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Author Topic: What's Wrong w/JPG Compared to RAW?  (Read 5597 times)

dwdallam

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What's Wrong w/JPG Compared to RAW?
« Reply #20 on: September 30, 2005, 03:23:44 am »

Quote
If time is important to you (as it is with most of us) why not set some things like white balance in-camera so that you can edit faster and then change your setings only IF you need to? This should speed up your editing and if you save jpegs with your raw files then they will be ready enough to show as well without also needing to be processed. It just makes sense to me to get close right out of the box when you know you can still change everything later.

T
Well, first of all, White Balance doesn't work, from what I've learned, when shooting RAW. You do that after all of the information is captured. But, on the JPG side, I set everything like I want it yesterday, just in case I need to shoot JPG.
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32BT

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What's Wrong w/JPG Compared to RAW?
« Reply #21 on: September 30, 2005, 03:56:17 am »

I think what they are referring at is the fact that the camera will always record the settings in the raw file so that the settings can later be used by the raw converter to process the file. Even ACR knows how to extract that information for many of the raw formats. These are the settings you get when selecting "as shot".

So, to ease the process of raw conversion, it is useful to set the camera to the situation at hand, but it is indeed not required.
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Mark D Segal

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What's Wrong w/JPG Compared to RAW?
« Reply #22 on: September 30, 2005, 08:16:36 am »

DW,

Actually white balance can indeed work when shooting raw. With my Canon 1Ds, when I set the white balance to AWB (automatic white balance), and make sure not to obstruct the white balance finder in front of the camera, there is an in-camera algorythm that calculates white balance information from the image data it receives and tags the image file accordingly. Then when you open in Adobe Camera Raw and keep the white balance to AS SHOT, ACR tells you the colour temperature that the camera selected for that image. Most of the time its pretty-good, but if you don't like it you can change it in ACR. The AWB can be fooled if the image is seriously lacking in contrast, but most of the time I have found it quite reliable.
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dwdallam

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What's Wrong w/JPG Compared to RAW?
« Reply #23 on: October 02, 2005, 10:14:17 pm »

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DW,

Actually white balance can indeed work when shooting raw. With my Canon 1Ds, when I set the white balance to AWB (automatic white balance), and make sure not to obstruct the white balance finder in front of the camera, there is an in-camera algorythm that calculates white balance information from the image data it receives and tags the image file accordingly. Then when you open in Adobe Camera Raw and keep the white balance to AS SHOT, ACR tells you the colour temperature that the camera selected for that image. Most of the time its pretty-good, but if you don't like it you can change it in ACR. The AWB can be fooled if the image is seriously lacking in contrast, but most of the time I have found it quite reliable.
OK I see that now. I think that is correct. Set it to AWB, and then you have what the camera picked to use or compare, as shot, or not. Thanks.
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Jonathan Wienke

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What's Wrong w/JPG Compared to RAW?
« Reply #24 on: October 03, 2005, 02:13:30 pm »

Quote
If time is important to you (as it is with most of us) why not set some things like white balance in-camera so that you can edit faster and then change your setings only IF you need to? This should speed up your editing and if you save jpegs with your raw files then they will be ready enough to show as well without also needing to be processed.
That isn't actually a time saving, as the exact meaning of WB settings vary from camera to camera, and in any event shooting a white reference and doing a click white balance in the RAW converter is much faster and far more accurate than trying to do it in-camera. Given the difference in color between a color-calibrated RAW converter and in-camera JPEGs, camera JPEGs simply aren't worth bothering wit in most cases. They simply slow down the camera and consume more storage space.

All in all, a RAW workflow is faster than the equivalent JPEG because you don't need to edit the file to change conversion settings, you don't need to futz with setting WB while shooting, (except for possibly shooting a frame with a white reference in it somewhere), and there is far less need for color corrections.
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dwdallam

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What's Wrong w/JPG Compared to RAW?
« Reply #25 on: October 03, 2005, 06:15:47 pm »

Quote
Quote
If time is important to you (as it is with most of us) why not set some things like white balance in-camera so that you can edit faster and then change your setings only IF you need to? This should speed up your editing and if you save jpegs with your raw files then they will be ready enough to show as well without also needing to be processed.
That isn't actually a time saving, as the exact meaning of WB settings vary from camera to camera, and in any event shooting a white reference and doing a click white balance in the RAW converter is much faster and far more accurate than trying to do it in-camera. Given the difference in color between a color-calibrated RAW converter and in-camera JPEGs, camera JPEGs simply aren't worth bothering wit in most cases. They simply slow down the camera and consume more storage space.

All in all, a RAW workflow is faster than the equivalent JPEG because you don't need to edit the file to change conversion settings, you don't need to futz with setting WB while shooting, (except for possibly shooting a frame with a white reference in it somewhere), and there is far less need for color corrections.
That makes sense for sure. I love my new found RW format. Like you say, it removes one from having to "futz" with the Camera processing, which if redundant if you can set all that in ACR--or anywhere actually.

It really agrees with me from a logical perspective to have the camera jsut reciord what the sensor--it's film--sees, and then YOU do the processing. Yeah, duh.
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