RAW vs JPEG - Freedom Or Limiting

[smoke665]

You should consider scanning all those slides so they don't turn to dust before you have a chance. My father left me suitcases full of photos that took weeks for me to scan. I would bet there is a service that could scan them for you.

I've scanned some of the family and other interesting memories, the problem is there's no organization just a jumble of slide containers thrown in a box. Also a big majority of the them are aerial photos of farms and fields in a 100 mile radius of home. Dad's other love was his plane, he helped pay for the gas by selling aerial crop images to farmers. From above it was easier to spot areas of disease, pests, and nutrient deficiencies.

 

[TJMcG140 23]

I've scanned some of the family and other interesting memories, the problem is there's no organization just a jumble of slide containers thrown in a box. Also a big majority of the them are aerial photos of farms and fields in a 100 mile radius of home. Dad's other love was his plane, he helped pay for the gas by selling aerial crop images to farmers. From above it was easier to spot areas of disease, pests, and nutrient deficiencies.

I had thousands of negs and transparencies that I had stored in a file cabinet from the mid-80s until a few years ago. I went through every one of them, scanned maybe a few dozen, and threw the rest in the trash. I have a lot of kids and grandkids, and I know that none of them would care about any of those old pictures of our trips to parks. I am in the process of doing the same to some 30 K digital files on my computer now. Now, If I were Art Wolfe...

 

[smoke665]

I am in the process of doing the same to some 30 K digital files on my computer now

At what point do you stop worrying about perfection in an image and just go for the memory? And in the constant striving for perfection do we inadvertently make the image to sterile?

 

[TJMcG140 23]

At what point do you stop worrying about perfection in an image and just go for the memory? And in the constant striving for perfection do we inadvertently make the image to sterile?

Oh, I have lots of memories...but I won't be posting the pictures of me dancing with a great-grandchild at another daughter's second wedding online, so pictures like that will go into the digital shoebox, and if anyone wants to keep them, great. None of those are perfect, but I have many reasons for wanting to get some perfect ones, too. The 300 pictures of us posing in front of a cactus or a palm tree go in the trash.

 

[TJMcG140 23]

Oh, I have lots of memories...but I won't be posting the pictures of me dancing with a great-grandchild at another daughter's second wedding online, so pictures like that will go into the digital shoebox, and if anyone wants to keep them, great. None of those are perfect, but I have many reasons for wanting to get some perfect ones, too. The 300 pictures of us posing in front of a cactus or a palm tree go in the trash.

I was in a class many years ago that was co-taught by two photographers who were partners, mainly doing weddings. They were talking about culling your shots (they called it "editing") and said, "Be very critical and if it's not a great shot, just toss it." An old guy in the back said, "NO! NO!! You're telling them to throw away their "PRECIOUS MEMORIES!!" He then went on to argue for five minutes, and then we took a break. He never came back.

One man's precious memory is another man's detritus...

 

[smoke665]

Be very critical and if it's not a great shot, just toss it.

You know this is something I'm very bad about, and somewhat speaks to the article posted.....making decisions. I may have x number of the same pose just slightly different. I'll go through culling, and only edited the best, but for some strange reason I don't pitch the others. It's like in the back of my mind....I need to save these "just in case". Years pass and the &*&^% things are still in the files "just in case"

 

[DanOstergren23]

AI has it's place and is making inroads fast. Adobe is updating constantly with new AI functions to make the editing process easier/faster. The problem I'm finding is it's not always faster. I paid for some advanced portrait presets recently, that rely heavily on AI and the masking function within LR. The problem is as you add more masks, the AI requires more processing time slowing down the process and forget about using synchronization across multiple images.

I'm curious what your computer specs are, and if that might be why the AI masking is slow for you. In 2021 I upgraded to a Macbook Pro with Apple's proprietary silicon M1 Pro chip, and 16gb of ram, and despite it being 5 years old and not having the highest RAM specs usually recommended, it handles the AI masking and other AI tools very quickly, even when synchronizing it across quite a few images. In my experience, specifically with the AI masking, it has sped up that part of my workflow immensely even on a 5 year old machine. These tools are definitely meant to speed up our workflows, but it requires some powerful computing in order to be fast.

 

[greybeard61 33]

My future self will be looking at all the AI edited images and wonder why I even tried.

I mean have you seen what they can/are doing with 50-year-old, blurry black and white snapshots? Upscale, sharpen, denoise and turn them into 4K video.

Add that ability into our cameras and it will make this debate look silly.

True

 

[smoke665]

@DanOstergren My desktop PC is an HP Omen Gaming box, Windows Pro 11, Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-10700K CPU @ 3.80GHz, 64.0 GB Ram, 4TB internal SSD, 2TB Samsung thunderbolt SSD, 10TB external HD, GeForce 3060 Ti with 12GB on board ram GPU, No problems on speed with AI or masking until I started stacking purchased presets randomly. Those presets are heavy AI oriented. I found out later that there is known issue with AI mask layers unless they're added in a specific order. Per the service bulletin that came out late last year, it's important to follow their "Best Order" of develop operations to avoid unexpected results and slow downs.

Per the bulletin it's important to perform editing in the following order to keep the constant updating of masks down. Basic panel edits like Exposure, Contrast, highlights, shadows, white/black point, curves, clarity, saturation etc. can be performed first then:

Denoise,
Raw Details, Super Resolution
Reflections Removal
Distracting People Removal
Generative Expand
Generative Remove, Content-Aware Remove, Heal, and Clone
Lens Blur
Lens Profile
Crop and Transform
Adaptive Profiles
Global Adjustments in the basic panel
Masking
AI generated masking

Also there's a warning that loading to many presets into Lightroom Classic (whether created by you or a third-party) can reduce performance because the Develop module generates thumbnails in the Navigator panel for each preset. This is most strongly seen once you have 2,000 or more presets. Reduce the number of presets loaded into Lightroom Classic to only those you use most often to avoid this type of slow down.

Once I followed the above the problems went away. However, I don't really use the purchased presets that much because, I find they don't really save any time, as they require a lot of manual tweaking.

 

[DanOstergren23]

@DanOstergren My desktop PC is an HP Omen Gaming box, Windows Pro 11, Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-10700K CPU @ 3.80GHz, 64.0 GB Ram, 4TB internal SSD, 2TB Samsung thunderbolt SSD, Geforce RTX, 10TB external HD, GeForce 3060 Ti with 12GB on board ram GPU, No problems on speed with AI or masking until I started stacking purchased presets randomly. Those presets are heavy AI oriented. I found out later that there is known issue with AI mask layers unless they're added in a specific order. Per the service bulletin that came out late last year, it's important to follow their "Best Order" of develop operations to avoid unexpected results and slow downs.

Per the bulletin it's important to perform editing in the following order to keep the constant updating of masks down. Basic panel edits like Exposure, Contrast, highlights, shadows, white/black point, curves, clarity, saturation etc. can be performed first then:

Denoise,
Raw Details, Super Resolution
Reflections Removal
Distracting People Removal
Generative Expand
Generative Remove, Content-Aware Remove, Heal, and Clone
Lens Blur
Lens Profile
Crop and Transform
Adaptive Profiles
Global Adjustments in the basic panel
Masking
AI generated masking

Also there's a warning that loading to many presets into Lightroom Classic (whether created by you or a third-party) can reduce performance because the Develop module generates thumbnails in the Navigator panel for each preset. This is most strongly seen once you have 2,000 or more presets. Reduce the number of presets loaded into Lightroom Classic to only those you use most often to avoid this type of slow down.

Once I followed the above the problems went away. However, I don't really use the purchased presets that much because, I find they don't really save any time, as they require a lot of manual tweaking.

Wow, that's an impressive setup!

I never knew they had a best order, that's good to know. Admittedly I only use a few of those options, but it's still good to know what order is best to make sure it's not bogging anything down.

 

[smoke665]

Wow, that's an impressive setup!

I never knew they had a best order, that's good to know. Admittedly I only use a few of those options, but it's still good to know what order is best to make sure it's not bogging anything down.

So far I've been pleased with the setup. Forgot to mention I have a Samsung 27" monitor, wall mounted, because my work area is not that wide, a larger screen was annoying that close, wireless keyboard, XP pen tablet, and speakers/sub. There's a 60" 4k TV on another wall with a Yamaha surround sytem that I can cast to if needed.

The nondestructive editing of LR is the elephant in the room when using AI Masking, ANY changes made to an underlying mask or AI function tools force the AI masks above in a stack to update. If your AI masks are randomly stacked, it can force all the layers in the stack to update. If they're ordered you limit the number requiring updates.

As to the number of presets installed, prior to using AI powered, it wasnt as big of a problem, but now everytime you hover over a preset, LR creates a thumbnail of the effect. So if you hover over a bunch of presets you're adding processing time, and memory requirements.

 

[AlanKlein109 25]

You can have the biggest sensor, while JPEGS that are only 8 bit vs the 12 -14 bits in a RAW, but the paintbrush doesn't make the painting, and the best paints in the world, will never make me a better artist. I'll admit that better tools make a craftsman more able to work with their talent level, but shooting RAW isn't the end, it's just a means.

You can have the headroom, pixels or anything else, with the best and most modern technology, but the results aren't dependent on that. The eye is, the editing, the composition, the exposure. Where the argument of RAW over JPG fails is, JPGs are not so inadequate that they can't produce a comparable image. Shooting a RAW image, doesn't automatically make the image better, or the resulting image better.

How fine, how large, how much latitude, does someone need? and ps when you save that RAW as a JPG, it's 8 bits.

I can see three potential positions or arguments here. I may be missing something else.

One is shoot RAW because you have more data and more control.
Another is, more pixels, bigger sensor is always better. More data. (Which is somewhat like the first)
Yet another is, the lens is the eye of the photo, you can't capture everything without the best lens.

I'm an advocate of the last group. I'm convinced that the lens is more important than the pixels or the bits. You can't correct an inherently, visually flawed image, with more pixels or more latitude. But I admit that's me. I'm sure there are people who have settled on pixels and sensors and other that want control, by shooting RAW.

Pick your personal poison obsession?

I don't find that shooting JPGs are a severe limitation.

I agree. You can't get blood from a turnip. If you put lipstick on a pig, it's still a pig. If the pictures fails, it fails. RAW won't help it. Showing a little more detail in the shadow areas is a waste of time. How did photographers deal with film before digital, which has more limitations than jpegs? Content, impact, composition, emotion - these are the elements that make great pictures.

 

[AlanKlein109 25]

There you said it, better tools make the artist more able. Raw isn't the end. Of course it's not, it's a better tool. The arts are a physical expression. It's the expression that matters. The tools can either support the expression -- good tools -- or tarnish it -- poor tools. If you look at the tools artists use you'll find they care to use the best tools. Why? Because they care about the work, the expression. And they don't want their expression tarnished by poor tools. So painters use the best brushes and the best paints. A guitarist doesn't buy a guitar from Walmart for a few hundred dollars they spend thousands to have a custom guitar made just for them. Why? Because they care about the work and poor tools tarnish their work. It's the work in the end that matters, but because it matters the artist doesn't want the work presented poorly so they practice their craft and use only the best tools. You'll find that behavior is universal among serious artists.

That is incorrect. Camera JPEGs can be fair under a limited range of conditions, but the result from a hand processed raw file will be better -- better technical support for the artist's expression. Every artist wants that. They have something to express and they want to present it as best they can.

Of course not; there's nothing automatic about it. Skill on the part of the artist is a requirement. The artist's skill coupled with the best tools does result in a better image than the automated processing the camera does to generate a JPEG.

That's thoroughly meaningless. 8 bits is print sufficient. It's not about the fact that a final image is 8 bits it's about what you do to get to that final 8 bit image. The camera image processor is a crude tool that arrives at that final 8 bit destination having made poor and automated choices that tarnish the result whereas the skilled artist arrives at the same 8 bit destination having made better and custom tailored choices that best support the expression.

Missing something else? Maybe missing the boat.

Or maybe folks who use the best tools across the board save and process raw files and also use the best lenses.

Shooting camera JPEGs is not a severe limitation, but it is a limitation. Best is best and everything else is less.

The problem with digital is that it's too fine and adaptable. Then we can get caught up in the technical editing aspects and ignore the aesthetic and human values that make great photos. So we get distracted trying to increase the shadow details, spending time on a picture that belongs in the wastebasket.

 

[AlanKlein109 25]

I was in a class many years ago that was co-taught by two photographers who were partners, mainly doing weddings. They were talking about culling your shots (they called it "editing") and said, "Be very critical and if it's not a great shot, just toss it." An old guy in the back said, "NO! NO!! You're telling them to throw away their "PRECIOUS MEMORIES!!" He then went on to argue for five minutes, and then we took a break. He never came back.

One man's precious memory is another man's detritus...

I agree if you're shooting weddings for someone else. Throw the bad ones away. On the other hand, if you're on vacation, and some of the pictures are not 16x20" perfect, but you want 4x6"s for a vacation photo album or slide show because it's an important part of the whole trip, then use it. It doesn't have to be perfect. It;s part of your and your family's memories.

 

[AlanKlein109 25]

You know this is something I'm very bad about, and somewhat speaks to the article posted.....making decisions. I may have x number of the same pose just slightly different. I'll go through culling, and only edited the best, but for some strange reason I don't pitch the others. It's like in the back of my mind....I need to save these "just in case". Years pass and the &*&^% things are still in the files "just in case"

In the days of film and 4x6" photos, I'd pick the best for the photo album. The rest of the prints would stay in the development envelope with the negatives. When I retired 12 years ago, I threw out all the old photo envelopes, photos and negatives, to free my mind. Of course I kept the photo albums.

With digital, I do what you do. I use the best to make digital slide shows, and just never delete the bad images. It;s kind of silly.