is there a better JPEG?

[radiorickm]

Ok. Here it is.
I am NOT an editor.
I do my very best to produce an image that is close to technically correct to begin with. I (up until very recently) shot everything JPEG. Because I don't do any heavy editing, this was not a problem. My test of a photo was if I can't fix it in Picasa in 30 seconds or less, I generally discarded it and moved on. It would have to be an incredible shot, like Elvis waving from the UFO window, before I would go any father.

You guys have convinced me, and now I shoot RAW. My thinking is, if for no other reason, when I send a print to the printer, they are getting a 1st genration JPEG to print from, rather than a later generation copy.

I get this part finally.

But here is my question.

Is it safe to assume that the PC platform JPEG conversion algorythyms are better than the IN-Camera JPEG conversion algorythms ?
And if so, are there some better than others, or are they pretty much the same? In other words, PS5 set to 90% compression is basically the same Pro-X 3 @90% and Gimp @90%?

Let me know what you think

 

[KmH]

The standards for the algorithms used to convert image files to JPEG were written by the Joint Photography Experts Group. Joint Photographic Experts Group - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

JPEG - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Any differences are small, and for all intents and purposes - insignificant.

Do you mean Photoshop CS5? There is a previous, much older version of Photoshop that is called PS5. Today's CS5 is essentially PS12.

 

[clanthar]

You have more flexibility with the computer software JPEGs -- for example a larger range of quality settings. However the camera's JPEGs can take advantage of pre-processing in which the engineers can correct for known shortcomings in the lens/sensor. For example, my camera's JPEGs are pretty distortion free (barrel distortion). The camera engineers did a good job removing it from the JPEGs but they left it for me in the RAW files. Removing lens distortion isn't a function of the JPEG algorithm but it's part of my camera's image processing routine.

Photoshop's ACR allows me to remove that distortion, but it doesn't do it for me without my having to think about it since Adobe didn't make my camera. Adobe is adding to their camera/lens database, but there's something to be said for having the people who designed the camera design the image processing.

Nonetheless I shoot only RAW.

JPEG 2000 has been around for some time now and odds are your printer can read the .jp2 files. Otherwise it hasn't really reached critical mass yet and it may not. The files are larger and there's no real advantage as far as the web is concerned. If it isn't on the web does it even exist?

Apart from that, I've never sat down and tried to test different JPEG implementations, but I'd assume their pretty standard across various applications.

Joe