RAW vs JPEG - Freedom Or Limiting

[AlanKlein109 25]

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.

How does AI work on Lightroom. Do you say things like, "Lighten the mountains on the right." "Eliminate the power line."

 

[Ysarex113 107]

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.

All those Zone System (Ansel Adams invented) photographers back in the film days didn't manage a decent photo among the lot of them, right? I mean what I do processing a digital photo is child's play and trivial compared to the technical editing aspects of what they had to do. Surely none of them had any energy or attention left to consider things like the aesthetic and human values of their photos.

I do less work than a JPEG shooter who takes what their doing even half seriously. I do nothing behind the camera except set the exposure, frame, focus and click. I don't even know what picture control options my cameras have, I never use them and couldn't care less. That means I'm never distracted by things like white balance, the profile set (standard, vivid, etc.), do I need a DR or ADL type function, what sharpening do I need, is it low light and do I need noise filtering, is it backlit -- what metering mode do I need, etc.. I can ignore all of that and concentrate on taking the photo. Any JPEG shooter who then edits their JPEGs works harder at the computer than I do. It's more difficult to edit a JPEG and get the results you want than to do what I do.

 

[smoke665]

How does AI work on Lightroom. Do you say things like, "Lighten the mountains on the right." "Eliminate the power line."

It depends on the AI function. For example: say I want to remove the poster on the bill board. Using generative Remove/Fill I would select the poster with the remove brush.

AI then analyzes the area around and generates a fill to match. All told less than a min to do.

Using your example of mountains in masking you have some landscape options that it will automatically look for like ground, grass, buildings, sky trees, etc., or you can do a manual selection. Once the mask is created you make adjustments in the developer panel that only affect the masked area. For example here's an original unedited.

Using LR's AI masking it finds the following things in the landscape.

If I click on mountains, it will mask the mountains. Here I raised the exposure slightly and added more blue

the vegetation is obviously needs work, so here, I clicked on vegetation, to create a mask of only it, so I can work on it only.

The newer AI heavy presets, use AI to create multiple masks in a stack and then automatically tone map your image to for a certain look. Invariably you have to go back and tweak each layer manually.

In PS you have the option of generating a text to image layer, or even a whole image. You type in descriptive terms and it produces an image. I use this frequently when I need to do a background swap. Saves a ton of time.

 

[AlanKlein109 25]

All those Zone System (Ansel Adams invented) photographers back in the film days didn't manage a decent photo among the lot of them, right? I mean what I do processing a digital photo is child's play and trivial compared to the technical editing aspects of what they had to do. Surely none of them had any energy or attention left to consider things like the aesthetic and human values of their photos.

I do less work than a JPEG shooter who takes what their doing even half seriously. I do nothing behind the camera except set the exposure, frame, focus and click. I don't even know what picture control options my cameras have, I never use them and couldn't care less. That means I'm never distracted by things like white balance, the profile set (standard, vivid, etc.), do I need a DR or ADL type function, what sharpening do I need, is it low light and do I need noise filtering, is it backlit -- what metering mode do I need, etc.. I can ignore all of that and concentrate on taking the photo. Any JPEG shooter who then edits their JPEGs works harder at the computer than I do. It's more difficult to edit a JPEG and get the results you want than to do what I do.

It's not just digital shooters. Film shooters also get caught up in the technical issues like Zone system, grain, etc and miss the aesthetic and human values, composition, etc that make photos great. Years ago when I read photo magazines, they would go on and on about grain, lens sharpness, highest shutter speeds, etc. They all focused on technical aspects of photography. Like today, many photographers think they'll get better shots if they just get a better camera or edit better when all they do is shoot snapshots.

You didn't mention the time you spend with raw editing only how quick it is to shoot. For slide shows, JPEGs are a lot faster to edit.

 

[AlanKlein109 25]

It depends on the AI function. For example: say I want to remove the poster on the bill board. Using generative Remove/Fill I would select the poster with the remove brush.
View attachment 294960
AI then analyzes the area around and generates a fill to match. All told less than a min to do.
View attachment 294961

Using your example of mountains in masking you have some landscape options that it will automatically look for like ground, grass, buildings, sky trees, etc., or you can do a manual selection. Once the mask is created you make adjustments in the developer panel that only affect the masked area. For example here's an original unedited.
View attachment 294962
Using LR's AI masking it finds the following things in the landscape.
View attachment 294963If I click on mountains, it will mask the mountains. Here I raised the exposure slightly and added more blue
View attachment 294964the vegetation is obviously needs work, so here, I clicked on vegetation, to create a mask of only it, so I can work on it only.
View attachment 294965
The newer AI heavy presets, use AI to create multiple masks in a stack and then automatically tone map your image to for a certain look. Invariably you have to go back and tweak each layer manually.

In PS you have the option of generating a text to image layer, or even a whole image. You type in descriptive terms and it produces an image. I use this frequently when I need to do a background swap. Saves a ton of time.

Thanks for the explanation. When I shoot film, I'm pretty much stuck having to use a grad ND filter for the mountain shot. Without it the foreground would just be too dark since I;d be exposing for the sky (with chrome).

 

[smoke665]

When I shoot film, I'm pretty much stuck having to use a grad ND filter for the mountain shot. W

Even with digital, I shoot to get as close in camera as possible. I use square filters in a holder that let me stack up to three, for variable DR control. To me old school methods still beats tech.

 

[Ysarex113 107]

You didn't mention the time you spend with raw editing only how quick it is to shoot. For slide shows, JPEGs are a lot faster to edit.

Yes I did. I spend less time both behind the camera and editing. It's easier and faster to process a raw file to final output than to try and repair a JPEG. I really enjoy photography right now. I take photos almost every day and one thing I like about it now compared with my past involvement is that it's never been easier. What I do now is easier than working with camera JPEGs. For 90% of what I photograph I set the same exposure. I never have to bracket; same exposure regardless of subject or lighting conditions. The other 10% is because I can't handhold in low light and that's almost as easy -- expose as much as possible. JPEG shooters miss exposures -- photo's too light or photo's too dark and then they try and fix it -- never happens to me.

The photos that are a little more difficult to edit are still much easier for me than for a JPEG shooter. Like this one: RAW vs JPEG - Freedom Or Limiting What's a JPEG shooter going to do? Most likely they'll expose for the foreground and nuke the sky. Then they tell themselves white-out skies are OK -- yep that's less time, but it's also giving up. What if they want the photo I took? If they start in trying to use something like Nikon's ADL or Fuji's DR or Canon's HTP -- there they go fussing behind the camera and they won't get the photo I did from any of those in-camera extend DR functions so then off they go to the computer to try and fix it. They will work harder and longer than I do and get a lot less for it. I know, I've taught them how to do it. I started teaching Photoshop in 1992. Every semester I'd get a handful of students who aspired to journalism and sports journalism. I had to teach them how to best create and edit JPEGs. So I know what's involved and what's possible.

 

[davholla]

I only shoot RAW. Mainly because my primary shooting interest is birds so often exposure is off the mark due to me shooting on the fly. I think for people shooting portraits etc they get the chance to really fine tune the settings down to a science. Now having said all of that I do and try and look at what i did wrong and think about what I could have done to make it better out of the camera.

Also if you have high ISO you can use noise reducing software - which can be a problem with birds

 

[greybeard61 33]

How does AI work on Lightroom. Do you say things like, "Lighten the mountains on the right." "Eliminate the power line."

It has an Ai Eraser Tool. that eliminates whatever you select and sometimes it will replace it with something it conjures up all on its' own. It also has an Ai Hi RES that doubles resolution (sort of). That is all that I have used.

 

[smoke665]

It has an Ai Eraser Tool. that eliminates whatever you select and sometimes it will replace it with something it conjures up all on its' own

Not quite, the old remove tool, analyzed the surrounding few pixels, to replace what you wanted removed. The AI tool, analyzes not only the surrounding pixels, but the entire image, then intelligently replaces them while matching lighting, shadows, and textures for a seamless result. So yes it "conjures" up something, but it's based on the elements of the image.

 

[MontanaDave]

JPG is an 8-bit file format. That is maximum 0-255 RGB values.
RAW at 14-bit is maximum 0-16,383 RGB values.

 

[smoke665]

JPG is an 8-bit file format. That is maximum 0-255 RGB values.
RAW at 14-bit is maximum 0-16,383 RGB values.

There are 256 shades for each of R,G,B channels, 256x256x256 =16,777,216 possible colors. A 14 bit RAW has 16,384 per channel or 4 trillion possible colors. Regardless a RAW can't be displayed or printed without first converting to a JPEG, which brings you back to the limitation of an 8 bit file.

 

[Ysarex113 107]

JPG is an 8-bit file format. That is maximum 0-255 RGB values.
RAW at 14-bit is maximum 0-16,383 RGB values.

The JPEG bits and the raw bits are not like-unit bits. Comparing them is misleading. It's like trying to compare two measuring sticks. One stick in marked off in 1 inch units -- all units 1 inch while the other stick is marked off in let's call them super inches such that no two of them are the same. In that case it's possible that the longer stick has fewer total units.

You can't even compare raw files from different cameras of different bit depths one to another. Think of each camera's raw file as a staircase that reaches from basement (shadows) to ceiling (highlights) and the bit depth determines the total number of stairs. The sensor's dynamic range determines the staircase total height. The Nikon D3 has a max DR of 9.22 stops and is equipped with a 14 bit ADC. The Nikon D3500 has a max DR of 10.22 stops (it's the taller staircase) and is equipped with a 12 bit ADC. Obviously those are not like units -- the taller staircase has 4096 stairs and the shorter staircase has 16384 stairs.

It's true that the data stored in a raw file is denser and there's more of it than is stored in a JPEG. However raw files store data linearly while JPEGs store data non-linearly. Therefore it's possible that a raw file from say that Nikon D3 could hold it's physical maximum dynamic range of 9.22 stops while at the same time a JPEG could be created from a Nikon D3500 and be able to display the entire 10.22 stops the D3500 captured.

 

[greybeard61 33]

There are 256 shades for each of R,G,B channels, 256x256x256 =16,777,216 possible colors. A 14 bit RAW has 16,384 per channel or 4 trillion possible colors. Regardless a RAW can't be displayed or printed without first converting to a JPEG, which brings you back to the limitation of an 8 bit file.

Can you print from a 14 bit Tiff file?

 

[smoke665]

Can you print from a 14 bit Tiff file

The lab I use can print a Tiff provided its flattened (no layers) and set to 8 bit color depth. Dont know about others.