Raw vs Jpeg Article - Unusual twist

[clanthar]

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.

Yes! :thumbup:

 

[clanthar]

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.

Sorry for bumping this back, but while I was out this afternoon this article kept buggin' me and I'd like to add one more comment emphatically with an example.

Starting with what Mike said above, the RAW data from any sensor has to be processed. Either you do it or the camera does it. And here's my tag: The minute that processing job becomes the slightest bit tricky the camera will crash and burn. So if you embrace shooting only JPEGs you turn your back on any successful photos of more challenging lighting.

I had to dig back a way for this example because I just quit saving the JPEGs altogether years ago. I used to shoot with the camera set to dual RAW + JPEG -- but I was just wasting disk space. So here's a photo from 2009. It's nothing special, I spend a lot of time out on the river -- the Corps guys (U.S. Army) are buddies. Here's the Helen Tully doing some revetment work just below Rip Rap Landing. And here's the straight out of the camera JPEG -- no crop, no edit -- all I did was size it and give it a light sharpen for screen display.

If you check the EXIF data you'll see that I took the photo with a -.3 exp. comp. dialed in. Why? Look at the lighting. The scene is side to backlit and the boat is white. I saw the clipped highlights coming and reacted appropriately. As it is the camera JPEG engine clipped the highlights anyway. If I hadn't added in the exp. comp., the highlight clipping would have been extreme. At the same time the JPEG engine blocked up the shadows. It's high dynamic range lighting. Sidelight is very high dynamic range and backlight is worse.

CRITICAL POINT: There was no camera setting either auto or manual that I could have used that would have caused the JPEG engine to succeed. There is no getting this right in camera! The only thing the camera JPEG engine could do here was screw-up and it did. It clipped the highlights, blocked the shadows, botched the midtone response and went plain south on the color of the sky (JPEG engines turn overexposed skies green).

Trying to repair this JPEG would be a nightmare. There's no miracle software that's going to salvage those blocked shadows in an 8 bit JPEG. It belongs in a trash can.

But I have the RAW file and processing that RAW file was easy enough. Still a tricky photo, but nonetheless very workable:

The sky is blue, the shadows are not blocked, the highlights are not clipped, the midtone contrast is normal and I can give this photo to the crew and not be embarrassed by it.

So, if you want only JPEGs SOOC you can't shoot lighting conditions like this. Your camera's JPEG engine can't do it. You'll have to fix the lighting so you can get it right in camera -- a really big floating diffuser maybe? I know, off camera fill flash!

Joe

 

[boon4376]

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.

My camera has save as Jpeg + Raw so I can import them later to see the difference. The RAW are CLEARLY sharper and have much more detail than the jpeg versions. There is NO WAY to manipulate the jpeg to look as good at the imported RAW file. This is mostly noticable in situations where there are areas of bright light + dark shadows in the same scene.
But Perhaps my K-r doesnt have the best jpeg engine? Regardless, with a RAW file, I can manipulate the brightness / contrast and preserve a ton of detail. In JPG, changes to brightness and contrast seriously degrade the image quality (ex: lowering contrast just tends to turn a jpeg grey)
(CS5)

.........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

I find samsung products in general (TV's, cameras, printers, etc) always over-do the contrast and vibrance. It wow's people when they have the samsung TV next to the LG in the showroom, but IRL I think its a lower quality image. No experience with that particular camera however, I have found some of their other cheaper cameras to over-do the contrast.

 

[Ballistics]

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.

Sorry for bumping this back, but while I was out this afternoon this article kept buggin' me and I'd like to add one more comment emphatically with an example.

Starting with what Mike said above, the RAW data from any sensor has to be processed. Either you do it or the camera does it. And here's my tag: The minute that processing job becomes the slightest bit tricky the camera will crash and burn. So if you embrace shooting only JPEGs you turn your back on any successful photos of more challenging lighting.

I had to dig back a way for this example because I just quit saving the JPEGs altogether years ago. I used to shoot with the camera set to dual RAW + JPEG -- but I was just wasting disk space. So here's a photo from 2009. It's nothing special, I spend a lot of time out on the river -- the Corps guys (U.S. Army) are buddies. Here's the Helen Tully doing some revetment work just below Rip Rap Landing. And here's the straight out of the camera JPEG -- no crop, no edit -- all I did was size it and give it a light sharpen for screen display.

If you check the EXIF data you'll see that I took the photo with a -.3 exp. comp. dialed in. Why? Look at the lighting. The scene is side to backlit and the boat is white. I saw the clipped highlights coming and reacted appropriately. As it is the camera JPEG engine clipped the highlights anyway. If I hadn't added in the exp. comp., the highlight clipping would have been extreme. At the same time the JPEG engine blocked up the shadows. It's high dynamic range lighting. Sidelight is very high dynamic range and backlight is worse.

CRITICAL POINT: There was no camera setting either auto or manual that I could have used that would have caused the JPEG engine to succeed. There is no getting this right in camera! The only thing the camera JPEG engine could do here was screw-up and it did. It clipped the highlights, blocked the shadows, botched the midtone response and went plain south on the color of the sky (JPEG engines turn overexposed skies green).

Trying to repair this JPEG would be a nightmare. There's no miracle software that's going to salvage those blocked shadows in an 8 bit JPEG. It belongs in a trash can.

But I have the RAW file and processing that RAW file was easy enough. Still a tricky photo, but nonetheless very workable:




The sky is blue, the shadows are not blocked, the highlights are not clipped, the midtone contrast is normal and I can give this photo to the crew and not be embarrassed by it.

So, if you want only JPEGs SOOC you can't shoot lighting conditions like this. Your camera's JPEG engine can't do it. You'll have to fix the lighting so you can get it right in camera -- a really big floating diffuser maybe? I know, off camera fill flash!

Joe

Very insightful.