RAW vs. JPEG opinion on my photo

[dave404]

<p>If you are always spot on in exposure and photographing a scene without a huge difference in dynamic range, go for the JPG. If you are shooting in a more challenging environment and are a mere mortal, RAW has the extra dynamic range and and control to allow you to save the shot. <br>

Besides the extra dynamic range you should understand what happens when you take a picture with a digital camera. Unbenownst to you a great many decisions are made by a software programmer you will never meet who is trying to figure our what you are looking for in the photograph. This guy may be good programmer but the tools at hand are limited.<br>

First the camera will attempt to figure out the white balance by searching for the brightest object and assuming it is white. No the bright yellow light reflecting off the disco ball at the wedding is not white, but the camera knows it must be white. Your beautiful bride's (standing next to the disco ball) dress will of course be adjusted accordingly and the camera will assume you want the reflection in the disco ball to be properly exposed. Presto, the bride's dress measures R129 G120 B180, nice blue and quite dark. You lost half the range and have a nice exposure of a reflection off a disco ball. Of course the camera will then drop from 12 or so bits down to 8 and apply a gamma curve for nice tonality over this range. A nice contrast boost in the "mid tones" and you are ready to get your a** handed to you by an angry bride.<br>

In an early post on this forum there was a poster that had a grey cat photographed in nice lighting and wanted to know what RAW had to offer. Well Mr Wong or whoever wrote the software had an evenly lit grey cat as his model when he wrote the software. I write a lot of software, but you have to know its limitations. By using RAW you defer the decisions until you are safe at your computer and can make the decisions yourself.<br>

One other thing, the RAW file is a real negative. No accidental edits and SAVE commands to ruin it. I convert to DNG and archive those. That is another advantage.</p>

<p> </p>

[vrankin]

<p>If you're able to perfectly control your output from jpeg with every shot, there's no need to worry about what you missed with RAW. I've done a year of comparing jpeg with RAW conversion to 16 bit TIFF (5MB vs. 57 MB files!) side by side, and yes, there is a broader ability to control with RAW, but for me it takes pixel peeping at 100% to see a difference, when my jpegs are spot on. But I have highly customized my in-camera jpeg settings to give me exactly what I want. </p>

[chrisjb]

<p>Other than cropping, if you edit your pics in any way, you will lose data with JPG. If you don't edit them (white-balance; saturation; contrast; etc.), then stick with JPG.<br />Personally, I'm constantly moving from indoors to outdoors, shade to sun, etc... instead of constantly changing all my settings, I just shoot in RAW and take care of it later.</p>

<p>Interesting, but not good practice IMO, you maybe losing more detail and DR with incorrectly exposed photos, underexposed creating unwanted noise, over exp blown highlights even more loss of detail. I find Jpegs fine upto 8x12 and only manipulate and save once. Thats the only time theres a loss, not noticable. if something different wanted just copy it. Raw will give more detail if printing larger, but isn`t that dependant on the printer? most labs and printers print Jpeg files anyway, kinda defeats the purpose for most folks. How many monitors cover the full gamut and DR range ? not everyone calibrate the monitor using a commercial standard software, many just guess. Got a backyard shoot this avo at 4.30 will do Raw+Jpeg just in case of some nasties but probly not necessary. and as stated large burst in Raw could possibly cost an eventfull happening if stuck waitin on a full buffer. Worth trying to see if it works for you, my turnaround time finds jpeg handy :) </p>

[axel-cordes]

<p>I'm not sure if it was said already but be aware that each 'save' on a JPG will loose data. So if you shoot JPG and later do some saturation and this and that and save you lost again.<br>

I think we can see that in the ACURA letter of the first image in the middle of the image.<br>

Regards Axel</p>

 

[manuel barrera houston,]

<p>opened your image, saved as jpeg and used raw to get true white and noise reduction, slight improvement at least to my tired old eyes. Image follows.</p><div></div>

[dejansmaic]

<p>I shoot RAW simply for image adjustments during PPing. I don't mind PPing in LR2 300 to 500 images at a time. Just brew a pot of coffee...;-) Anyways, WB in less than ideal lighting will bring out the best in an image that would have otherwise been in the "discard" bin. Also, it may bring out the best in those "killer shots". Just IMHO.</p>

[manuel barrera houston,]

<p>Your second image the color correction was more obvious, second image follows. Remember I am working from a jpeg image not a raw image. It only takes a few seconds to do color correction and noise reduction and certainly bump up the colors if one so desires.</p><div></div>

[william_landon]

<p>If the Lowe's #15 Acura was under braking, it's often difficult to see glowing brake rotors in bright daylight. If you wanted to reveal the glowing rotors, it would be easier to bring out those details from the dark wheel wells with a RAW image. Congratulations, GREAT SHOTS!<br />Bill</p>

[richard_martin10]

<p>Manual, The first image you touched up is apples and oranges to me, both look good. The second image however is not right. The track surface has a mauve tone to my eye, and the silver in the car has altered to an inaccurate color.<br>

William, Glowing brake discs are not visible in daylight, I've seen it on occasion in heavy overcast but twilight and night is obviously the time. Heres an example.</p><div></div>

[manuel barrera houston,]

<p>it is a much smaller image, the color is correct for the light present, but one can always change to suit one's taste. That is the beauty of raw.</p>

[manuel barrera houston,]

<p>Richard I have attached two large images of the last one you posted, since photonet limits the size I had to upload to another site, I will remove after a few weeks from that site. Again just a few second of raw on a jpeg,working from a raw images allows more manipulation.<br>

Large photo attachments<br>

http://www.pbase.com/memejr1949/image/111443146 this is with adjustments light and noise</p>

<p>http://www.pbase.com/memejr1949/image/111443203 this is the original</p>

[DickArnold]

<p>Richard your images look fine except for apparent clipping on the fenders of one. Your exposures appear quite accurate. If you are satisfied with them there is no problem. I have won awards with JPEGS. I also recently shot a very large swimming meet at Harvard Univ indoors where the light is horrendous and the contrast in some areas of the pool is six or seven stops so the water can be overexposed and the swimmers face underexposed. The lights in the arena are a funny shade and skew the colors. The light is so low in some areas that I had to use flash at ISO 3200 and then deal with two different white balances in the same picture. The picture was worth saving because that person's winning performance would have been lost otherwise. Simply put I can shoot in RAW and correct a lot of these problems in ACR which is my RAW my converter. I can do very precise sharpening in PS and use Noise Ninja if necessary. I have saved a lot of these pictures that would not have been otherwise saved. BTW the RAW converter can identify and correct that clipping problem. I have my RAW converter set so I can run JPEGs through it before going into PS but it is not as effective as it is with RAW images. I prefer to do most of my corrections in ACR becasue of ease of use and precision. Man, if you are satisfied with JPEG then I certainly would not, pardon the pun, try to convert you. I am just pointing out where shooting in RAW has helped me over the years. The other advantage and perhaps the greatest one is that I preserve pristine files in RAW. I have pictures that I have printed in different sizes for different uses and print sizes and I can always do back that original RAW file after I have scewed up my working TIFF or JPEG and start over from the beginning. Some of my images are perfectly exposed in good light that can go directly to print without post processing except to sharpen for sensor loss(done in camera if set with JPEG} and cropped or sized to the intended use. A lot are not that perfect, however. To me there is no argument. To each his own. Good luch with your JPEGs. </p>

[manuel barrera houston,]

<p>And here is the second car, as a large attachment, there are two lights hitting the vehicle one from the top and the side of the car which would be more of shade. One can choose what one wants to emphasis</p>

<p>large photo attachment<br /> http://upload.pbase.com/image/111443444 modified.</p>

[fred_labounty]

<p>jpeg is fine if you are only shooting for your own pleasure. however, if you are shooting for various publications, they may require that you use raw so they can optimize to their standards. They want all the information the camera has to offer.</p>

[manuel barrera houston,]

<p>Don't have as much time as I have too much work that allows me pursue my hobby, photography and as Dick Arnold stated if you like JPEG then stay with it I am not trying to convert you rather just stating too much is made about how difficult raw is. It does require that one learn some thing new, kinda like going from film to digital and raw does not take too long.</p>

[leora]

Dear Richard and fellow photographers, I have not heard too many people mention that the main difference between Raw and JPG is that Raw is uncompressed raw data and jpg is compressed.

 

Chris JB was right that if you edit in any way an image you value, you will lose data and quality, I am suggesting you archive the raw file and save a copy to work on in a lossless (uncompressed) format like Tiff (which all outside printers like) or PhotoShop (which is accepted by many).

 

Then there is the question of "profiles" on the computer and "color space" on your camera, which can effect the results when you send out files to printing services and when you save files to CD or DVD. The universal and safest profile and color space to use, if you are not just printing to your own printer, is sRGB. If you get good results printing to your own printer with an Adobe profile, just remember that when you send files out to be printed or make CD's and DVD's they may not match your monitor.

 

Best regards, Leora

[nail33]

<p><!-- @page { size: 8.5in 11in; margin: 0.79in } P { margin-bottom: 0.08in } --></p>

<p >Richard:</p>

<p >I think your pictures look great. If you feel that the pictures you took accurately portray the scene, than I doubt RAW would have made much difference for you. On the other hand, if the picture was off for some reason, RAW gives you more latitude to make repairs. You should take a picture in RAW + JPEG mode, and if you think the JPEG is perfect to you, post both pictures on this forum. This way, the experts in this forum could take the RAW image information and show you what could be done to (maybe?) make the picture look better in a way that wouldn't be possible with just the JPEG. I think this would be a better way to answer your question.</p>

 

[doug_santo]

<p>I am a professional geologist by trade and a photographer by hobby. It is a standing joke in geological circles that if you ask 3 geologists for thier opinions, you will get 4 different responses. In the case of photography, if you ask 3 photographers thier opinion you will get 10 different responses, and these will be full of caveats, what-if's, but's, etc.</p>

 

[josephbraun]

<p>Doug,</p>

<p>That is so true LOL!</p>

[jim_rais]

<p align="justify">Manuel Barrera :<br />Regarding copyright of the owner of the photographs - which is Richard Martin - I think you should at least stated on the caption that those photographs you uploaded to your site at pbase are his. Now it seems as if you are the maker of those images.</p>

[KenPapai]

<p>Thanks Manuel -- nice to see at least someone knows what they are doing here.<br>

(Q: If you don't know how to resize and post properly how could one possibly understand the Raw v. JPG discussion? A: you can't, so come back in a year or so.)</p>

<p>If you ask 3 photogs for their opinion about R v. J only listen to the one arguing for Raw, he knows something (certainly a lot more) than the J-only people (who throw away so much info in the image capture.</p>

[manuel barrera houston,]

<p>Jim I don't know what you are talking about, maybe you should go back and read, opened your image (referring to Richard) if you follow there was some comments by Richard about my posting, since the reference was to him and he seems not to have complained, what is your beef? I don't need to take credit for anything, I am happy with what I do. If you notice that I mentioned to Richard that I would remove them after a couple of weeks, but to appease you, I will remove them immediately, while I realize that I could go back and edit the images, I won't because no one will notice them unless they link from here. But petty little minds need to be appeased.</p>

[manuel barrera houston,]

<p>Ken Papai, don't know if you are insulting me or not but I do recall proving you wrong a time or two, photonet has a max for a size that was smaller then what Richard posted, all I did was post the same size that he had. So if you are insulting me then come back when you learn some thing that I don't know, a couple of years. By the way that book that you recommended was of little use other then a paper weight. I don't know what I did to you to offend you, other then prove that you are not perfect, nor am I. But I certainly have no problem stating that you are not as smart as you make yourself out to be. Know they can delete all my posting as long as your trash is also.</p>

[keith reeder]

<blockquote>

<p>opened your image, saved as jpeg <strong>and used raw</strong> to get true white and noise reduction</p>

</blockquote>

<p>How did you do that then, Manuel? Once an image is a jpeg, it can never go back to being a "proper" RAW again.</p>

<p>So - whatever you did to the OP's image - you did it to a jpeg, proving nothing about the benefits - or otherwise - of RAW, <em>which is what the thread is about</em> ...</p>

[lad_lueck]

<p>Supply the raw file, and we can process it to show you...<br>

JPG limits you to the in-camera: white balance, color interpretation between channels, noise reduction, tone curve, sharpness, and clipping of white and black points.<br>

While you think you have a great JPG image, you could have made it better in all of those categories.<br>

There IS a downside. You will spend -years- learning and perfecting the tweaks of these catagories. It will be worth it, if you care alot about the final image.</p>