Raw vs Jpeg Article - Unusual twist

[Ballistics]

This goes against pretty much everything I've learned so far. What do you vets think about this? It's an about.com article.

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There is so much misinformation about RAW and JPG that even many professional photographers and graphics designers are confused. I won't name names, but there are several so-called "experts" who spout misinformation on the web and at seminars, and they are sponsored by brand name companies.
I'm a full time professional photographer. I work with JPG files every day. I never shoot Raw for my day-to-day work. That does not mean everyone should work just like me, but you should know some facts and forget the fiction.


1) If you're working with images that are vitally critical, shoot RAW: any major exposure or color correction is easier to make.


2) No, Raw files will not be sharper than the JPG files, and anyone who says they will doesn't know what they're talking about.


3) The secret to using JPG files is: Set a proper White Balance, make a proper exposure.


If you are using Auto White Balance (AWB), you may find your color is not consistent from one file to the next, so set a custom white balance. Read your camera's manual to do this — it's not very involved on most of today's cameras.


Once you set a custom white balance for your studio work, you will not have to change it when working in the studio. Most cameras today permit you to have 2 or 3 custom white balances. Outdoors (or even in the studio) a product called the ExpoDisc can make this an easy process.


If you include a gray/white/black card in the first scene, you can set your color balance and density in Photoshop on the first image, then apply that curve to each following image. Much faster than RAW.


4) If you photograph in JPG, the file does not degrade with each subsequent opening of the file. If you:


A. open a JPG
B. save it with a new name
C. work on it

Your original has not been degraded, and there is nearly no change to the overall pixel quality of the new file. Remember that working on any digital file is basically discarding data. You can't add data — no way, no how! You can only alter or discard it.

5) Your files will be sharp if printed in JPG — in fact, if you send files to a lab via FTP, most insist on JPG. I belong to a group of photographers who, back in the pioneer days of digital, took the same image in Raw and JPG. They made a 30x40 from each file, and had the lab keep a note of which was which (they mounted them on different substrates). Not one professional photographer — including several who owned labs — could tell the difference!


In my own situation, I sent a 24x30 family photo to a lab for printing. They made a display print and put it on display in their lobby. Everyone, including the lab owner, thought it was film. It was a JPG from a Fuji S2 — the owner thought I had scanned the film and sent him a TIFF on CD!


6) Here's a biggie: you do not have to photograph on the least compressed setting when you photograph JPG to get the best image quality! I normally photograph weddings and portraits of groups of 3 or less in medium JPG on my Canon 20D. You will not be able to tell the difference — regardless of how large you print — between the "high" and "medium" settings!


Why? Because you are still taking all the information from the sensor and it is being oversampled. I did not realize this until I spoke to my friend, Claude Jodoin. Claude is a technical editor and contributor to several professional digital imaging magazines, as well as an equipment tester/reviewer. He told me to try it on a wedding with 2 cameras. So I took (back then) 2 Canon 10D, and shot the altar groups twice: once with a camera set at High JPG and the other set at Medium JPG. I then returned to my studio and made a file 16x20 @ 268 dpi. I printed an 11x14 section of this image on my Fuji 4000 printer. The two prints were indistinguishable!


Does this mean you should never photograph in Raw mode? NO! Some cameras don't even have JPG mode (such as the Sigma SD9 and SD10). Others have a color bias in JPG mode: the Canon 1Ds Mark II and 1D Mark II being examples. If I photograph with my 1D Mark II in JPG mode, the file is noticeably saturated in the reds. I can correct it in Photoshop, but I would avoid this if I photographed in Raw. So maybe even I will end up photographing in Raw some of the time!


I hope this has cleared up some of the confusion and myths that are still rampant.


By Steve Bohne, Master Craftsman Photographer
Information you can use from Steve Bohne
Steve Bohne has been a full time professional photographer for over 30 years. He holds both the Masters Degree and the Craftsman Degree from the Professional Photographers of America, and is a member of the American Society of Photographers. He is a recipient of the Art Leather/Brides magazine "Wedding Photographer of the Year" Award. He lives and works in Michigan, photographing with Canon and Fuji digital cameras. His studio does portraits, weddings, and commercial images. An album of his photographs resides in permanent display at the International Photography Hall of Fame and Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

 

[Forkie]

I've kind of suspected as much. I generally use RAW if I feel I'm in a situation where there is more scope to get the exposure wrong so that I have more flexibility when correcting it in post. Probably a bad habit, but it is what it is.

I've never taken a photo in RAW under the impression that it will be a better quality/sharper photo.

The one thing I was quite surprised at though was that the difference between the high and medium compressions is generally un-noticeable. I always shoot in "Fine" mode, thinking that anything less was not good enough. Maybe I'll have a go next time I'm shooting, I might be able to take fewer memory cards with me!

 

[clanthar]

This goes against pretty much everything I've learned so far. What do you vets think about this? It's an about.com article.

2) No, Raw files will not be sharper than the JPG files, and anyone who says they will doesn't know what they're talking about.

Depends on the JPEG engine in the camera. Some are better than others and some are worse than others. Don't get a bad one.

3) The secret to using JPG files is: Set a proper White Balance, make a proper exposure.

Agreed on the WB -- auto WB does not work. "make a proper exposure" needs further qualification. Taken simply this is a fair statement. If you get the WB right and the exposure right upfront most camera image processors will deliver a fair JPEG. Practically speaking however this statement is nonsense. Relying on the camera JPEG engine to process an exposure under anything other than ideal lighting conditions will end up in failure. So this statement should read: 3) The secret to using JPG files is: Set a proper White Balance, and make a proper exposure under the perfect lighting conditions your camera's JPEG engine was programmed to expect.

You didn't take the trouble to set a custom WB and the lighting condition in the shot isn't ideal? The camera image processor will screw up. You'll be able to effect reasonable repair to the JPEG and salvage an image. It'll be more work and more difficult than taking a RAW file from the same situation and processing it out to a final successful photo. And given that the JPEG you have to repair will only have say 20% of the original data that's in the RAW file your repair job will be compromised.

So yes there's a secret to using JPEG: a lot more trouble and a lot more work and a vastly restricted range of what you can photograph.

My cameras can set a custom WB. I don't worry about it because I shoot RAW. I work hard to get a good exposure but I photograph things no JPEG engine could hope to process successfully and I pull it off all the time because I have the RAW file to work from. I can take a RAW file to a successful finished photo faster and easier than I can repair a JPEG of the same shot. I shoot RAW because I don't like doing all the extra work of shooting JPEG.

4) If you photograph in JPG, the file does not degrade with each subsequent opening of the file.

Correct. It degrades with each subsequent re-saving of the file and re-application of the JPEG algorithm. Do that enough times and into the trash it goes.

Joe

 

[480sparky]

.........Depends on the JPEG engine in the camera. Some are better than others and some are worse than others. Don't get a bad one..............

So how does one go about making sure they get a 'good' one?

 

[analog.universe]

Not that I'm a vet or anything... but the only time I can think of where there might be some advantage to shooting jpg would be if you needed to print the shot within seconds of taking it. To go from RAW to JPG, you need to throw away 98.5% of what you captured, why would you possibly leave the decision of which 1.5% to keep to the processor in the camera? If for some reason you do want the camera to make that decision, why would throw away even more data by not using the highest quality compression? I can fit like 8,000 highest quality jpgs on a memory card... what possible motivation to compress them?

If it was 1998, and storage was $250/GB or whatever, maybe the question is relevant. But not anymore, I can fit 1300 RAW files on a $100 CF card. And if you're worried about conversion time in the workflow, you can always just shoot raw and accept the defaults later. I can't think of any motivation to accept the defaults before the data is even written to the card.

 

[clanthar]

.........Depends on the JPEG engine in the camera. Some are better than others and some are worse than others. Don't get a bad one..............

So how does one go about making sure they get a 'good' one?

Buy the right camera. The JPEG engine in my Samsung TL500 does a superb job rendering fine detail. If it could get tone and color right it would be useable.

Joe

 

[Big Mike]

4) If you photograph in JPG, the file does not degrade with each subsequent opening of the file. If you:


A. open a JPG
B. save it with a new name
C. work on it

Your original has not been degraded, and there is nearly no change to the overall pixel quality of the new file. Remember that working on any digital file is basically discarding data. You can't add data — no way, no how! You can only alter or discard it.

In step B, they are 'saving' a JPEG file....and that's where the degradation takes place. The original file may be not be degraded, but the original file isn't the final product.
I think their logic is a bit flawed right there.

But that being said, I think the whole 'JPEG degrades your images' issue is overblown. Realistically, you could probably open/save/open a JPEG image many, many times before any degradation is noticeable in the image.

 

[480sparky]

.........Depends on the JPEG engine in the camera. Some are better than others and some are worse than others. Don't get a bad one..............

So how does one go about making sure they get a 'good' one?

Buy the right camera. The JPEG engine in my Samsung TL500 does a superb job rendering fine detail. If it could get tone and color right it would be useable.

Joe

So how does one find 'the right camera'? Buy them all, then sell the ones that's don't work for you?

Where does one find information about side-by-side comparisons of the camera's internal processing of an image?

 

[analog.universe]

But that being said, I think the whole 'JPEG degrades your images' issue is overblown. Realistically, you could probably open/save/open a JPEG image many, many times before any degradation is noticeable in the image.

I think that to the naked eye the degradations are quite minimal for sure. But artefacts of the compression are still introduced, and various types of post processing will magnify them. If all you're doing is opening and saving and cropping and printing, then yeah, the issues probably don't matter at all. But how many images really don't get any post processing?

 

[clanthar]

4) If you photograph in JPG, the file does not degrade with each subsequent opening of the file. If you:


A. open a JPG
B. save it with a new name
C. work on it

Your original has not been degraded, and there is nearly no change to the overall pixel quality of the new file. Remember that working on any digital file is basically discarding data. You can't add data — no way, no how! You can only alter or discard it.

In step B, they are 'saving' a JPEG file....and that's where the degradation takes place. The original file may be not be degraded, but the original file isn't the final product.
I think their logic is a bit flawed right there.

But that being said, I think the whole 'JPEG degrades your images' issue is overblown. Realistically, you could probably open/save/open a JPEG image many, many times before any degradation is noticeable in the image.

Agreed. Open/edit/save a JPEG and the degradation is minor. It is nonetheless progressive and since the resolution of a display is substantially less than a print, a JPEG may look OK on the screen and then -- ouch! the damage shows in the print. I've witnessed this exact sequence many times in college photo labs.

Joe

 

[Trever1t]

I suppose if I got everything just right in the camera shooting jpg would save a lot of time but I'm not that good and RAW gives me a lot of freeway to correct my mistakes

 

[Big Mike]

I think that to the naked eye the degradations are quite minimal for sure. But artefacts of the compression are still introduced, and various types of post processing will magnify them. If all you're doing is opening and saving and cropping and printing, then yeah, the issues probably don't matter at all. But how many images really don't get any post processing?

I agree...but I'll also say that even with some post processing, saving, opening etc....it would be next to impossible to tell what format the digital image was shot it, when viewing the finished print.

and since the resolution of a display is substantially less than a print, a JPEG may look OK on the screen and then -- ouch! the damage shows in the print. I've witnessed this exact sequence many times in college photo labs.

I would actually argue that the opposite is true. It's very easy to zoom in to 300% when viewing a digital image, where all sorts of noise & artifacts are visible. I think this is part of the reason that so many of us (internet forum users & gear heads) are always talking about which lenses are sharper than others and the slight degredation caused by filters, or certain editing techniques.
But if you print out an 8x10 and hold it at arms length, most of that stuff doesn't matter.

 

[Big Mike]

I suppose if I got everything just right in the camera shooting jpg would save a lot of time but I'm not that good and RAW gives me a lot of freeway to correct my mistakes

Even though it's most likely true....I think that too many people follow this doctrine.

Shooting in RAW shouldn't be a crutch, to help you correct your mistakes. It gives you more options, more control over the processing of your images.

All digital images are shot in RAW...it's just that when set to JPEG (or on a P&S camera that doesn't offer RAW), the images are processed by the camera. By saving the RAW files, we are taking control of the processing and not leaving it to the camera to do for us.

 

[Overread]

Another point to consider is the editing stage - I suspect that the person who wrote this article (and we should really have a link to the original in the first post) is the kind of person who does limited post work on their photos - possibly running a fairly fast setup of shoot and print on site. In those kind of situations JPEG is the mode to use and many a sports photographer is often only using JPEG to get the shots - letting them send the files ready to be used off to the newspapers/printers moments after they are taken.

However if you do more extensive corrective editing (and that is by no means saying that you shoot poorly, but simply that your workflow and style requires more extensive editing to get to the final result) then chances are that if you start working on JPEGs and even going as far a to work with medium quality save settings then you are going to end up producing artifacts and having problems with banding and other issues much faster.

In general you always want to shoot the best as you can in camera as this always gives you the best result to work upon - heck many who do extensive editing are often even more obsessed with "getting it right in camera" since it ensures that they have the right materials to work upon without having degradation issues.


Also many-an article written about "getting it right in camera" is often not so much targeted at the modern digital photographer, but more at the modern editing software advertisements which are always claiming more and more powerful corrective measures in editing - always making it sound like "in-camera" isn't really worth worrying about. However, even with limited experience, people fast find out that there is no CSI "Enhance" button and that - yes - they still have to get the photo right at the time of pressing the shutter.

 

[Trever1t]

Of course.

Obviously there's a lot more that can be done with a RAW image.