Will RAW give me the abilities a JPEG does?

Comparing PJ's to "artists" is what's off base here.

Photojournalists can not, by mandate of many of their employers and for commonly held ethical beliefs, edit images after they are taken. Many PJ's can (and are) fired for even cropping an image after it's taken. As such, they are often required to shoot everything in JPG.

Here's an article on PJ ethics:
Photojournalism Ethics: Chapter Six

[SIZE=+0]Hal Buell of the Associated Press said, "I don't think your ethics can be any better or any worse using electronic methods than they are using the classical methods. Ethics is in the mind. It is not in the tools you use" (Bossen, 1985, p. 30). There are two approaches that one can take about the use of computer technology: absolute or relaxed. Either computer manipulation should never be performed for news/editorial images, or changes are allowed. Robert Gilka, former director of photography for National Geographic magazine, articulated the absolute viewpoint. Gilka said that manipulating images is "like limited nuclear war. There ain't none" (Ritchin, 1984, p. 49). Jack Com, director of photography for the Chicago Tribune said manipulations are "ethically, morally and journalistically horrible" (Reaves, 1987, p. 3 1). [/SIZE]
Artists who view an image captured by a camera as a starting point and not the final product shoot in RAW. It allows them to play with the image in a non-destructive manner whereas this would be impossible with a JPG.

Weird, and I disagree to an extent. There has been plenty of occasion for the student paper I'm at to use RAW, from WB fixes to fill light. But, all adjustments are global only. That and I (the photographer) don't get to make any adjustments; that's done by the editors.
 
Comparing PJ's to "artists" is what's off base here.

Photojournalists can not, by mandate of many of their employers and for commonly held ethical beliefs, edit images after they are taken. Many PJ's can (and are) fired for even cropping an image after it's taken. As such, they are often required to shoot everything in JPG.

Here's an article on PJ ethics:
Photojournalism Ethics: Chapter Six

[SIZE=+0]Hal Buell of the Associated Press said, "I don't think your ethics can be any better or any worse using electronic methods than they are using the classical methods. Ethics is in the mind. It is not in the tools you use" (Bossen, 1985, p. 30). There are two approaches that one can take about the use of computer technology: absolute or relaxed. Either computer manipulation should never be performed for news/editorial images, or changes are allowed. Robert Gilka, former director of photography for National Geographic magazine, articulated the absolute viewpoint. Gilka said that manipulating images is "like limited nuclear war. There ain't none" (Ritchin, 1984, p. 49). Jack Com, director of photography for the Chicago Tribune said manipulations are "ethically, morally and journalistically horrible" (Reaves, 1987, p. 3 1). [/SIZE]
Artists who view an image captured by a camera as a starting point and not the final product shoot in RAW. It allows them to play with the image in a non-destructive manner whereas this would be impossible with a JPG.

Weird, and I disagree to an extent. There has been plenty of occasion for the student paper I'm at to use RAW, from WB fixes to fill light. But, all adjustments are global only. That and I (the photographer) don't get to make any adjustments; that's done by the editors.
Perhaps you should read what I said one more time. :)

I didn't say all or even most, I said many. What a school newspaper does and what National Geographic does aren't always aligned. See the cited information in my post you quoted. Some news outlets take an absolute stance on the issue of editing and others take a relaxed. Obviously your school paper has a relaxed approach.

I don't see what you're disagreeing with.

Added: Read these articles I just Googled. They're pretty interesting.

http://www.ajr.org/Article.asp?id=4383
http://www.globaljournalist.org/stories/2009/07/01/ethics-in-the-age-of-digital-manipulation/
 
Last edited:
If I understood correctly, the camera will do a better job creating the jpeg than the software.
I am a total noob when it comes to Photoshop and lightroom, so I guess I should start shooting raw and jpeg.

It's been answered and I know you're not using NX2 but... just as an example, these are all show RAW+JPG from three different Nikon cameras. I uploaded the .jpg created by the camera, then using NX2 I loaded the .nef version and saved it as a .jpg with no editing or changes. There are minute differences but certainly nothing overwhelming. This isn't always the case. Some images might look slightly different coming out of NX2.

Point is, if you open an .nef in NX2 you're seeing pretty close to what the camera-generated .JPG would look like.

D200 (I did have the saturation, etc, cranked back in the camera)-
.JPG:
697379844_BimoU-M.jpg


.nef in NX2:
697380905_tM4cN-M.jpg




D300 simple aerial -
.jpg:
697399443_LRZAz-M.jpg


.nef in NX2:
697401509_MkoDd-M.jpg




D70 (color auto-1)-
.jpg:
697391808_3sNqV-M.jpg


.nef in NX2:
697392449_GX4KJ-M.jpg


I think the color is terrible on the original. It was early morning, the hangars to the right (out of view) were splashing some yellow light, and the color is just wrong anyway. Just to illustrate the point about a simple correction that doesn't involve much skill (at least where NX2 is concerned) I made a couple of changes with really just a couple of clicks and no fiddling. First, I used Nikon's "picture controls" (not available on this camera originally but available in NX2) and made it a "standard" picture control with the stock set-up for that setting. Finally I put a "neutral control point" on a white part of the airplane so the overall color balance shifted to make the white neutral - then saved. This might be just slightly on the blue side but again, it's just an example that took all of a few seconds to change.

697431455_NMBPC-M.jpg



I'm not trying to argue for or against NX2 - it just happens to be what I use right now.

Wow. I may be crazy, but the software edited photos look slightly better to my eye.

Now I am wondering if the space requirements outweigh the benefit of having both raw and jpeg from the camera rather than the Nikon software.
 
Comparing PJ's to "artists" is what's off base here.

Photojournalists can not, by mandate of many of their employers and for commonly held ethical beliefs, edit images after they are taken. Many PJ's can (and are) fired for even cropping an image after it's taken. As such, they are often required to shoot everything in JPG.

Here's an article on PJ ethics:
Photojournalism Ethics: Chapter Six

Artists who view an image captured by a camera as a starting point and not the final product shoot in RAW. It allows them to play with the image in a non-destructive manner whereas this would be impossible with a JPG.

Weird, and I disagree to an extent. There has been plenty of occasion for the student paper I'm at to use RAW, from WB fixes to fill light. But, all adjustments are global only. That and I (the photographer) don't get to make any adjustments; that's done by the editors.
Perhaps you should read what I said one more time. :)

I didn't say all or even most, I said many. What a school newspaper does and what National Geographic does aren't always aligned. See the cited information in my post you quoted. Some news outlets take an absolute stance on the issue of editing and others take a relaxed. Obviously your school paper has a relaxed approach.

I don't see what you're disagreeing with.

Added: Read these articles I just Googled. They're pretty interesting.

Distorted Picture  | American Journalism Review
Ethics in the age of digital manipulation - Global Journalist

Er...yeah. Stuff. You know, I'm really not a morning person. :lol:
 
Not really, just that one feature isn't automatically carried across, from what I am reading here anyway. Mind you Active D lighting has been criticised for noise and tonal issues at times, so I doubt it's a feature you would miss, and since you have the RAW file you can always add it back afterwards anyway.
 

Most reactions

New Topics

Back
Top