JPEG or RAW?

[hamlet]

I am almost ready for my grand photojourney trip across many lands with first major general Poof

. I am wondering if i should shoot in JPEG or raw? I have opened raw and jpeg in lightroom 5, but i am unable to see any difference at all? What advantages are there to sacrificing double the space for shooting raw as opposed to JPEG? Please ignore my inexperience for the sake of this discussion.

 

[rexbobcat]

With RAW, if you see something interesting and tar a quick snap only to realize that it's underexposed and the white balance is wrong, you can adjust it in LR fairly easily unless it's just really over/underexposed.

RAW is an uncompressed format with lots of editing latitude.

JPEGs are compressed as have less information.

If you try to change the WB or exposure too much you'll start to get weird color shifts and artifacts, because some of the data was thrown out or consolidated when the camera processed the image. That's why they're smaller, because there's less data, and therefore less room for error.

If to screw up a JPEG...you're basically screwed is what I'm saying lol

ALSO! Every time you save a JPEG, close it, reopen it, and then save it again, the quality gets worse, because you're compressing the data over and over, which means there's less and less data in the image every time it's saved.

With RAW you can save all edits to the RAW itself without sacrificing data. Then when you're ready to post it to the web or print it you can convert it to JPEG.

 

[KmH]

Read these tutorials;

Image Files

• Understanding Bit Depth
• Understanding Image Types: JPEG & TIFF
• Understanding RAW Files: Why Should I Use RAW?

 

[hamlet]

With RAW, if you see something interesting and tar a quick snap only to realize that it's underexposed and the white balance is wrong, you can adjust it in LR fairly easily unless it's just really over/underexposed.

I am unfamiliar how its easy to edit the pictures? How is it easy?

 

[PhotoWrangler]

I am unfamiliar how its easy to edit the pictures? How is it easy?

If you bothered to read the links that Keith provided for you, you wouldn't need to ask this. Don't ask for assistance if you aren't going to use it.

 

[Bulb]

The ability to change WB in post is enough reason for me to use RAW nearly exclusively. I find myself going back often and looking at sets of pictures I've taken where (especially indoors) the WB on all but a few is slightly wrong. In a few clicks, it's easy to choose the shot with the most correct WB and then apply it to every other picture.

The next most important thing to me is the ability to change the 'exposure' in post. It's easy to open up a picture and tweak it until it's the right brightness, recover the highlights, recover the shadows, do LAB color adjustments (sort of fun to experiment with making surreal scenes), etc. It's no substitute for proper exposure in-camera, but it's good for fine-tuning.

RAW and variable ISO were the two largest factors in my switch to digital, actually.

 

[DougGrigg]

Quick and short for me, Shoot TIFF& RAW files, some of the latest cameras have this avaliable to save photos as both, definitely worth doing if you have a camera that does this!

 

[sashbar]

I always shoot in RAW+Jpeg and 99% of the time I do not use the RAW file at all. But if I get a really good shot then it is always nice to have the RAW file to be able to get Max out of it. But all the pics I post here are basic Jpeg. Out of several thousand images shot in the last several months I probably used about 8 or 10 RAW files. But I still shoot RAW+Jpeg. Memory is cheap these days so why not. It is always good to keep a truly good image in RAW format, because you tastes are changing, your pp skills developed and one day you might want to get back to your old images and process it again.

 

[runnah]

Raw+Basic Jpeg 100% of the time.

I will never not shoot raw again.

 

[astroNikon]

I'm a convert to RAW to for the shots that really matter to me.
If I'm just taking "test" photos, I always do JPEG. but when the picture matters, always RAW.

If I think a shot is a "nice to have" shot but not important to me I'll rattle off a bunch in JPEG. But I've learned that RAW files just have so much more depth and "reality" to them than JPEG.

When I do my kids sports I do those in JPEG though. I need the buffer for action sequences.

Here's a good article about JPEGs in addition to the one's Keith gave
DigiGraphics: How To Work with JPEG Files

 

[pgriz]

With 32GB memory cards available for very little, the discussion of not using RAW for sake of "saving" memory space is kinda meaningless. More relevant is how accurately does the final JPG out of camera represent your intention? Most of us do not make perfect decisions, and need the lee-way provided by the RAW to revisit our decisions with respect to sharpening, WB, saturation, etc. Of course, using RAW also means that you're committing yourself to post-processing. If you have no intention or need of doing post-processing, then going to JPG is a reasonable choice.

The links Keith gave you explain many of the technical underpinnings of why using RAW "may" be a good choice for you. If you are the kind of person who NEVER revisits his choices, and NEVER would want the option of going back to re-do some aspect of an image, then using RAW would be a waste of memory space. If, on the other hand, you make mistakes and need to salvage an unrepeatable situation, then RAW is a good insurance policy to allow you to retrieve something from what would otherwise be a complete loss.

 

[astroNikon]

I should mention that I was extremely hesitant on moving towards RAW. Not because it is the better format, but simply because I did not understand how to process it to a format that is more usable, such as JPEG. Plus the time to convert it.

That was my biggest stumbling block. So from Last October until a couple months ago I only shot in JPEG. The Selective Color August photo thing pushed me to learn how to use Lightroom and if anything, to work on a RAW file and export as JPEG.

Then I took a picture of the moon in RAW .. WOW, what a difference!!

I've been a convert ever since

I also used to do RAW + JPEG but now just simply do RAW when the picture counts.

 

[runnah]

With 32GB memory cards available for very little, the discussion of not using RAW for sake of "saving" memory space is kinda meaningless. More relevant is how accurately does the final JPG out of camera represent your intention? Most of us do not make perfect decisions, and need the lee-way provided by the RAW to revisit our decisions with respect to sharpening, WB, saturation, etc. Of course, using RAW also means that you're committing yourself to post-processing. If you have no intention or need of doing post-processing, then going to JPG is a reasonable choice.

The links Keith gave you explain many of the technical underpinnings of why using RAW "may" be a good choice for you. If you are the kind of person who NEVER revisits his choices, and NEVER would want the option of going back to re-do some aspect of an image, then using RAW would be a waste of memory space. If, on the other hand, you make mistakes and need to salvage an unrepeatable situation, then RAW is a good insurance policy to allow you to retrieve something from what would otherwise be a complete loss.

Yep. Raw really gives you 2 stops of leeway in either direction. That is a huge margin for error. I've even saved a few shots that were 3-4 stops out of wack. Its really amazing the amount of information that is there.

Also I've found myself shooting much differently with raw. I tend to shoot everything 1 stop darker than what is metered. I do this because I know I can it's easier to bring up dark than to bring down highlights.

 

[lambertpix]

Personally, I'd shoot RAW if possible. Here's more good reading on RAW vs. JPG: What are the pros and cons when shooting in RAW vs JPEG? - Photography Stack Exchange

Re: RAW + TIFF, you might get some amount of redundancy from writing every file twice at (effectively) full size, but you're halving your capacity and if you ever shoot any high-speed-continuous bursts, you'll fill up your buffer pretty quickly.

 

[astroNikon]

With 32GB memory cards available for very little, the discussion of not using RAW for sake of "saving" memory space is kinda meaningless. More relevant is how accurately does the final JPG out of camera represent your intention? Most of us do not make perfect decisions, and need the lee-way provided by the RAW to revisit our decisions with respect to sharpening, WB, saturation, etc. Of course, using RAW also means that you're committing yourself to post-processing. If you have no intention or need of doing post-processing, then going to JPG is a reasonable choice. ..

FWIW, I wouldn't saw very little. The cost of Extreme Pro SD cards to me is expensive - the OP has another thread about getting fast cards. So when you pick fast cards the cost goes up quite quickly. I can see how the cheaper cards are worth it as general storage. But if you are also looking at speed you end up spending alot $$$.