RAW v JPEG : A Shootout Challenge.

ronlane · Jan 10, 2013

I typically don't delete in camera either, I wait until I get back on the PC, but honestly I don't think I would have seen that in this picture. (I may be wrong and it is pretty much just cropping). I for sure learned something today. Thanks.

480sparky · Jan 10, 2013

It's not just a simple crop. I had to bring the exposure back up a bit to get some detail in her face & hair. I also darkened her purple dress to keep it from being a distraction in the final image. It may be possible to do this with an SOOC JPEG, but I'd rather have as much data as I can get out of the camera so I have a far better chance of success. The door frame and even some of the glass had to be cloned out.

Another reason I shoot raw: I can keep both the original image AND the edited version saved under ONE filename. And I can create even more versions and still have only ONE file to deal with. And each edit/version is totally reversible and changeable. If I want to alter the saturation in one version, I can do that without any penalty. JPEGs just cannot do that.