file. By this statement, I guess

you can prove one can print a raw file?

 

Russ is just sore over my critique of his average formal photo and the quick and lazy method he executed to do so.

[garrison_k.]

"Hi Garrison, Ilkka and Russ: what you are debating about printing has little to do with the original topic. Could you take it off line via e-mail?"

 

Sorry Shun, didn't refresh and see your post before I hit 'submit'. Delete away.

[michael_kuhne]

In the images above with the JPEG blown sky and the other saved through RAW process is a good example of what can be done with RAW imaging. It is worth learning at least the basics.

 

But OTOH, here it is saving that which is the result of poor photographic technique. Any of us can get distracted and careless enough to make an obvious mistake, to be sure. And having a screen preview available to check up on ourselves is a useful advantage of digital photography. But pointing ones camera into a darker shaded area, in full auto mode, without some compensation, and expecting the well lit areas of the frame not to be blown out, then taking the time and effort to correct such a thing later with post process, is ridiculous!! I mean, not to insult anyone here, but this is photography 101, in this situation. While it is a very good thing to learn RAW post processing, perhaps the above also serves as an example of how it can possibly lead to our relying too much on that, and our matrix meters, compensating for what we should know on the spot. In the above example, I would have probably switched to spot meter, metered off a mid-tone area, and if not in M mode, hit the exposure lock button, then recomposed the shot to the above frame. The JPEG would have been fine. Bracket if not sure. That process takes seconds compared to a LOT more time in post process.

 

The nice thing about getting a screen preview, and the D80's D-lighting in-camera feature, is that this kind of situation can be evaluated and balanced on the spot. One can expose correctly for the water and sky here, which would probably over-darken the shadows of the embankment to some degree, but then the D-lighting feature could open those shadows while leaving the water/sky exposure intact. A great feature IMO, since we can see how we got it done right at the scene, and with very little time spent.

[garydem]

m barrera-

my photbucket page. not all are digital, some are scanned in slides that go back to the 1970s. also some were put online for other purposes.

 

http://s100.photobucket.com/albums/m32/garydem/

 

email me if you wish.

[raffal]

Ilkka,

"Choosing a moment is just a small part of what is called photography. I recommend reading the literature about photography and its history. You will see that the idea of an image which is captured by the camera and then printed "as is" is a misundestanding"....WELL , as a analogy we can use NASCAR as a whole, ---all depends what part of the "whole thing"- you wanna be: "small"- driver or "big": mechanics, sponsors,judges,fans and so on....... and --

 

"I would recommend reading the classic series by Ansel Adams for information about what more is in traditional photography than snapping the picture. "...

 

Well Instead of coming up with " Socrates type" speaches about photograhpy, why you simply avoid to answer above, above , above :) -- question :-

WHY most ,if not all PROs-- sport photographers and people that shot action (many f/s) prefer to shot in Jpegs than RAW ? ???-- Do you belive they can afford $ 1000s worth of photo equipment, but they cannot afford 16G/ 200G/ 400G CF cards :)))).....-- and thats why they are using Jpegs.???

As far as A.Adams is concern--- him, like you has a lot to say about RAWs and Photoshop.....

I guess, especially that Mr.Adams was using it very often....:), -raf