Raw vs JPEG question

[Ysarex84 78]

If you don't think there's a visible difference between JPEG and RAW out of the camera, you shouldn't be teaching people about this topic.

Did someone say there's no visible difference between JPEG and raw out of the camera?

JPEG is a processed file. The camera applies a color space, white balance, contrast curve and sharpening to the file as it's recorded. RAW is an unprocessed file. It has no color space, no sharpening and no contrast curve and thus looks different than JPEG right out of the camera.

A raw file doesn't look like anything right out of the camera; there's no way to view it at all without demosaicing it and converting it to an RGB displayable photo and that's processing. You can't see "unprocessed" using raw conversion software. There's no such thing as seeing an unprocessed raw file. Your raw converter applies processing to the raw data simply to be able to display it.

In fact, RAW usually looks flat compared to a JPEG copy.

It does if you're using LR. But that depends entirely on the default processing applied to the raw file by the converter. All raw converters apply basic default processing and they all do it differently. There's no such thing as a universal "unprocessed" tone curve that they all use so you can see the image in some kind of default state. Open the same raw file in five different converters and you'll see five different "unprocessed" versions of it. Which one is the real "unprocessed" version?

LR opens raw files and displays them usually looking flat. Yep. That's a choice made by Adobe engineers and has nothing to do with how an "unprocessed" raw file naturally looks. They don't naturally look like anything until you process them and other software engineers are free to make other choices and they have.

The changes are applied to the RAW file only upon export. The reason RAW may look the same as you review it on the LCD is because it's a JPEG of the RAW information.

duh.... :scratch:

Jay Maisel: "I don't want to look at RAW because RAW looks like s#&!" If you want to argue, argue with Jay.

I'm not arguing.

Joe

 

[Derrel]

Kathy, You could apply a custom-created profile so that Lightroom would "jazz up" your .CR2s upon import. But yeah, the generic default look is pretty flat. Even a minor curves tweak and a very small baseline +saturation and +vibrance nudge would make the previews LR renders look a lot closer to the JPEG files and how they look.

 

[texkam]

they'll do the post photo work before posting to the site.

No! No! No!

I'd like my shots, which will be full screen, to really be as impressive as I can get.

Then you want to provide them the top quality jpegs and not let them handle it.

JPEG is really a "final output" format. When you're done adjusting your image, export a version in JPEG. THAT's the version you share with others.

Now, to get the best quality jpeg, you want to shoot in raw format, because that's going to capture the highest amount of data and therefore allow you, or a photo processing expert to make all the necessary adjustments and enhancements for an impressive image. That great image gets saved as a jpeg and is then delivered to your web person. Your non-photo expert web person doing post work on a jpeg will not give you nearly as nice of a product. If you know nothing about post production work you don't want to be at your web person's mercy. Either learn how to do it or find and hire someone to do this critical work.

 

[Designer]

The photographers on here will probably disagree with me, but as i see it, all you really want to do is post some pictures of houses that are not totally out of whack without the need to purchase PhotoShop and learn post-processing.

Just give your web guy JPEGs, and he can resize them as required before posting to the website.

 

[texkam]

As I see it, the OP stated ....>>>> "I'd like my shots, which will be full screen, to really be as impressive as I can get."

Of course others MMV. I've seen too many non-photo people screw things up. As Designer suggests, just depends how critical these photos are to your business.

 

[DGMPhotography]

Okay, so I'm new here and fairly new to DSLR photography. In truth I haven't hald an SLR since my old Canon AE1 Program from the mid 80's. Anyway, I'm a painting contractor now & I'm having a new website done up that's pretty state of the art from a tech standpoint and I'd like my shots, which will be full screen, to really be as impressive as I can get. Hence the dumping of my old Nikon S8300 point & shoot and the purchase of the Canon 60D. So my question is this: My web guys all tell me to get them Jpegs since their smaller and easier to work with in their environment, and they'll do the post photo work before posting to the site. But everything I see on the forum here & in my studies says to go RAW. I think I saw where you can go from RAW to Jpeg in post production. I know nothing about post production work, so I'm sort of at his mercy. At the same time, if RAW is easier to work with.......What is the opinions of all you experts out there? I'll take any input I can get. Thanks.

Welcome to the forum! I hope you enjoy your stay First off, I would just say to ask the editor if they CAN process raw. And see if you can get a program to process raw yourself. You can make some preliminary adjustments then export to jpeg and let them handle the rest.

Also, a word of advice. When adventuring through this forum, be aware you are basically in a labyrinth. You are trying to navigate the tunnels to find all the good advice, but if you're not careful you'll run into a minotaur. These are the people who simply tear apart your work or posts without any advice on how to do better. Take what's helpful from this site, and ignore the hurtful stuff, but most of all, be humble! I wish you the best of luck!

 

[Gavjenks]

It's pretty simple:

If you do a lot of complicated editing (or want to), such as nitpicky dodging and burning + color correction + contrast + vignetting, blah blah, customized to the specific image, go with RAW, because it lets you do these things with the fewest visual artifacts.

If all you ever do to your photos in post processing is bump the contrast a tiny bit and make it a little more saturated, or something, then shoot JPEG only, and adjust your in-camera settings to have the contrast/saturation you want instead. This will make your memory card go much further, your workflow go much much more quickly, and will allow you to take many more shots in burst mode without being stopped by your data buffer filling up (usually the CPU or whatever that transforms into jpeg is much faster than the transfer to your data card). You would gain no advantage from RAW, because if that's all the editing you normally do, you would just be throwing away all that extra information anyway.



Okay, edit: other considerations:

If you only ever print your photos to websites or to 8x10s hanging on a wall, or photo albums or things like that, shoot JPEG only no matter what, because no matter how much editing you do to them, you almost certainly won't be able to see any of the artifacts that may be created, so it won't matter. Thus, it is worth it to not store the RAWs in order to get more memory, burst speed, workflow speed, etc. Go with RAW more often, however, if you print things at poster sizes, or you want to print cropped images at 5:1 aspect ratio for a cityscape in a hallway, or if you're doing stock photography, etc.

Finally, if you are at an exotic location that was expensive to get to, or you are working with very rare lighting conditions, etc., might as well shoot RAW + Jpeg just to make sure you don't regret your choices later when it's too late to ever go back or try again (even minutes later)

 

[Pandion]

Thank you ALL for your info; it was broad, thorough, and easily grasped. I think I'm going to look into shooting in "Both" as Jake mentioned. That way I can give the Jpeg to my web guy, and yet I'll still retain the ability to go back tweak them as I have time. I'd like to learn the full spectrum from taking the shot through post production.

 

[Pandion]

Thank you ALL for your info; it was broad, thorough, and easily grasped. I think I'm going to look into shooting in "Both" as Jake mentioned. That way I can give the Jpeg to my web guy, and yet I'll still retain the ability to go back tweak them as I have time. I'd like to learn the full spectrum from taking the shot through post production.

 

[DSRay]

Having a couple of painting contractors that I shoot for, I can tell you it will be a difficult proposition to faithfully capture their work shooting anything but RAW. Just the words 'color balance' should strike terror in your post processing thoughts and impossible to modify with anything else but RAW. If you don't or can't post process you don't stand a chance at obtaining a decent photo; hire a pro.

Best advice for the beginner; get a set of white, black and grey cards and use them.

 

[texkam]

If you don't or can't post process you don't stand a chance at obtaining a decent photo; hire a pro.

You understand the importance of hiring a pro for website creation. Why wouldn't you hire one for image creation, when that component is so critical to your business?

 

[Gavjenks]

Having a couple of painting contractors that I shoot for, I can tell you it will be a difficult proposition to faithfully capture their work shooting anything but RAW. Just the words 'color balance' should strike terror in your post processing thoughts and impossible to modify with anything else but RAW. If you don't or can't post process you don't stand a chance at obtaining a decent photo; hire a pro.

Best advice for the beginner; get a set of white, black and grey cards and use them.

For still, studio-type photos of high detail, color-critical paintings that aren't moving anywhere, yes, RAW is the obvious choice.

But to suggest that nobody could ever have anybody care about their photos without them being RAW is just ridiculous. Most pro sports photographers for example probably shoot jpeg only, because RAW will fill up your camera's data buffer and allow you to capture FAR fewer photos in a burst. And anybody submitting their photos to newspapers for black and white low-res print or for typical (non-gallery-type) web design would be just fine without RAW, and in many cases better off without it due to the slowdown in workflow or memory or whatever.

It's higher precision, yes. But sometimes you don't need high precision for a job, and you shouldn't necessarily use the highest precision tool. Same reason why it is inappropriate to use an analytical, wind-shielded laboratory scale to measure out the amoutn of sugar you're going to use in a cake recipe. Takes 10x longer to use than a rougher kitchen scale, and the precision doesn't matter in that situation, so why waste the time?

And in fact, as resolutions get higher and higher, raw becomes less important. Someday our aps cameras and full frames could all have 40+ megapixels, and you will be able to do a lot of color and contrast editing to a jpeg. There will be artifacts, but so small that the human eye wont be able to see them in even a large print, so it wont matter. And then the speed, memory efficiency, and universality of jpeg will make it the correct choice in virtually every situation.

 

[texkam]

That way I can give the Jpeg to my web guy

If you leave the editing up to your wed guy, just be prepared for unexpected results, for this can be like trusting a custom automotive paint job to a mechanic.