Luminous Landscape Forum
Site & Board Matters => About This Site => Topic started by: John Camp on November 21, 2007, 08:05:46 pm
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I've always shot RAW because everybody agrees you can make more thorough adjustments, as Michael demonstrates in his front-page article. As I read the article, this question popped into my head: "What if you really work at it, and take a great deal of care with your exposure, setting your white balance, and so on? Would you then get JPGs whose cake is not so baked that you couldn't adjust them to be essentially as good as RAWs?" If you can, then that would seem to be a strong argument for shooting JPG at least in some situations (running short of card space, running short of time to get the photos back to the office by phone, etc.)
Would that be even more true, where you were shooting in a studio where the lights can be minutely adjusted, and you may have to download and manipulate hundreds or thousands of shots? In other words, if you can manipulate the external conditions thoroughly enough, does it obviate the need for RAW, or make it even *desirable* to work in JPG?
JC
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Just to add on to what John mentions above ...
Now that CS3 has the capability of opening both RAW and JPEG in ACR does that bring the two closer?
I don't have the answer to that but for me I'll continue to shoot RAW.
don
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The only times in the last few years that I have shot Jpeg were after filling a CF card and needing to get another quick shot that I would lose if I took the time to change cards. I can squeeze one or two Jpegs on a "full" card.
I often make several size prints from one image, for fine art purposes. I like to make the choices of how, how much and when to sharpen, to use a deconvolution program such as Focus Magic, to use or not to use noise reduction, etc, dependent on the size of the final image. In other words, when the camera makes all the preconversion decisions, the image may be fine but not necessarily the way I would convert the data.
In addition, converting to 16-bit color in ProPhoto RGB gives me still more opportunities to fashion the final result to my liking. But then I used to spend hours in the darkroom dodging, burning and otherwise shaping the results in B&W prints.
It all depends on what you want from the picture. Maybe a good parallel would be those who shoot color slides and take them to a good lab with instructions on how to process them, rather than just sending them off to the corner drugstore.
One last thing: over the years, RAW processors have improved tremendously. I fully believe that some of my best-processed images will be surpassed in the future with further improvements in RAW processing, and I would like to have the raw data at hand at that time.
I've always shot RAW because everybody agrees you can make more thorough adjustments, as Michael demonstrates in his front-page article. As I read the article, this question popped into my head: "What if you really work at it, and take a great deal of care with your exposure, setting your white balance, and so on? Would you then get JPGs whose cake is not so baked that you couldn't adjust them to be essentially as good as RAWs?" If you can, then that would seem to be a strong argument for shooting JPG at least in some situations (running short of card space, running short of time to get the photos back to the office by phone, etc.)
Would that be even more true, where you were shooting in a studio where the lights can be minutely adjusted, and you may have to download and manipulate hundreds or thousands of shots? In other words, if you can manipulate the external conditions thoroughly enough, does it obviate the need for RAW, or make it even *desirable* to work in JPG?
JC
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Having shot weddings in Fine JPG mode to 'save time' on the computer - then only to wish I had more 'room' to adjust bordeline images, I can't see a time advantage in RAW vs. JPG postprocessing.
With a reasonably fast computer and a proven workflow, it takes little more time to go with RAW out of the can, uh... card. Plus, memory is so cheap owning the space you need isn't an issue anymore either.
Add the aforementioned comments on ProPhoto color space, salvaging highlight and shadow areas, and the occassional uprez needed, and I'll never shoot JPG originals again - unless I'm running short on card space...
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Walter brings up a valid point regarding improvements in RAW processing. I’m very glad to have the historical advantage of the RAW file that was shot some years ago and either reworked or just worked on in the current version. Amazing progress over what was available to us just three years ago.
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As with anything else, there's a time and place for anything. If I'm shooting landscapes, or portraits, or other things where quality is paramount, then RAW is obviously the way to go.
If I'm shooting 1000 pictures of a football game, or a youth soccer tournament, there's no way I'm going to take the time to RAW process all of those. There's a time for RAW and a time for JPG.
Bob
Walter brings up a valid point regarding improvements in RAW processing. I’m very glad to have the historical advantage of the RAW file that was shot some years ago and either reworked or just worked on in the current version. Amazing progress over what was available to us just three years ago.
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As with anything else, there's a time and place for anything. If I'm shooting landscapes, or portraits, or other things where quality is paramount, then RAW is obviously the way to go.
If I'm shooting 1000 pictures of a football game, or a youth soccer tournament, there's no way I'm going to take the time to RAW process all of those. There's a time for RAW and a time for JPG.
Bob
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To be honest I've never shot a jpg on my 5D, but I've seen the jpg output of other dslrs and don't really want to go there. Now that Lightroom is integrated into my workflow I don't see any great difference in effort and the output choices make it well worthwhile.
Plus, even at the soccer tournament you might shoot a winner!
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As with anything else, there's a time and place for anything. If I'm shooting landscapes, or portraits, or other things where quality is paramount, then RAW is obviously the way to go.
If I'm shooting 1000 pictures of a football game, or a youth soccer tournament, there's no way I'm going to take the time to RAW process all of those. There's a time for RAW and a time for JPG.
Bob
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In the poorly lit sports venues I shoot in I can't stand not to shoot raw.
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With the batch adjustment & processing capabilities of RAW converters, there's not any good argument for JPEGs unless shooting & processing speed is at an extreme premium. The minute or two it takes to tweak white balance and other settings isn't generally an issue because you can then apply those settings to many images; on a per-image basis the time inventment is minimal. And batch processing (to create web JPEGS or whatever) can usually be done while one is either sleeping or productively occupied elsewhere, so that time isn't generally an issue, either.
The only time I've ever shot JPEGs professionally was at a horse show during an event where 25 horses and riders are riding in circles in the ring at the same time and you have maybe 5 minutes to get salable shots of each, which means getting the exactly right portion of the movement of the horse, horse and rider both exhibiting proper form and good facial expressions, not being obscured by dust clouds or other horses and riders, etc. All this requires split-second timing and a bit of luck, and even shooting JPEGs with a 1D-MkII it is easy to run into buffer issues if you're not careful. But for everything else, I shoot RAW.
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If I'm shooting 1000 pictures of a football game, or a youth soccer tournament, there's no way I'm going to take the time to RAW process all of those. There's a time for RAW and a time for JPG.
Bob
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Under that kind of constant lighting I find it much faster to process my RAWs as I can simply apply a set of adjustments to everything and convert them all with little need for any further editing.
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Under that kind of constant lighting I find it much faster to process my RAWs as I can simply apply a set of adjustments to everything and convert them all with little need for any further editing.
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Yeah LR could apply adjustments to 500 photos and export them all as JPEGs in a few minutes, maximum. Given it sorta makes sense to at least LOOK at each of them (to, say, evaluate focus) I just don't see much time advantage if you use the right tools. This is definitely somewhere that the new (Aperture and Lightroom) tools make a HUGE difference in improving the RAW workflow.
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Where do you get the idea that a soccer tournament has constant lighting? Aside from changing conditions due to cloud movements, etc. a major tournament can go from 7am to 7 pm over 2 or 3 days. Lot's of lighting changes possible under those conditions.
Even one football or soccer game can go from sun to rain (or more likely, moderate overcast to heavy rain) during the course of a game.
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I think that one reason people consider .jpeg "faster" is that you simply can't work with it as much on a computer. People shooting .jpeg are not tempted to spend hours improving a photo with pretty much fixed content.
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I'll never shoot JPEG again. Ever. I confess that I used to shot JPEG all the time - and to good effect - but having decided to embrace RAW and having seen how much Lightroom can do for a RAW image, I now have many thousands of images entitled "Regret.JPG".
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Now that CS3 has the capability of opening both RAW and JPEG in ACR does that bring the two closer?
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Not at all. Its not the opening of the data, its how the data is being handled. JPEG (or any rendered image) is representing a baked color and tone appearance. Its difficult, and often impossible to remove the ingredients and rebake this effect.
A useful primer is here:
[a href=\"http://wwwimages.adobe.com/www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/family/prophotographer/pdfs/pscs3_renderprint.pdf]http://wwwimages.adobe.com/www.adobe.com/p...renderprint.pdf[/url]
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Over the past couple of yeast I've noticed a pattern to the "debate" over RAW vs JPG. The folks in the "JPG is fine" camp had, as far as I could tell, never spent any significant chunk of time working with RAW - they all "anticipated" issues there either aren't there any more (ie clunky workflow) or never took the time to get good at it. The simple question to ask some who says JPG is OK, is how many RAWs have they processed? Any less than 1 - 2K and credibility = 0.
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I agree with everything being said here, and shoot raw 100% of the time. Having said that I prefer the JPEG rendering in Michael's first example (the motorcycle). I wasn't there so I don't know which is more accurate, but I find the warmer color balance in the JPEG more pleasing.
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Jeff, you've missed the point.
This is not about producing an esthetically pleasing image. It was done to simply show using an extreeme example what was possible and what was not possible using both raw and JPG files.
Michael
I agree with everything being said here, and shoot raw 100% of the time. Having said that I prefer the JPEG rendering in Michael's first example (the motorcycle). I wasn't there so I don't know which is more accurate, but I find the warmer color balance in the JPEG more pleasing.
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Where do you get the idea that a soccer tournament has constant lighting? Aside from changing conditions due to cloud movements, etc. a major tournament can go from 7am to 7 pm over 2 or 3 days. Lot's of lighting changes possible under those conditions.
Even one football or soccer game can go from sun to rain (or more likely, moderate overcast to heavy rain) during the course of a game.
That doesn't alter the fact that once can still set a particular WB and apply that to dozens or hundreds of images (say all the shots of one game). The consistency you get is typically better than camera JPEGs with auto WB, and certainly no worse than what one would get manually setting WB in-camera. Shooting JPEG, you have to correctly guess WB, the appropriate contrast and tone curve, and all color settings correctly before you take the shot. When shooting RAW, all you have to worry about while shooting is getting focus and exposure right, and everything else can be tweaked to taste.
I've shot many concerts, weddings, and other events where I've exposed more than 1000 frames during the event, and going through the shots and tweaking WB and other settings to create the web gallery has never taken more than 30 minutes, and that was for an event where there were indoor and outdoor activities and I had to divide the images into several groups, each with their own WB settings. Once that is done, then I simply start the web gallery creator and go to bed, and the client has the gallery to view online the next morning.
Overall, RAW is a huge time saver, because the batch WB tweaking done prior to creating the gallery is one less step I need to worry about when processing the client selects for printing. The greater color accuracy and level of control over the finished product means far less time spent fixing what the camera didn't get right if I had shot JPEG, and the flexibility of RAW processing saves a lot of time in situations where Murphy intruded and something was shot with less-than-optimal settings. The only slow part of the process (generating the preview JPEGS from the RAWs) can be done either at night while you are asleep, or on a separate machine that can be occupied with that task while you are on a different machine doing something else.
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Jeff, you've missed the point.
I didn't miss your point, and I understand quite well the benefits of raw processing. I just think you chose a counter-productive example. If a JPEG shooter who doesn't know much about raw looks at your first example, it might very well reinforce their opinion that JPEG is just fine.
A better example might have been shooting raw + jpeg with the camera set to tungsten WB and then showing how easy it is to fix on the raw file to produce a pleasing result.
This is not about producing an esthetically pleasing image. It was done to simply show using an extreeme example what was possible and what was not possible using both raw and JPG files.
But the results do matter to most of us, it's all about the end result. If a particular edit is "better" in theory but produces undesirable results, is that really an advantageous outcome?
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Not the RAW v JPEG issue "again" lol
Anyway, I see what Micheal is saying here, and its a valid point. However, not all jpegs are created equal. I have always been very happy quality wise with my KM5D on jpegs, excellent processing, and low compression offered too.
I have taken shots jpeg, maybe I could have done RAW, some good ones too. I do not have sleepless nights over it, nor do I worry that my compact is jpeg only. There is a place for both, and most of us are well aware of the pros and cons.
I don't subscribe to the RAW only way of thinking. For the simple reason:
You do not always want to shoot RAW, example, informal shots..kiddies party or something, who wants to sit for ages processing their RAW files? Not me, so I use jpeg for that kinda thing. Even working stuff, used jpegs, not a problem. I do use RAW a good bit too.
I imagine most jpeg shooters are in the know on things, esp exposure. So if I shoot jpeg, and expose more for the highlights..problem solved.
I will have to point out a few things though:
You can adjust WB with jpegs, though its not "as easy" or you may run into trouble if your WB is miles off.
You can also pull up shadows pretty well on "some" cameras, the ones with "good" jpegs.
Maybe Micheal is a tad one sided on this issue, a bit more balance wouldn't be a bad thing. I am not suggesting he does a "Ken Rockwell" and jpeg love etc etc. But its a bit like the endless film v digital debate. Its a non issue. Use what you like, be aware of the pros and cons, and take those shots! I frankly never wonder if a photo is jpeg, raw, film, shot with a tasty lens, or a beaten up ancient thing, its just the image that counts.
Cmon folks, we don't know how good we have it nowadays..maybe time to crack out some wetplates and get back to the real thing? eh? lol
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Not the RAW v JPEG issue "again" lol
Anyway, I see what Micheal is saying here, and its a valid point. However, not all jpegs are created equal. I have always been very happy quality wise with my KM5D on jpegs, excellent processing, and low compression offered too.
I have taken shots jpeg, maybe I could have done RAW, some good ones too. I do not have sleepless nights over it, nor do I worry that my compact is jpeg only. There is a place for both, and most of us are well aware of the pros and cons.
I don't subscribe to the RAW only way of thinking. For the simple reason:
You do not always want to shoot RAW, example, informal shots..kiddies party or something, who wants to sit for ages processing their RAW files? Not me, so I use jpeg for that kinda thing. Even working stuff, used jpegs, not a problem. I do use RAW a good bit too.
I imagine most jpeg shooters are in the know on things, esp exposure. So if I shoot jpeg, and expose more for the highlights..problem solved.
I will have to point out a few things though:
You can adjust WB with jpegs, though its not "as easy" or you may run into trouble if your WB is miles off.
You can also pull up shadows pretty well on "some" cameras, the ones with "good" jpegs.
Maybe Micheal is a tad one sided on this issue, a bit more balance wouldn't be a bad thing. I am not suggesting he does a "Ken Rockwell" and jpeg love etc etc. But its a bit like the endless film v digital debate. Its a non issue. Use what you like, be aware of the pros and cons, and take those shots! I frankly never wonder if a photo is jpeg, raw, film, shot with a tasty lens, or a beaten up ancient thing, its just the image that counts.
Cmon folks, we don't know how good we have it nowadays..maybe time to crack out some wetplates and get back to the real thing? eh? lol
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Again, this is silly. This entire premise: "You do not always want to shoot RAW, example, informal shots..kiddies party or something, who wants to sit for ages processing their RAW files?" Is just false. Really, there is NO additional time to process RAW files compared to JPEG files if you use software designed for it, e.g. Aperture or Lightroom. Aperture when it was released had the tagline "Makes RAW as easy as JPEG." And it is. If you want to sit there with a convoluted ACR+Photoshop workflow, that's your problem, but I can take 250 shots, edit each of them for white balance and make slight corrections, at maybe 15 seconds per photo. Certainly faster than doing WB correction on one JPEG.
So time for editing either is the same with the right software, and there's a lot more flexibility if you shoot RAW. I simply don't see the downside to RAW, other than disk space. As such, given cameras I have that shoot RAW, I will always use it. It's not magical, it's just better in every way with few to any downsides. You can feel free to shoot JPEG if it's more convenient for you, but there need not be ANY convenience advantage if you use the right software.
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Again, this is silly. This entire premise: "You do not always want to shoot RAW, example, informal shots..kiddies party or something, who wants to sit for ages processing their RAW files?" Is just false. Really, there is NO additional time to process RAW files compared to JPEG files if you use software designed for it, e.g. Aperture or Lightroom. Aperture when it was released had the tagline "Makes RAW as easy as JPEG." And it is. If you want to sit there with a convoluted ACR+Photoshop workflow, that's your problem, but I can take 250 shots, edit each of them for white balance and make slight corrections, at maybe 15 seconds per photo. Certainly faster than doing WB correction on one JPEG.
So time for editing either is the same with the right software, and there's a lot more flexibility if you shoot RAW. I simply don't see the downside to RAW, other than disk space. As such, given cameras I have that shoot RAW, I will always use it. It's not magical, it's just better in every way with few to any downsides. You can feel free to shoot JPEG if it's more convenient for you, but there need not be ANY convenience advantage if you use the right software.
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Complete nonsense. You photograph with jpeg, connect the camera to a printer and hit go. Now there's workflow for you! Mind you, the thought of doing that is about to send breakfast back up. Excuse me while I go lie down
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Complete nonsense. You photograph with jpeg, connect the camera to a printer and hit go. Now there's workflow for you! Mind you, the thought of doing that is about to send breakfast back up. Excuse me while I go lie down
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My thoughts exactly. And I have done that more than a few times. I begin to tire of people telling me I "MUST" shoot RAW all the time. I dont see the point for casual shots like I said in my post.
I dont lecture others on what to do, what maker to use, or how to do what they want to. I expect most not to care..after all I expect to be judged, on what I produce, does how I got there really make any difference at all?
Maybe, just maybe I am smart enough to use a camera, to get what I want, maybe I am aware of the pros and cons of both formats. Its such meaningless arguments all the time that never cease to amaze me.
I am going out now to take some photos with my cheap kit lens, and jpeg mode ;-)
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Again, this is silly. This entire premise: "You do not always want to shoot RAW, example, informal shots..kiddies party or something, who wants to sit for ages processing their RAW files?" Is just false. Really, there is NO additional time to process RAW files compared to JPEG files if you use software designed for it, e.g. Aperture or Lightroom.
So time for editing either is the same with the right software, and there's a lot more flexibility if you shoot RAW. I simply don't see the downside to RAW, other than disk space. As such, given cameras I have that shoot RAW, I will always use it. It's not magical, it's just better in every way with few to any downsides. You can feel free to shoot JPEG if it's more convenient for you, but there need not be ANY convenience advantage if you use the right software.
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And that's exactly why I now shoot RAW + JPEG, whereas before I used to shoot RAW only. I deal with people who do not have the right software and are not going to buy it either. So if I shoot JPEG as well, I can give them the JPEGs to flick through. I started doing this after having to let the computer run for a couple of days processing a shoot [a 4 week shoot] and the client insisted on JPEGs.
The time for editing is quicker with JPEG no matter what you say. It takes longer to open a RAW file regardless of software used - which may only be 5-10 secs, but those seconds can add up. Besides LR or Bridge have to render any adjustments you may have applied to the RAW images, which is not always very speedy. And I quite like the tweaked picture styles out of my 5D and whilst working in Sweden this year [using an 18 month old laptop, not the latest dual, quad core monster], I nearly always used the JPEGs with a quick tweak as I was going along. Now when selecting the final images from that 5 week shoot, I will use the RAW files for any exhibition imges. But they will in fact look very similar tonally to the PSed JPEGs as that's the look I want.
Most of the images shot on film would not have been good enough for some of the JPEG snobs here as the quality and WB tweaking wasn't there. The flaws in a medium are not flaws in the right hands. If you always want maximum DR, noise free and detailed shadows, RAW is the way to go, but sometimes dark black shadows or blown highlights is also perfect.
To add to other posts saying RAW is overkill, I sometimes use my girlfriends's 850IS Ixus rather than my 5D as I like the different pics that come out of it and for some shots, that camera is far preferable. I may get more DR or what ever with the 5D but it doesn't have IS or the ability to do really close imaging like the little compact. And being so tiny, it'll get used when even my RAW shooting S70 is too bulky to fit in my pocket. Besides the S70 isn't much cop over 100ISO either. Plus it's quite nice to simply point and shoot sometimes without thinking. And the IXUS very rarely gets the exposure wrong either.
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Complete nonsense. You photograph with jpeg, connect the camera to a printer and hit go. Now there's workflow for you! Mind you, the thought of doing that is about to send breakfast back up. Excuse me while I go lie down
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The perfect workflow for doing continuity shots on films in fact. I get asked to do those shots sometimes when doing stills [and I've done continuity too on occasions] and if I had one of those printers that can plug and print I could do images straight from my camera very, very quickly. Polaroids still get used for wadrobe/makeup as it's the perfect workflow.
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The perfect workflow for doing continuity shots on films in fact. I get asked to do those shots sometimes when doing stills [and I've done continuity too on occasions] and if I had one of those printers that can plug and print I could do images straight from my camera very, very quickly. Polaroids still get used for wadrobe/makeup as it's the perfect workflow.
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Exactly. I stay away from jpegs now only for one reason I confess. It's not the expense of the camera or printer or dedicated monitor, or the expense of the sharpening and noise reduction software, and monitor and printer calibration stuff, pixel editors, file managers, RAW converters blah blah blah. No, it's that almost none of this stuff works out of the box. It's like buying a car only to find it has last year's engine which won't work with this year's petrol. And you have to fix it yourself with a workshop manual written in bunkum by a theoretical mathematician needing vapulation. Then it comes back from it's first service with the steering wheel on the other side and the cd player upgraded to an air freshener for my convenience. Labile stuff sold by fabulists. No, I stick with RAW through bloodymindedness that I have got this far and will one day make it all work at once. David
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I shoot jpeg sometimes.
A example: I helped my mother´s husband to take photos off their hunting dog fetching a dead duck. I shoot 1200 shoots that day in jpeg. It really saved me time. As I just imported them to their computer directly.
They asked me as my camera can shoot faster than their point shoot. They wanted a serie with the dog fetching and collecting the dead duck to their homepage. They use like 300 pixels wide jpegs on the homepage.
I saw no reason at all to waste my time with RAW. The camera did great job. They got 400 photos they chose themself. They where more than happy with the result.
As a thank you I will get a monopod this christmas.
If I been shooting raw, It would just made take alot off memory cards. I had to import them all export them to later send them to their computer. Sure I could do it Lightroom but my mother and her husband wouldnt probably see the diffrence.
You can get good results with Jpeg if you mind the exposure and whitebalance. Just shooting in manual and keep mind off the focus. The cameras got quite good Jpeg encoding this day.
For my own use I always use RAW.
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I don't find it such a religious principle. Shoot whichever suits the circumstances, but be aware of the consequences you incur. For some circumstances it's silly to shoot RAW. If you're doing an onsite handoff from the camera to the client, the only discussion may be whether to shoot jpeg or tiff. Some clients want one, some the other.
In a direct handoff, you are not going to have the opportunity to process RAW, and if the client doesn't want delivery in RAW, he's going to hire another photographer. If you encounter those situations, you darn better know jpeg limitations intimately and be able to work around them in your lighting controls and camera management. In your location survey prior to a shoot you can also ID for the client the extra costs incurred in all the extra lighting required, and probably garner payment for the extra processing time incurred for shooting RAW in lieu of bringing along an extended light kit and a tech or two.
Yeah, I prefer RAW any time lighting conditions are challenging. But you're whacking yourself off at the knees if you fail to learn how NOT to use it when non-photographic factors dictate use of jpeg or tiff.