RAW vs. JPEG opinion on my photo

[wayne_campbell]

<p>Someone above said "If you were shooting film, would you burn your negatives once you'd made a nice print?"<br>

Is this entirely true? When you use a program like iPhoto you can make a duplicate and work on it. In fact you can make endless duplicates and never touch your original jpeg. Isn't that original jpeg the same as a negative?</p>

[glenn_c1]

<p>I think the argument is that the true negative has already been burned in-camera. Fair point.</p>

[richard_martin10]

<p>Someone above said "If you were shooting film, would you burn your negatives once you'd made a nice print?"<br />Is this entirely true? When you use a program like iPhoto you can make a duplicate and work on it. In fact you can make endless duplicates and never touch your original jpeg. Isn't that original jpeg the same as a negative?</p>

<p>I have all my pics saved to CD's. For every event there is an unedited CD which is for all the pics right out of the camera, and another CD that contains all the images that I really like and have edited. At any time I can reload the original JPEGS off the CD and re-edit them. I understand that RAW has more flexibility then a JPEG but as of yet I haven't needed it for what I'm doing. FWIW I took a load of pics of my dog in the yard yesterday shooting both RAW and JPEG, I found little difference after processing both, a bit like apples and oranges for this particular experiment. To be fair the sky was nice and bright and my white dog against the green grass didn't present much of a challenge to expose.</p>

[kraubenheimer]

<p>I just recently shot in RAW for the first time and found it much better than JPEG for post processing. Just one thing I found was that my camera was MUCH slower and I couldn't shoot as fast in the continues mode. (I am using nikon D60 and I am not a professional photographer). I am just wondering if it would not bug you - especially if you take sports photos....</p>

[mendel_leisk]

<p>My take is the jpeg is a "print". When you shoot jpeg only, a raw conversion took place in-camera, and then that raw data was deleted. You're left with a lossy format file, one interpretation of the raw data.</p>

[paul_aylett1]

<p>I'm with Wayne here. JPG's can be tweaked for colour balance and exposure (unless you were way, way off on the exposure) without touching the original file - as long as you work on a duplicate. I did a side by side comparison of a 14 bit RAW file vs a JPG of an identical shot. Aside from a slightly better dynamic range on the RAW, and an ever so slight (I mean tiny) colour cast on the JPG, the difference wasn't huge at all (you wouldn't say the difference was 'night and day' by a long shot) - and I was looking at both pics at 300% magnification. If I was shooting landscapes with a plan to sell 30" prints, I would shoot RAW to squeeze that extra 'oomph' out of the image but that aside, I honestly can't see the additional work in the conversion and increased file size being really worth it.</p>

[jimmcnitt]

<p>Hi Richard:<br>

I didn't have time to read the full thread, so my comments are probably redundant, but here goes. In my experience, RAW provides you with slightly more latitude for tweaking White Balance, Curves and HSL. If your camera supports RAW+JPEG, you can try this out for yourself.<br>

That said, unless you have a really high-end dSLR, for your kind of action photography, you probably want to stick with JPEG lest you find yourself missing great shots because the cache is full and your viewfinder says "BUSY."<br>

--jim</p>

[tom_worster]

<p>here's a story from which i learned something.<br>

since learning to use raw and lightroom, i didn't considered using jpeg at all. it was clear cut, black and white (haha): raw works much better. it can save your bacon.<br>

but on sunday, this opinion was challenged.<br>

i was racing and my wife was photographing with the 40d and f4/70-200mm-is. as a relative beginner with photography, <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/96882329@N00/3455834399/sizes/l/in/set-72157616961598439/">she did great, as you can see</a>.<br>

but the 4g cf in the camera was full as the winner crossed the finish line. aarg.<br>

with the images in lightroom, it was clear that no adjustment of color, exposure, toning, etc. was needed. only cropping. so jpeg would have done pretty much just as well.<br>

darn it! she could have used jpeg and continued shooting through and after the finish.<br>

otoh, we didn't know that no adjustment would be needed until we got home.</p><div></div>

[alan_ginman]

<p>I would suggest that a jpeg is like a transparency. And people shot trannies for decades without any problems. Having said that, after a few years of shooting jpegs I am looking into shooting raw and will shortly start dabbling.</p>

<p>Cheers</p>

<p>Alan</p>

[pboraschi]

<p>Jpegs are not like a transparency. I would argue that raw is more like a slide, the dynamic range is larger and it captures all the details so you can correct a badly exposed shot or bring detail where it was gone. With that said, I will shoot raw for some stuff like portraits, commercial job or personal work. When I shoot weddings i will shoot mostly jpegs and use raw only in situations where exposure might be problematic, my main reason for working that way is that I will expose properly so my corrections are minor: i don't see myself going through raw files for a wedding, there are too many.<br>

I know this is a big debate, but in the end it is how you feel confortable working. The end product is what speaks for itself. I challenge anyone to point out the raw file from a jpeg when looking at a final photo (online or printed)...<br>

cheers</p>

<p>Pascal</p>

 

[g dan mitchell]

<blockquote>

<p><em>"darn it! she could have used jpeg and continued shooting through and after the finish."</em></p>

</blockquote>

<p>Or you could spend a few more bucks and get a larger card... ;-)</p>

[jerrymat]

<p>I remember years ago being asked why I did not just use drug store processing for my film. Others did it and got results they liked. I built and operated a darkroom (5 times over my lifetime with film) because craftmanship was important to me. I dropped jpeg and went to raw for the same reason: control over the process = craftmanship.</p>