Raw? JPEG?

[Wynny]

I am still fairly new to photography and have been shooting in RAW for about 6 months now. As I have become better with the post processing I have gone back and reprocessed some of my photos from earlier in that period with great effect.

However if you are going to shoot RAW I suggest you do some instructional reading around the program you use or you can waste a lot of time with trial and error in the processing (like I did).

[AdventureLife]

Hi, I have the 550D too, and always use RAW + jpeg. Best of both worlds. For all your normal snaps you have it already jpeg, and for any that's particularly good, you've got the option to do some good editing. I bought a book on Photoshop Elements and that gives great examples of how they use the Adobe raw to spice up images. As everyone says, great for bring back highlights.
Having said that, since I discovered HDR, i've barely used photoshop at all. I've got Photomatix and its fantastic. Ideally you should take 3 bracketed photos, but I never can be bothered. Photomatix is suprisingly good at generating pseudo-HDR's from a single shot (note, HAS to be in RAW, jpeg HDR's are completey terrible). There's a batch processing function in it. All I do is put in some presets, and ahve 4 versions of the program running differnt presets and jsut batch the whole folder. I then have 4 different versions of each photo, and then its a quick easy task to select the best.

In summary, I shoot everything in RAW + jpeg so its easy enough to use the jpgs to sort out the bad photos and delete. I then run the RAW's through Photomatix under a few settings, then select the best.

[arnica]

I mainly shoot in RAW, however for time-lapse compilations, i tend to use hi qual jpg

[Tommo224]

I have a Canon 550D, I shot a whole Europe trip in JPG before I knew what RAW was, but I wish I had known earlier!!

RAW is fantastic, as you can tune things the way you like to without worrying about destroying quality (to a further extent than JPG). You'll always have the original available (as the programs don't save over the raw file, but tend to write a file with the adjustments in it.).

I use Adobe Lightroom, by far the best photo editing program I've used!

Photoshop is fantastic, but I like the way Lightroom is set up and handles the files.


I recently bought a Sony NEX-5N and forgot to set it to RAW, went out for a day of shooting. I was still able to make photos the way I like to, but some were too dark and too light (getting used to the light meter) and I couldn't recover them lost photos

[patrickv]

RAW all the way for me.

I have made myself a pretty straightforward workflow.
1/ take photos, raw only
2/ put memory card in reader, view directly with exifpro, delete all that's uninteresting, rate what is
3/ copy what's left on hard disk array in a dated directory
4/ import in lightroom with "add" (not copy)
5/ format memory card and put it in the "can be used" box
6/ process 4 and 5 stars stuff, export it to wherever needed and print/email/upload
7/ every couple of weeks, go see what wasn't deleted right away but wasn't rated high either - delete about half, process/export the rest

Basically, except if it's for immediate use such as a shoot for someone else than me, I only process about once a week, I just do a memory card dump the same day. If don't know how to process, just skip this part and export directly with some preset. You'll be able to reprocess them later as you learn.

Hope it helps. I find it's a very painless process, and because of how big the files are it forces me to be more selective, which is a good thing.

Cheers

[hopefull]

Thanks to all for the very helpful advice but now I have another questions! I have the software that came with the camera but am contemplating purchasing Photoshop or similar. Do all those types of programs work for JPEG & RAW or are they specifically for one or the other?
Thanks

[ameerat42]

Pshop will work for most raws. You need to get the latest Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) plug-in. I just did a few Canon raws with it and the "trial" version of CS6.

[jupiter618]

I made this file for people still wondering why shooting raw is better. I've just applied different levels of jpeg compression to the three panels.

[ameerat42]

Hmm! I'm out in space about it, though. (Gosh, I must be thick! Or is it the ether out here that's slowing me down.)

I think you will have to explain it all, even starting with "...why...raw is better..."
Am.

[jupiter618]

I don't want to repeat what other people have said too much, but I'll try to put it a different way. A raw file will record the information your cameras sensor records in its entirety. When you choose jpeg, after the image is captured your cameras software breaks the image up into blocks of pixels, 8 pixels by 8 pixels (64 pixels) and records a short hand annotation for the colour in that block. If, for example a shadow consists of a smooth and gradual gradient from black to grey or whatever, the software will look at the gradient of colour within each 8 x 8 block and it will probably decide that it's close enough to the same colour (average colour) in that block and colour it all one shade, and so on for the next block, and the next etc. Therefor what you've actually got is a series of sharp steps in shade rather than a steady gradient across the shadow. Now if you view this as is, at 100% zoom you'll probably think it looks ok. However, if you attempt to lighten that shadow you'll very quickly see these steps/jumps/blocks which jpeg compression created, because you're increasing the contrast between them. The camera captured a nice smooth gradient, but your jpeg engine threw out that information in order to create a smaller file. The thinking is, noone will notice that information is missing. Start editing or pixel peeping and you will notice.

[ameerat42]

Apologies, Jupiter. I didn't mean you to go into this depth for me alone. I just meant that your post as it stood seemed to lack a bit of explanation.
It may still do so, I don't know. I know you're trying to be helpful...
Am.

[jupiter618]

No worries ameerat. I know you don't need the explanation, it's just that I felt the actually mechanics of what's going on in jpeg compression was missing from the above thread, and an actual visual image showing it is worth a thousand words, isn't that what they say? It might just help the penny drop for someone who is still unsure what the fuss is about with raw vs. jpeg.

[hopefull]

Thanks again to all. It sounds rather complicated to adjust the images, or is it a case (like most computer programs) that after spending time learning it, it all seems easy? And having a good artistic eye really helps!

[ameerat42]

According to the specs, the 550D comes with DPP as the raw editor. Install it, try it, and see. Next post you can show some results, however modest.
Am.

[Mark L]

^ as mentioned in post #16.
BTW all Canon DSLRs come with DPP.
Although not a new question, it's been a good thread hopefull and contributors. Thanks.

[mikec]

A good analogy I was told at Uni goes something like this;

"Consider a raw image a box of fresh fruit and vegetables, they are the raw ingredients that allow you to make many many things.

Consider a JPEG as an instant cup of soup sachet, you can only make one thing with it, soup."

Think about that, it'll make sense.

Also I'd recommend looking at Lightroom also, if you're on Mac there is also Aperture which is very similar. You can get 30 day trials of both to try them out before investing. Aperture didn't integrate with Photoshop as well as Lightroom but that could have gotten better since. Lightroom is a great for the price and would highly recommend it to anyone.

[Tommo224]

A good analogy I was told at Uni goes something like this;

"Consider a raw image a box of fresh fruit and vegetables, they are the raw ingredients that allow you to make many many things.

Consider a JPEG as an instant cup of soup sachet, you can only make one thing with it, soup."

Also I'd recommend looking at Lightroom also, if you're on Mac there is also Aperture which is very similar. You can get 30 day trials of both to try them out before investing. Aperture didn't integrate with Photoshop as well as Lightroom but that could have gotten better since. Lightroom is a great for the price and would highly recommend it to anyone.

I use the same analogy to friends who ask me about RAW too haha..



I use Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 with a VSCO plug in exclusively with my photos.

Except, I keep all my photos instead of deleting ones I don't use. Memory is cheap now, I don't mind stock piling it all. I use separate catalogs to group them all together.

I only use Photoshop if I need to do some heavy editing, which is almost never. Only to do a collage or website stuff. Watermarks, spot removal tool, clone tool, crop, graduated filters, etc all work just fine from Lightroom!


You can use Lightroom to edit any JPG file and RAW file, the amount of depth you can go with this program is just awesome.


I used to use Photoshop to edit all my photos, I did for years. But once I discovered Lightroom I started using it exclusively. The file handling is excellent! It also has preset export settings which can create albums and galleries for you.

Now I only use Photoshop at work for work stuff haha.. It's a work tool for me now, not a fun tool.

[hopefull]

Thanks to all who took the time and effort to assist me, and any others who have been reading along. I am hoping to have some time to play with the software, I will post my beginner efforts and hope that you will continue to help me.

[ExclusiveAV]

This has been a great thread, ive learnt heaps!

[arthurking83]

I say this often and most people .. at the repetitiveness of it.

Unless you really need to shoot raw and JPG for some reason, it's a redundant method of capture.
In some instances there may be a need to do so, as you may want instant(as in right there on the spot!!) need for a jpg for editorial purposes.. deadlines and suchlike.

if this hobby is simply for your own pleasure, raw + jpg is onlny eating up your reserves of memory. While it's cheap, you still should have some semblance of respect for it.

From a raw you can always get a similarly created jpg file, with a quick batch process using your favourite raw converter software.
if this is a PITA in terms of workflow, then fear not as even tho you may only shoot in raw mode, you still have a high quality jpg file within your raw file.
it's a trivial matter to extract this file using a specific program to do so, if you instantly need a jpg file for some reason back at home on the PC.

There are a few programs that can extract this jpg file from within the raw file, and I like IJFR.
What this program does(very quickly) is to extract the jpg file from your raw images. This jpg file is the exact same file you will get from an 'untainted' conversion straight from the camera.. ie. it'll be rendered as if you shot JPG directly on the camera.
Extracting hundreds of jpgs from all your raw images takes a minute or so, so the time to receive your jpg files shouldn't be an issue.

Memory is cheap, but don't waste it!