View Full Version : ok another question - RAW vs jpg
I realise this is another n00bish type question...
but...
which do you think is better & why?
now I can kind of understand the RAW giving you an added something for post-processing but photoshop (or at least my copy of photoshop) can't handle RAW files. I need to convert them into tifs or jpgs first so I don't really quite undertstand the point.
I've done some googling on all this and I have to say its left me even more confused - I don't really see any advantages that shooting in RAW has over shooting in jpeg.
http://www.toddwalker.net/articles/rawvsjpg.html <- this is actually quite handy... and explains a bit about the two of them without doing my head in
and I think I just managed to find the answers I want (with bonus handy links to software :-D )
http://digital-photography-school.com/blog/raw-vs-jpeg/
Still not really sure whats best
from what I can understand if you don't want to do much post-processing - which I don't at the moment really anyway (something that will need to change) shoot jpg
if size is a concern - shoot jpg
but if you want the highest quality image you can take - shoot RAW
i think i get it now
anyone opinions?
that's pretty much it.
it's essentially a question of when you want to compress your images - straight out of the camera or after you've done some post work. for the average joe, jpg is more than adequate.
of course RAW also has the added advantage of being able to tweak numerous parameters after you've taken the shot, as well. it's basically just the pure data that goes in to the camera, before any adjustments are made to it.
phunkdust
12-Jan-07, 02:41pm
With JPG you're relying on the camera's CPU to do all the image processing and saving to a file - the CPU needs to not use much power and needs to be cheap so it doesnt do the worlds best job. You're also locked in to 8-bit colour depth with JPG.
With RAW you save all the basic data off the sensor and the image processor is not used. You can then process the RAW as you like in software. The benefits are is that you can extract a hell of a lot more information out of RAW than JPG.
EG you have a lot of room to fix a badly over/under exposed shot with RAW. In JPG once it's fucked, it's fucked, it's not coming back.
RAW gives you access to all 12 bits of most imaging sensors - you get more latitude and a wider colour gamut. Also if you need to interpolate upwards to prepare a file for a large print the results are better when you're working from a RAW.
Basically RAW is there to extract every last drop of capability out of a camera.
I never use JPG any more, the capabilities of RAW are just so far ahead its not funny.
Unless you are familiar with Photoshop CS and have a decent amount of processing power, shoot JPG. The real downside to RAW is the huge amount of processing it takes in software. If I want to convert a bunch of RAWs to jpg for proofing thumbnailing or whatever usually I leave the process go overnight - on my computer processing a raw and saving it out takes around 30 seconds for each shot.
beagle2
12-Jan-07, 03:04pm
Basically jpg preserves the dominant colour of a group of pixels and sacrifices their fine grained texture in order to achieve its compression. The pixels are blocked 8x8 for this purpose - so you're talking about small blobs in any case. Having greater ability to manipulate them is only really of relevance if you want to play either with cropping/enlarging or fine grain textures. Those two are biggies in print media but the low resolution of computer screens (and the fact that lots of people don't have calibrated screens either) makes raw unnecessary for web, etc. Essentially raw is to jpg as cd is to mp3.
However, the jpg converters in most programs like Photoshop give you much more control than you get in the camera's jpg converter. BTW a tiff image is uncompressed (or lossless compressed in the case of a compressed tiff for the pedantic) so it should be a pretty good conversion of any raw original.
However, the jpg converters in most programs like Photoshop give you much more control than you get in the camera's jpg converter. BTW a tiff image is uncompressed (or lossless compressed in the case of a compressed tiff for the pedantic) so it should be a pretty good conversion of any raw original.
so I would be better off converting to tiff & then manipulating that in photoshop? and then converting the tiff to a jpg...
either that or attempt to save money and get myself photoshop CS2
i havent read much of the above so sorry if i repeat sumthing thats been said but to make use of RAW u need to download camera raw for mac or pc. do the basic pp there and then the proper retouching in photoshop
beagle2
12-Jan-07, 05:26pm
so I would be better off converting to tiff & then manipulating that in photoshop? and then converting the tiff to a jpg
The best thing to do would be to never convert it to a jpg at all - keep it as a tiff file. Failing that then what you said would most likely produce a more faithful pic. But to put it into perspective an 8x8 block of pixels from a 6MP camera on a 6" x 4" print is 0.4mm across (for the block, not each pixel). So you're literally splitting hairs. Still, if it's going on up on the wall it's probably worth the trouble.
Ralph Wiggum
12-Jan-07, 05:55pm
Netty, for what you are more than likely to be doing, shoot in JPEG High, it will be more than adequate.
If how ever you were going to shoot a wedding or that to die for once in a lifetime sunset and had a Canon 1D or similar, then you'd be probably be shooting in RAW to preserve all the formating. Note, when you do shoot in RAW on that 300D, it will take ages to actually write the data to the card and will more than likely frustrate you.
As for converting it to a TIFF, to be honest, I can't really see why you'd bother, but the others may know more on this.
AC DC Pro (Grr, I can't remember the exact name of it) will help you to manipulate your RAW images easily, I think Photoshop CS2 finally came out with a RAW plug-in, but I am not 100% certain on that.
There is also a RAW Windows Power Toy that will let you view RAW images in the Windows Picture Viewer too.
How are you finding the 300D anyway? They are a good camera to get you started in the DSLR world :)
i cant understand why anyone would ever shoot jpg. seriously raw is that much better. it hardly takes any extra time to process and the results are incomparable.
advantages of raw
- final .jpg is much sharper, clearer and better colour.
- you can adjust exposure + or - 2 stops (even thought generally youre losing a bit of data).
- you can change colour balance which is necessary, especially if you use autowb. adds click balance which you obviously cant do in camera.
- adjust colour levels before converting to jpg.
- etc.
i dont find it all that time consuming processing. basically ill look at each shot, decide if its a keeper, check exposure, check wb and crop if necessary. move onto the next one and repeat. once youve made your adjustments do a batch process. then walk away and grab a coffee. i dont have a very good pc and i can convert 100 raw to jpg in 10 mins or so.
try it out. shoot raw + large jpeg and then compare your final shots.
-
another vote for RAW here. you've paid a hell of a lot of money for that sensor so you might as well get all the detail you can out of it. It gives you full control over sharpening and white balance (very important because most camera's Auto WB sucks), lets you control colour and exposure better. Yes 99% of people will still end up converting the RAW to a jpeg, but a jpeg thats been tweaked by you to look just-so will always look better than one that's had the cameras default settings run over it.
the only time i shot a lot of jpeg is when i was travelling through europe and needed the space to take tons of photos.
You can use canon's Digital Photo Professional to convert from RAW, which should have come with your camera. However Adobe Camera Raw is a lot better, if you can afford Photoshop. Actually if you have an older copy you may be able to update it with camera raw, check adobe's website for updates.
phunkdust
13-Jan-07, 06:10am
:ahoy:
lol.
i justify this by reasoning that i'm not selling my images. if i was i'd pay up, honest :)
IGotTheRollerBoogie
13-Jan-07, 09:25am
Interesting thread guys! Thanks Nettsu, I was wondering the same thing the other day.
I am looking at upgrade my Canon G2 (very old!) to the latest model G7 but in a lot of reviews, one of the cons is that Canon has taken the RAW option away. To be honest I have never really used RAW on the Canon G2.
When I first got it, I experimented a tiny bit but never really saw much of a difference, so I just used JPEG. I know now, from reading this thread I did it the wrong way, so all this time I've been selling the cam out by using JPEGS.
From what you've said here, I guess Canon took it out of the G range to make their latest camera a bit cheaper, would you say? (and make people go DSLR if they need that option)
How are you finding the 300D anyway? They are a good camera to get you started in the DSLR world :)
I love bokeh :lol: (like thats not half freaking obvious so far)
I think that was actually one of the things that I was really looking forward to with the dSLR
the rest of it I am actually finding a bit challenging
the AF on the kit lens frustrates the hell out of me (not sure if its working or not because it never seems to want to take a photo). I was thinking I might change to the smaller of Larry's lenses and see if thats any better in AF.
Its taking a different mindset and its just also trying to get my head around that mindset (like the fact that I actually have to do all the work...) but I am starting to enjoy it now that I have my head around actually having to use the viewfinder to view & not use the screen. Although the S2s orgami lcd screen does rock.
phunkdust
13-Jan-07, 12:08pm
Netty turn BEEP on in the settings it'll beep when the camera has focus lock :thumb:
I should probably start my own HOLY SHIT i have a SLR camera and I have no idea thread...
:lol:
anyhows...
I have 3 lenses
all have AF capability and I learnt the AF limits today
the kit lens with a hoya UV filter
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/153/355582609_884b81b58d_m.jpg
full size -> http://www.flickr.com/photos/nettsu/355582609/
the film canon 28-80 lens (without UV filter)
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/163/355582649_670b9a3c7c_m.jpg
full size -> http://www.flickr.com/photos/nettsu/355582649/
and the cosina telephoto - i think it goes to 200 - not sure on the starting point
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/166/355567509_fb539e2e1d_m.jpg
full size -> http://www.flickr.com/photos/nettsu/355567509/
i know its a shit shot - but I was playing with Larry's cosina telephoto lens
i played around with raw the first time i got my camera (year ago), and could never really be bothered with it.
a few reasons. one is memory. im pretty much addicted to taking photos, and my main interest is surf photography.
for example, i went out to lennox head a few days ago, and filled up a 2gb memory card in a matter of hours, shooting just in JPEG!
So it means i need a hell of a lot more storage space. both cards, and hard drive/s
Another reason is that shooting in RAW when shooting in continuous mode, stalls the camera much longer and you can't get as many frames out. (not 100% on this)
But really the main reason, is i just couldn't be bothered with the extra time.
However, i was reading a photography magazine the other day and i learnt how it's actually important to do the white balance yourself and not trust the AWB.
And of course if you're shooting RAW, you can still adjust it later on during RAW processing.
I think i might start doing it just for the special shots. because i really do take too many shots.
it's just so easy when it's just digital :lol:
phunkdust
14-Jan-07, 12:14pm
Yeah you need a lot of storage with DSLRs... But the good thing is that cards are cheap.
When Scootie shot my brother's wedding I think in the space of 3 or 4 hours he went thru 3 or 4 4GB CF cards.
beagle2
14-Jan-07, 06:47pm
So after reading everyone's posts I decided that I should look a little more into RAW etc. I Googled around for a while and eventually came up with this new software - Nikon Capture NX. (It's actually made under licence by Nix software a digital imaging software co.) I downloaded a 30 day trial version and shot a couple of raw reference shots to edit in it, incl some under- and overexposed ones. (It costs something like $220 to buy.)
I am really impressed! The software behaves a lot like a camera, not like photoshop and its brethren (which I still have trouble understanding) and it's easy to correct/compensate for exposure/pincushion/whatever problems. It's easy to change the color cast without having to fiddle with RGB levels. Its easy to lighten/darken/tint sections of the image without having build complex masks. It doesn't have copy/clone/object tools as such to remove blemishes, create multiple copies of a subject etc.
My main point in trying this all out was to see if there was a way that I could correct some of my common problems such as exposure slightly out, color cast slightly off, etc. By shooting raw (as others have suggested) and using Capture NX I can do it all in a few seconds per frame. And apparently you can batch run the same steps against a bunch of images to correct a whole "shoot", though I have not tried this yet.
krafty_x
14-Jan-07, 09:14pm
As Ralph said. RAW is best for professional shoots such as weddings etc.
jpg high is fine for what you're after.
k_x oxo
Scootie
14-Jan-07, 11:07pm
yeah, the size of the RAW images has a flow on effect that can be a problem in some situations.
if my camera had an infinite buffer, and I had an infinite CF card in it, then downloaded to an infinite HD to process in my infinite memory then i'd shoot RAW all the time as the quality and flexibility is better, no doubt about it.
But I shoot 3-20 GB per week on JPG, if I was shooting RAW that'd be 9-60 GB.
My camera holds a 30 shot burst in JPG, then drops to 1 frame per second. In RAW that's 12 shots and drops to 2 every 3 seconds.
I won't talk about the 1 TB of disk storage I have at home, that would need to be 3 times the size if I always shot RAW, and the onflow issues of keeping everything backed up.
I shoot JPG because 99.4% of my images are going to be viewed on the internet at about 600 pixels wide, so most of the benefits of RAW are going to disappear.
However, I shoot a buttload, if you can get away with RAW sized images in your life, then think about sticking with it. The best way to determine is to shoot JPG for a month, then shoot RAW for a month, and if it frustrates the hell out of you then just save it for special occasions.
Oh, and for RAW conversions I strongly recommend Rawshooter Essentials, you'll like the price, works well, has batch processing and lots of keyboard shortcuts to make it fast, has good 'auto' options that are still better than the camera, and the eyedropper WB (click a point in the image to say 'that's white' is awesome - very good for weddings)
as for the other little tricks and traps, come socialise with us again for an arvo nettie with your 'pet peeves' or frustrating tidbits and we'll see if there's a few tips we can share. :)
as for the other little tricks and traps, come socialise with us again for an arvo nettie with your 'pet peeves' or frustrating tidbits and we'll see if there's a few tips we can share. :)
:thumb:
I should be at the next flickr meet - its around the corner so I can't exactly excuse myself for not being there :lol:
beyond that I was thinking (i may make it wait till my next early shift) but as JoeyJoeyJoe and keyring are working in South Melbourne (apparently not that far from L's place) - maybe suggesting some beers one friday afternoon...
phunkdust
15-Jan-07, 01:18pm
Fortunately all your friends are Canon users :lol:
Fortunately all your friends are Canon users :lol:
i know :-D
:lol:
Scootie
15-Jan-07, 04:21pm
:thumb:
I should be at the next flickr meet - its around the corner so I can't exactly excuse myself for not being there :lol:
beyond that I was thinking (i may make it wait till my next early shift) but as JoeyJoeyJoe and keyring are working in South Melbourne (apparently not that far from L's place) - maybe suggesting some beers one friday afternoon...
yeah, Joey can probably tee it up so he's working out of the south melb office that day. the funny thing about that is that his company's office and keyring's are actually in the same building :)
i'm working out of southbank now too, so we're all in the vicinity :P
yeah, Joey can probably tee it up so he's working out of the south melb office that day. the funny thing about that is that his company's office and keyring's are actually in the same building :)
i'm working out of southbank now too, so we're all in the vicinity :P
ok will sort something out soon ;D
anyways I will stop hijacking now...
I might do the month on/month off
although I have noticed that if you switch to some modes on the 300D it automatically goes to jpeg anways... weird
Ralph Wiggum
15-Jan-07, 05:52pm
Way off topic, but yes, I will be in our South Melbourne office, Wed to Friday, beers on Friday night would be good, even just to say hello :blush:
As for RAW, well the 10D is way to slow for me to shoot in RAW the way and amount I shoot, I get frustrated enough with the 9 shot burst I get in JPEG.
although I have noticed that if you switch to some modes on the 300D it automatically goes to jpeg anways... weird
from memory you can shoot raw in M, Av, Tv and P. Auto and scenic modes wont allow RAW capture as those settings are for beginners who wouldnt need to shoot RAW.
question....
with panasonic's new FZ50 it has the ability to shoot raw.... panasonic's noise reduction is pants... always has been and the FZ50 is still not great. will shooting in raw help the crappy NR software?
Oh dear,
never use raw unless you're taking photos for muck up. 98% of my photos are taken in RAW. The post-processing workflow literally is halved because i don't have to work with bitchy curves for 10min per photos.
Ralph Wiggum
15-Jan-07, 08:52pm
question....
with panasonic's new FZ50 it has the ability to shoot raw.... panasonic's noise reduction is pants... always has been and the FZ50 is still not great. will shooting in raw help the crappy NR software?I wouldn't think so.
Then again, some compression or converting to black & white can sometimes help
phunkdust
16-Jan-07, 12:03am
question....
with panasonic's new FZ50 it has the ability to shoot raw.... panasonic's noise reduction is pants... always has been and the FZ50 is still not great. will shooting in raw help the crappy NR software?
To a certain degree.
Crappy noise reduction + JPG = :(
With raw there is no noise reduction (apart from dark frame subtraction if your camera does that) - you can use the advanced noise reduction skillz of photoshop/noiseninja/neatimage/etc.
But you still can't polish a turd.
i only shoot jpeg when shooting snowboarding because the buffer is much larger when shooting jpeg rather than raw
Way off topic, but yes, I will be in our South Melbourne office, Wed to Friday, beers on Friday night would be good, even just to say hello :blush:
no beers this week sorry :(
I have to go to the midsumma opening
:|
although could be entertaining I suppose
maybe my first contributor submission for samesame :lol:
Scootie
16-Jan-07, 10:20am
surely a 'pre-party' beer or two could be on the cards?
do we have to play the "we never see you" card?
surely a 'pre-party' beer or two could be on the cards?
do we have to play the "we never see you" card?
well no :(
i'm on the late shift this week as well
so I would be running straight from work to fed square
I was going to suggest next friday but then realised it was Australia Day :lol:
how about next thursday?
altho won't finish work till 6 then either :|
Scootie
16-Jan-07, 02:00pm
yeah, Thursday will probably work for me. It's usually movie night, but I can easily turn it into 'drinking night' instead.
now, we should probably get back on topic for all those poor people who think we said somethign new about RAW vs JPG and keep coming back :)
there's some length discussion over on flickr about this:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/techtalk/discuss/72157594206863968/
Before I jump, I have to kind of apologize for the lameness of what I'm about to do. Call me a geek, I just sometimes can't help but break the flow to precipitate the issues that I have with a discussion before I can get a clear medium in which to think.
So here goes: I think it is important to realise that it is not generally useful to compare JPG vs RAW, since they perform entirely different functions in terms of digital imaging.
That is, the RAW format is quite unlike the ever so fun jpg vs gif vs png, (or Mac vs Windoze vs Linux vs BSD, or ITM vs TS, and on and on) where the basic function is to compress information based on different optimization parameters. These image compression formats are ways to take the stuff that the camera sees and let us see it depending on our particular technical needs. Do you want transparency? Do you require lossless compression, or is it smallness of file that commands attention? These needs are all different, but they have one thing in common: the need for a standardized way of packaging image information digitally so that it can be interpreted by a given device to be delivered to a human viewer in a predictable fashion.
The RAW format is unlike jpg, etc. in that it is a form of storing the information that a camera system acquires about its subject that isn't really intended for human consumption at all - at least, not 'as is'. This shouldn't be confusing, it is really very intuitive. The obvious analogue is to compare digital photography to traditional photography. If all you are ever interested in are the little rectangles that come out of the envelope that the news agent or pharmacist hands you, then you have no need to concern yourself with the RAW format at all. There is nothing wrong with that. You take pictures, you get prints. Easy peasy.
And there are many digital cameras that will make a fine jpg for you (how to assess the merits of the device shall be left for another discussion). What is essential in this discussion is to understand that these cameras in a sense, "develop" the data captured by the sensor in a way that is easily utilized by people. Think of it as a digital print; the data can be printed/presented on to screen, to paper, etc, but it is all ready to go in one neat and tidy package. The package itself is wrapped up according to the particular needs of the user. For example, JPG is intended to make files smaller at the cost of details that the algorithm finds unimportant. So, when you see the sky in your pictures taking on interesting bands of blue, you can thank JPG for that.
In a way, shooting to jpg is like having a flexible instant camera - not only does one have instant access to the image much like a polaroid (only it is first available on screen, not paper), but one can do many things to the image after it has been rendered. Yes, jpgs can be post-processed to look better, funny, or any kind of different. No, they don't offer the same functionality that the RAW data allows.
So, If you are the type of traditional photographer who enjoys developing your own film (B&W - I don't know anyone who develops their own Color film) or having your color negatives developed professionally so that you can have the most possible control over the information that your camera has stored to the negative, ostensibly for creative or quality motivations and concerns, you are the type to require a camera that stores the RAW information that the image sensor has captured.
That was an extremely long sentence.
Anyway, this unleashes your ability to dictate the final result of the image as it hits the eyes of your audience; you are not limited by your camera manufacturer's and your image compression format's simple sweep algorithms, tradeoffs, and irreversible 'decisions'. Said another way, you can use many methods of interpreting the data that may give you a more desirable result than the few options hard wired into your camera body.
So, to recap, it is not an issue of "Is JPG better than RAW?" or vice versa... it is a question of how much automation do you want in the camera itself and how much are you willing to let yourself, through your computer, process the data. If you have a choice, and if it doesn't cost you a headache, you should /always/ shoot in RAW, even if you are more comfortable also letting your camera render a JPG to save along side it while it is at the same time taking (and so wonderfully saving) your RAW data. The reason why is simple: even if /you/ don't know how and don't want to know how to fiddle with processing RAW data, if some day you sp happen to get that holy grail shot, you will never ever forgive yourself for letting - worse, trusting your camera mess it up :)
Personally, I don't tell my camera to make JPGs. I used to, but then I never used them, and it seemed a waste. I tried to work out a "once you go... you never go back" joke in there, but it just seemed wrong. However, I absolutely understand why people wouldn't want to bother with having to process each and every stinking picture they take, so want a way to have easy access to those pretty pics without the hassle. One thing to consider, though, you will find out that there are lots of nifty ways to speed the whole process along, ahhh and on that potential tangent, I think I'll now find out the character limit for this forum!
when you finally get "that shot" in jpg format, then get it home and realise you over/underexposed it and looks like crapola. You will appreciate the extra control of RAW format.
ghettro
18-Jan-07, 12:50pm
true though, although you may miss the shot entirely if your memory card or buffer is full because of all the RAW shots that have sucked up all the space :) Horses for courses
invisage01
18-Jan-07, 12:59pm
im about to go travelling around europe.. i plan in shooting in JPEG for space reasons (and compatability reasons - i want to be able to access the shots from anywhere).. if i were to be doing a professional shoot or similar im shooting in RAW.
beagle2
18-Jan-07, 02:04pm
Abode has a new product called Lightroom that is:
1. A photo collating, slideshow, printing do-hickey like the freebie stuff that comes with your camera.
2. A raw converter.
3. A tonal control / recoloring / level correction thingamajig that allows you do the kinds of exposure comp operations we discussed on both raw and jpeg/tiff files.
You can download a free beta copy from http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/lightroom/ but there is no word in final pricing/availability. I came across it after learning that Rawshooter has been acquired by Adobe and is being superseded by this new product.
phunkdust
18-Jan-07, 02:59pm
I had a look at lightroom. It looks tres sexy but I just couldn't see the point (also the layout sucks if you don't have a screen with a res of like 1600x1200)
so i got photoshop cs2 today. the raw converter in that seems like an improvement over canon's digital photo professional. hooooooray.
ps shoot raw. mem cards are so effing cheap you cant use that as an excuse!
phunkdust
18-Jan-07, 04:43pm
Yeah and if you find you're running out of card you either need to SHOOT LESS or buy bigger/more cards.
arradius
29-Jan-07, 07:55am
I haven't had much experience working with Raw but it seems to have it's advantages.
Unfortunately for me, Photoshop doesn't seem to support PEF files, but I'm gonna try and see if I can change the raw setting on my k10d to DNG and see if Photoshop can open those.
For club photos though, unless I've got a really really good shot I rarely tend to use RAW, there's just no point what with the size of the pics allowed up.
Luckily for me, there's a button on my camera body that switches between RAW and Jpeg or saves both files so I don't have to go fiddling through in camera menus and miss a great shot!
phunkdust
29-Jan-07, 04:18pm
Yep the K10D will do DNG which is Adobe's "digital negative" format which is supposed to be an unrestricted raw format.
arradius
29-Jan-07, 05:04pm
hooray! not all is lost :P
Is one raw format better than another?
great info here guys ... have been wondering about this myself ... i guess it is an easy habit for me to shoot in JPG ... but tomorrow it is RAW photo shoot and experiment day for me!
i do have that 'one' shot that is in JPG ... bugger me need the quality of RAW ;(
arradius
05-Feb-07, 10:19pm
Yep the K10D will do DNG which is Adobe's "digital negative" format which is supposed to be an unrestricted raw format.
waaaaaaah!
I got an awesome shot today, in DNG, and Freaking photoshop CS won't open it.
*shakes fist and swears fluently in various languages*
photoshop cs wont do raw. you need photoshop cs2 to use the raw converter.
and i must say holy fucking shit i love raw. after shooting the scissor sisters on sat night i can honestly say raw saved me. that was my first gig where i had 10 mins to get some decent shots in a rush. no time to check histograms or exposures it was all bang bang bang now get the fuck outta here. some shots didnt require any exposure adjustment but some were overexposed by a stop or more. being able to manually set the colour balance in degrees kelvin was also a life saver as the temperature was crazy varied. some shots were as low as 3000ish whilst others were closer to 6000.
shoot raw. for the love of god shoot raw!
arradius
07-Feb-07, 07:25am
Well that makes a bit more sense.
I didn't isntall CS2 due to not wanting my PC to chugg and chugg to get anything done.
Scootie
07-Feb-07, 11:13am
CS supported some RAW formats, and if you had the most up to date Adobe Camera RAW plug in then it read even more.
the other way is to use a third party RAW convertor to do the initial conversion and then edit in photoshop.
I use Pixmantec's Rawshooter essentials to convert to TIFF and then edit those in Photoshop, and you can still download it for free from their site (www.pixmantec.com)
Reading through these posts, the main arguments for NOT shooting RAW appear to be:
RAW takes up more memory on my card than JPG
It takes too long to process each RAW image on by one using Photoshop's RAW plugin
My shots are only going to be 600 pixels wide and won't be printed, so I don't need the big files that RAW produces
My thoughts on these points:
This is true, but as has been stated before, memory is cheap (Sandisk Ultra2 2GB cards go for about 90 bucks on ebay)
There are some great products out there which can handle batch processing of RAW to JPEG or high quality TIFF (read on below)
Even if you plan to resize your big JPEGs with some sharpening, if you start with RAW the final JPEG will have an incredibly higher level of detail and more accurate colours than direct JPEG with Photoshop editing. RAW lets you make your own decisions about your photos, that software in a camera just can't.
I shoot nightclubs, events, weddings and landscapes, and I always go with RAW. I use Phase One's Capture One PRO.
http://www.photosbyjay.com.au/images/tips/conepro.jpg
Above is a screenshot of capture one pro. On the left you can see all my RAW thumbnails, in the middle is the currently selected image, and on the right are my controls. Dragging any slider on the right changes the preview image in real time. It can show overexposed areas in red so I can drag the exposure slider to be just right. And one thing I absolutely love is if the
colour balance is off on a set of images, i can correct one, select all the others and hit "apply this white balance to the current selection of images".
In summary, it doesn't matter what software you use to get to the end result, but RAW will produce a much more detailed and accurate end result, whether you're printing it or displaying on the web.
ghettro
13-Feb-07, 11:31pm
I shoot both JPG and RAW. I like how it is more adjustable than JPG. Though contrary to the way some people harp on about it, you can adjust exposure, colour balance, sharpness etc to JPG in photoshop - though less in exposure. Even still the amount of post processing and fiddling you can do to a JPG in photoshop compared to what I used to do in the darkroom is infinite as well as infinitely easier and repeatable. The difference in fiddleability between RAW and JPG is miniscule compared to this. Note that the exposure latitude difference between RAW & JPG is tiny, say compared to B+W neg film and slide film, especially when I would always DIY b+w processing and be able to compensate.
Even if I find my JPGs have slightly off skintones I dont particularly find this difficult to fix in photoshop either. I find colour accuracy perfectly fine with JPG, (remember film?), I don't really care so much about 100% colour accuracy (especially seeing as I dont have a calibrated monitor, printer etc nor would 99% of people) as long as the photo looks good to me - colour to me is pretty subjective anyway, i'm not trying to create an exact colour match. As long as people's skin isn't green it's fine, and I tend to screw around with colour afterwards anyway.
I honestly cannot see any difference in detail or sharpness between a RAW file and a normal JPEG (im looking at 100% crops now) - fiddling in post processing (sharpening levels, unsharp masks etc) with both JPG and RAW makes more of a difference anyway. selecting the right shutter speed and stopping the lens down would affect my sharpness even moreso - that is also assuming the photo is in focus as well, and assuming that you want a sharp photo in the first place.
I tend to like to browse through my photos after a shoot at fullscreen usually to check composition and focus and pick the keepers. I can only use Capture NX or photoshop to open them - the viewer program I use doesnt support my camera's RAW file yet. Even if it did it'd still be much much slower to flick through photos at screen size, JPEG is instant. It's also convenient that you can just upload it straight off the camera and it's a useable picture, especially if you need to use the images straight away and you cant get back to your computer (or one that has the correct software for your proprietory RAW format). When I do shoot RAW, I do tend to adjust exposure and colour balance differently for each exposure post processing, as more often than not the lighting is different from shot to shot (especially with gig shots). So batch processing everything in one go doesn't save me time.
I will tend to shoot most action stuff on JPG usually because sometimes I have no idea how much I will shoot. I'll usually take my camera with me everywhere and sometimes I'll bump into something really interesting and take hundreds of shots sometimes I wont shoot anything. I'll shoot RAW when it's more planned and I have some idea of how much I will be shooting and when I can get back to my computer to upload it and feel its worth the extra effort. For me I dont think it's worth the 3x the amount of data in some situations and sometimes it is.
Out of curiousity, would many of you buy a camera that only shot RAW?
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