JPEG or RAW?

[digitaldog]

-1.

A Raw file (a) can be processed to b) a high quality 16 bit image, be it in Tiff or DNG format, with rich shadow details, a smooth gradient in the sky, etc. Or, the Raw data (a) can be processed to c) a low-quality Jpeg.
--

Indeed. And neither changes what the raw data actually is. It's read only. The raw is a source for producing either but remains raw.

The Topaz software tries to transform c) to b), supported by an A.I.

It may try to do lots of things. But what it doesn't do is produce raw data nor can it edit a JPEG as if it were raw. The evidence if this was provided in the attempt to correct white balance of a JPEG that wasn't set correctly. Something that could very easily be conducted if shot as raw, where WB plays zero role because again, it doesn't affect that data, as it does a JPEG whatsoever. Topaz claims, without any evidence that they can Edit JPEG as if you shot it in RAW. At least one person has proven that's not true from actually testing, not that it was necessary for anyone who knows that JPEG and raw data is.

[fdisilvestro]

The Topaz software tries to transform c) to b), supported by an A.I. which is trained on the correspondence by a large number of images and pairs of c) and b).

The issue, and the main point of the recent discussions, is that Topaz claims to transform c) to a)

[Ray Harrison]

-1.

A Raw file (a) can be processed to b) a high quality 16 bit image, be it in Tiff or DNG format, with rich shadow details, a smooth gradient in the sky, etc. Or, the Raw data (a) can be processed to c) a low-quality Jpeg. The Topaz software tries to transform c) to b), supported by an A.I. which is trained on the correspondence by a large number of images and pairs of c) and b).

The gist is sufficiently clear, and I find it a subordinate point that Topaz mixes up a) and b)
in their descriptions.

Peter
--

I get a->b, a->c. I haven’t found the experience of Topaz going from c->b the same as giving me something that’s as if I got to b going from a->b. There’s some sky improvements, sharpening (way overdone in some cases), some AI based detail filling and a few other things, but you can’t really pull shadow detail for example. It’s a JPEG improvement tool. Nothing wrong with that. One can posit use cases for such a tool, indeed Bart has indicated several great ones. With the AI models and training sets getting better over time it will likely evolve to an even better JPEG improvement tool. I am all for being clever at image enhancing. But for me, the only time that DNG is relevant to raw is when starting with raw capture to get to the DNG. Starting with jpeg and backtracking to a tiff (AI-based or otherwise) and wrapping in a dng and calling it raw because “AI JPEG to TIFF” doesn’t sound as sexy or sell as well is disingenuous to me.

Naming does matter if people are trying to decide on the tool, and Topaz had the option to be clear. Now we are injecting things into conversations such as “names don’t matter, just look at what it does” and variations on the theme. This does, in fact, bother me, especially when it didn’t need to be this way. 

All that said, I think the horse has been well and truly beaten 😀. Time to get out into the fantastic Colorado sunshine.

[Rajan Parrikar]

After going through and carefully weighing the arguments on both sides of this dispassionate, reasoned, erudite and civil discourse, I decided to go ahead and purchase JPG to RAW by Topaz for $67 after discounts.