Working with RAW....

[Mav]

RAW is more accurate and will give better results when trying to rescue an image. Yes, people WILL say 'well i wouldn't be in that situation because my exosures are never that bad'... well nice, but thats up to you... the fact is its there if you need it.

This website is good for info and tests, maybe it will help answer yours and the OP's questions.

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/jpg-follies.shtml

Those aren't JPEG follies. Those are exposure and technique follies. Once you get some experience you'll recognize the backlighting issue and even if you only have the on board pop-up flash you're set. You've also got instant image review and should be able to instantly see the issue, even if you're just looking at the histograms, and then re-take the shot. To my eyes, both of the recovered backlit photos look like crap compared to what you would have gotten with a properly exposed fill-flashed photo to begin with.

At the same time though, that very example also blows the "JPEG throws away all your data" myth, particularly in the shadow recovery aspects. What do you see in both examples? Perfectly recovered shadow details in both JPEG and RAW. I see far too many people saying that you "can't" do something as simple as shadow detail recovery with JPEG and this proves that you can. On the JPEG, you could easily increase saturation just a tad. Yes it'll look rougher than the RAW I'm sure, but you wouldn't even have to be screwing around with any of this and you would have a superior looking photo had they just used the pop-up flash in the first place. Try your best to get it right on the camera the first time. Most of my mistake are far less severe than this, which is why I feel little need to shoot in RAW the vast majority of the time.

 

[Arch]

Im not sure what point you are trying to make?

Those aren't JPEG follies. Those are exposure and technique follies. Once you get some experience you'll recognize the backlighting issue and even if you only have the on board pop-up flash you're set. You've also got instant image review and should be able to instantly see the issue, even if you're just looking at the histograms, and then re-take the shot. To my eyes, both of the recovered backlit photos look like crap compared to what you would have gotten with a properly exposed fill-flashed photo to begin with.

Exactly which is why i said....

Yes, people WILL say 'well i wouldn't be in that situation because my exposures are never that bad'... well nice, but thats up to you... the fact is its there if you need it.

... and he also quite clearly states at the end of the page that he would obviously not try and take a photo that bad... its how you can rescue an image.

At the same time though, that very example also blows the "JPEG throws away all your data" myth, particularly in the shadow recovery aspects. What do you see in both examples? Perfectly recovered shadow details in both JPEG and RAW.

Erm i don't at all. I see the RAW be far better than the blocked out jpeg...

I see far too many people saying that you "can't" do something as simple as shadow detail recovery with JPEG and this proves that you can. On the JPEG, you could easily increase saturation just a tad. Yes it'll look rougher than the RAW I'm sure,

Exactly.

but you wouldn't even have to be screwing around with any of this and you would have a superior looking photo had they just used the pop-up flash in the first place. Try your best to get it right on the camera the first time. Most of my mistake are far less severe than this, which is why I feel little need to shoot in RAW the vast majority of the time.

See the first paragraph, its not about not being bothered to use proper photography techniques, its about saving an image which you find you really want to keep when you may have messed up, or through no fault of your own, didnt come off as well as you thought.

The bottom line is RAW IS better at saving highlights and shadow detail than jpeg, i dont care what Ken Rockwell or any other photographer says about it. I have said this before if you dont want to shoot RAW and prefer jpeg then fine.. no problem... but if you ever want to recover a shot that didn't go to plan OR are just into creating images with alot more processing RAW is your best bet.

 

[JerryPH]

At the same time though, that very example also blows the "JPEG throws away all your data" myth, particularly in the shadow recovery aspects.

The loss of data due to resaving is no myth. There is a reason its called a lossy format vs a lossless.

http://www.camsul.com/tutorials/PixelLossInJPEG/

 

[Mav]

Arch, my point is that I think this is all silly.

 

[Mav]

The loss of data due to resaving is no myth. There is a reason its called a lossy format vs a lossless.

http://www.camsul.com/tutorials/PixelLossInJPEG/

That has nothing to do with shadow detail recovery. I also use software that lets me do everything I need to do all in one program, so that I have a nice clean workflow and don't have to keep exporting and jumping around from program to program. It also creates a new JPEG and won't even process one of its output JPEGs, only the original. As long as you save at very high quality levels you can easily go 3-4 iterations with no noticeable difference in even larger sized prints. The article is very clever, but you cannot see changes of merely 1 RGB unit in prints, and thus its "astounding" results are merely exaggerating the "quality loss".

 

[JerryPH]

A first generation JPEG will offer quality that is merely close to comparable to a lossless format file, however, it cannot offer the same latitude for correcting exposure and other shooting issues like a RAW image or a TIFF, and not all software avoids the generational losses which are there, whether you choose to see or accept them or not.

 

[Mav]

I do accept that. BUT..... at most reasonable print sizes even up to 3 feet wide you simply won't be able to tell the difference between a reasonably shot JPEG and a RAW, whether you choose to see or accept that or not. If something will make a VISIBLE difference in prints at normal sizes I care. If you have to use special threshold masks to illustrate something because it's invisible to the human eye then I don't.

 

[Dennist3]

RAW gives you the ability to argue with your camera; if you don't like the settings it applied to your photos you can change them, from WB and brightness to curves and advanced color correction.

I Love it!!!! now the point becomes if I am shooting in Full Manual mode am I arguing with myself?
for the record I had never shot RAW until I was in school now I almost only shoot RAW then convert to DNG in Lr3...

 

[KmH]

Thanks for digging up this old, long dead thread! :thumbup:

 

[JimCoventry]

The Adobe pages devoted to Lightroom are many. There are forums you can join to get even more tips. The beauty of shooting raw and using lightroom in conjunction with CS4 or CS5 is you have unlimited possibilities.

Shoot in RAW Store in LightRoom Edit finals in Photoshop.

Lightroom allows me to very quickly go through all my images and pick the best of the best and make major color adjustments if necessary, then export to a slide show for publishing on the web or final edits in PS.

Importing to LR allows you to have your own presets.

Example: I shoot with 3 cameras, all Canon but 20D, 30D and 5D. All great cameras and workhorses, but each has it's own color quirks. So, I have a preset for each one that allows ALL my images to look like they came from just one camera. All 3 share the same lenses so why not?

Could not do all that shooting in jpeg

 

[Forkie]

About the only thing that I've ever done in RAW is color balance and even that, very little. I'm curious about the exposure adjustments. From my way of thinking, if there wasn't enough light when you took the picture, how much can you really do after the fact? Also, whatever you can do with exposure adjustments can also be done with TIFF and jpg. What's the benefit to RAW for that purpose?

I use RAW if I'm in a tricky environment to shoot in for example, shooting birds when there are a lot of clouds and the sun keeps popping in and out. The sun is always bound to pop out just as I have adjusted for cloud and vice versa, so it's pretty much guaranteed that'll want to keep a perfectly composed shot where the sun caught me by surprise and over/underexposed it. Adobe CameraRAW can actually recover blown out and blacked out areas pretty well whereas, if I'd shot in JPG, the information in those areas would have been lost forever.

EDIT: I just realised that this thread was started in 2008!