RAW benifits/costs?

[macgyver]

First off, I'm not sure if this would go here or in the image processing fourm, but it seems to fall under the "shooting techniques" thing.  At least to me.  So, if its not a good place for it, I'm sorry.

Anyway...

Since I started serious photography, I shot in JPG.  It was a combination of lack of software, hardware limitations and general laziness.  In another thread earlier in the week I made this statement:

"I understand and enjoy and take advantage of how RAW files can be tweaked for better exposure, but I know photographers to have gotten quite lazy when shooting by using the excuse of "well, I'm shooting in RAW, I can fix it later".

There are some of us who, raw or jpg, try to get it as right as we can the first time."

I fully agree with this statement, however I thought of something today.  Only fairly recently have I really started to work with and realize the potential of RAW files.  I've shot two events in the past week or so in RAW + JPG, with the idea to have the jpgs I know and love but also be able to start working with the RAW files.  So far, I've been impressed.  Anyway, this made me consider what I earlier said.  Do you think RAW makes folks lazier?  I, of course, will always try to get it right the first time, but now I have an extra layer of assurance.  I love the ability to fine tune the exposure, WB, etc and all, but I do wonder if in the long run it will make me lazy about things.  Also, it makes me wonder how faithful I'm being to the color and look and all.  I'm one of those people who likes to try to keep it as natural and close to the orginial as possible (usually) and the more room I have to explore, the harder it is to keep it in the original ballpark.

Your thoughts?

-macgyver

[sgwrx]

there are other benefits to shooting raw than basic editing. image quality is also better, letting a program specifically designed to convert is typically better than that program in a camera.  there is also more data to work with when you want to dodge or burn areas of the photo.

i learned earlier this year that there is no substitue for getting it right, every time.

as far as being faithful, i think this is where artistic intent comes in.  i remember the limited color film shooting i did all those years back that fuji film showed very different color than kodak film.  raw is one option for interpreting what you see through your own artistic vision.  if you intend hyper-realistic colors of a scene you can shoot a color target and adjust as needed.  otherwise you can develop a raw file to give the impressions you had when you first saw your scene.  'wow that was really green moss on that rock' might look dull when you go for realism, but your impression was much more green.

[dlashier]

I don't think raw has made me any lazier - I am a stickler about getting it right in the camera. True, occasionally it helps you salvage a shot where you screwed up, but there are a number of things where raw gives you flexibility than jpeg just doesn't offer. The two biggest ones that come to mind are white balance and HDR.

- DL

[Tim Gray]

Lazier? I don't think so.  I've never thought, "well this will be ok - doesn't look all that great on the histogram, but I can fix it in RAW".

One of my lasting regrets is a trip I took to Nevada/Utah/Arizona with a 1d2 and only a 20 gig Nixvue.  I shot one the first day RAW in Valley of Fire and realized there was no way I had enough memory, so shot the rest of the trip in JPG, including Upper and Lower Antelope - what a mistake.

To Quote Mahesh Thapa from Fred Miranda's landscape site:  "Memory is cheap, but memories are priceless".

It will be interesting to see how the debate evolves now that you can do the same white balance fixes against JPGs in Lightroom as you can with RAW.

Edit:  Actually the one element of "laziness", if you will, is that I am too lazy to go through the process of deciding - "Do I need RAW for this shot, or will JPG be OK."

[PeterLange]

It will be interesting to see how the debate evolves now that you can do the same white balance fixes against JPGs in Lightroom as you can with RAW.

Technically impossible (whatever the SW claims).

Peter

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[Tim Gray]

Technically impossible (whatever the SW claims).

Peter

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but practically possible (because I've actually tried it)

It 'technically' may not be 'white balance', but if it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck...

[dlashier]

but practically possible (because I've actually tried it)
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=84856\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

I suspect that theoretically it is possible - in an ideal world (infinite DR). But I can see problems arising if the WB used for conversion induced channel clipping, which is not all that uncommon. That information is gone and no amount of tweaking after-the-fact will recover it.

- DL

[John Sheehy]

I, of course, will always try to get it right the first time, but now I have an extra layer of assurance.  I love the ability to fine tune the exposure, WB, etc and all, but I do wonder if in the long run it will make me lazy about things.  Also, it makes me wonder how faithful I'm being to the color and look and all.  I'm one of those people who likes to try to keep it as natural and close to the orginial as possible (usually) and the more room I have to explore, the harder it is to keep it in the original ballpark.

Your thoughts?
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=84738\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

There is no one such exposure that's "right", or even "natural".

The RAW data is counting photons (and adding some noise), and nothing else.  The trade-off with various levels of exposure are only signal-to-noise ratios, and highlight clipping, not "saturation" or any other concern.  If you take a shot of colorful fall trees with +2 EC and a camera contrast setting of minimum, and the colors are pale, it is not because you exposed it wrong, but because the camera's JPEG engine compressed the highlights.  Same for your favorite RAW converter.  Its default conversion may compress the highlight ranges, and depending on the converter, may or may not return the full, saturated colors when you use -1 or -2 exposure in the converter.  If you can't make it look right, it's the converter's fault, not the exposure's.  Unfortunately, many converters are pretty useless for anything more than -1 or -2, and get weird beyond that, instead of just downscaling the RAW data.  This limits how much you can "expose to the right" with your particular RAW converter.

I shoot RAW (with a few Canon DSLRs) as precisely as I can, to get as high an exposure as possible without clipping desired highlights.  I will not hesitate to go to a higher ISO to do this.  This often results in a washed out JPEG, or default conversion in software.

[Mark D Segal]

RAW capture isn't an invitation to be lazy, because the better the photograph the better the photograph regardless of the post-processing potential. JPGs get baked in the camera, while RAW captures need careful post-capture processing. The choice of file format is really a bit of a non-brainer. People who have the need, time or interest to maximize image quality will shoot RAW and people who don't will shoot JPG. It isn't a value judgement on either practice - just a matter of needs and preferences.

[BernardLanguillier]

RAW capture isn't an invitation to be lazy, because the better the photograph the better the photograph regardless of the post-processing potential. JPGs get baked in the camera, while RAW captures need careful post-capture processing. The choice of file format is really a bit of a non-brainer. People who have the need, time or interest to maximize image quality will shoot RAW and people who don't will shoot JPG. It isn't a value judgement on either practice - just a matter of needs and preferences.
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RAW is not really a choice for me, it is the only available option from a pratical standpoint.

Why am I saying so?

There are physical limitations on camera bodies that make it impossible to add many more controls beyond those already present (and mostly the same as those we had in the film days). We do now have ISO and WB readily available on some bodies, but that is basically it.

However, digital photogaphy introduces many other important "software" variables that greatly impact the final image. Contrast, color space, sharpness,... each image would in fact require tweaking of these paramaters to get best results.

These parameters are available in camera, but mostly only through menus... and therefore practially unusable for anyone shooting in the outdoors in changing conditions.

One the main values of RAW from this standpoint is the fact that we do not have to think about those parameters in the field. This is a life saver when looking for the best image quality when speed matters.

Cheers,
Bernard

[jani]

One the main values of RAW from this standpoint is the fact that we do not have to think about those parameters in the field. This is a life saver when looking for the best image quality when speed matters.

Bingo!

[Henrik Paul]

To my mind, shooting raw doesn't have to do with laziness. The ability to correct the exposure later on on raw is much less to that of black and white negative film (not to mention also the lack of white balance settings there .

But on a serious topic, it's a tit-for-tat situation, as I see it. Sure, you get more leeway in adjusting on the computer, but then again you most often have to do adjusting on the computer. With shooting JPEG, you get much less freedom to correct your photo afterwards, but then again, the camera has already done that for you.

So, actually, IMO shooting raw means more work than JPEG.

[PeterLange]

It will be interesting to see how the debate evolves now that you can do the same white balance fixes against JPGs in Lightroom as you can with RAW.

Technically impossible (whatever the SW claims).

but practically possible (because I've actually tried it)

It 'technically' may not be 'white balance', but if it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck...

Proper white-balance all along the grayscale (!) requires native Raw data, before they get bended through the inevitable tone curve.

As concluded earlier:  to white-balance JPGs is like trying to “nailing jelly to a tree”:
http://luminous-landscape.com/forum/index....l=white+balance

Or should we try it with the duck .

Seriously, it’s both – a math thing as well as a real-world issue.

Peter

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[John Sheehy]

Proper white-balance all along the grayscale (!) requires native Raw data, before they get bended through the inevitable tone curve.

As concluded earlier:  to white-balance JPGs is like trying to “nailing jelly to a tree”:
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=85000\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

An easy way to demonstrate this is to create a gradient in Photoshop that goes from 0,0,0 to 255,255,128 [later edit; originally mistyped 0,0,128].  You get a gradient that goes from black to yellow, such as with a yellow light.  After filling a rectangle with the gradient, open the levels tool, select the blue channel, and pull the input whitepoint down to 128.  Everything turns grey; nice.

Cancel out of the Levels dialog, and open curves.  Make a nice big s-curve.  Now, go back to Levels and try again - no matter what you do, the bright half will always be too yellow, or the dark half will always be too blue.

[PeterLange]

An easy way to demonstrate this ...
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Couldn't agree more.
Such testing hits the nail on the head.

Peter

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[larsrc]

But on a serious topic, it's a tit-for-tat situation, as I see it. Sure, you get more leeway in adjusting on the computer, but then again you most often have to do adjusting on the computer. With shooting JPEG, you get much less freedom to correct your photo afterwards, but then again, the camera has already done that for you.

So, actually, IMO shooting raw means more work than JPEG.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=84907\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

That's one thing that has bothered me about the raw conversion programs I've tried so far (UFRaw, Bibble) -- where's the "I want this converted like the camera took a JPG" option?  White balance, yes, but the camera exposure curve I haven't been able to find.  Is this just me, or crappy tools?  If I had a single button going "To camera JPEG", I would never consider RAW+JPEG again.

-Lars

[32BT]

An easy way to demonstrate this is to create a gradient in Photoshop that goes from 0,0,0 to 0,0,128.  You get a gradient that goes from black to yellow, such as with a yellow light.  After filling a rectangle with the gradient, open the levels tool, select the blue channel, and pull the input whitepoint down to 128.  Everything turns grey; nice.

Cancel out of the Levels dialog, and open curves.  Make a nice big s-curve.  Now, go back to Levels and try again - no matter what you do, the bright half will always be too yellow, or the dark half will always be too blue.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=85009\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

You guys crack me up... :-)  wrong approach:

Presuming you meant (0, 0, 0) to (255, 255, 128), otherwise it'd be blue, try this:

- create the image with S-curve and all.
- go to curve dialog
- select blue channel
- move the white point horizontally toward the blackpoint side until the midtones are gray
- add a midpoint to fix the curve
- move the white point back (curve will automatically clip with a shoulder)

[Tim Gray]

I'd be interested in someone describing a test that demonstrates the shortcomings of adjusting JPG WB in Lightroom, not PS.

[dlashier]

I'd be interested in someone describing a test that demonstrates the shortcomings of adjusting JPG WB in Lightroom, not PS.
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Haven't tried this but I'm guessing [a href=\"http://www.lashier.com/home.cfm?dir_cat=26147]this shot[/url] would cause problems. I don't have LR installed but if you want to try it, the "as shot" jpeg (web sized) is at http://lashier.com/images/ND26149p.jpg
I'd be surprised if you can get anything that even remotely resembles adjusting WB in the RC.

This is not my image - if you post a result please tag it with Bernd Angerer's copyright.

- DL

[PeterLange]

Create a grayscale in a D65 space like Adobe RGB.
Convert AbsCol to a D50 space like ProPhoto RGB,
in order to create a realistic cold bluish grayscale
(including a nice clipping issue, but let’s ignore this for the moment).

Try to whitebal via Levels’-highlights. Should still work because linear scaling is ignorant to ‘gamma’.

Apply a pronounced S-curve.

Try to whitebal to neutral R=G=B again, with any procedure preferred…

A curve is then of course better than setting the highlights, but all in all Good luck!  Knowing the law of gravitation, I don’t have to drop all the dishes to see it work.

Peter

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