Jpeg vs Raw processing questions

Ok ,Hope all is well. As i am about to start in the relm of jpg shooting, and compare against the raw, what are the main differences between the two.In post processing. In post processing, people say greater controll in raw, but what aspects , and in what respect

Hi. Fine thank you!

With jpg sharpness, noise reduction, white balance etc. has already been processed in camera. You can then do most of it again on the pc but every processing comes with a loss. And you cannot undo sharpening for instance, white balance will be settled etc.

I mostly shoot jpgs but with expected keepers or tricky situations I go RAW! jpg is for lazy people, but good enough for me in most cases

That will have to do till some of the others give you the full story...

Everything you always wanted to know about RAW vs Jpeg, but were afraid to ask.

Happy reading,

Martin.

Not sure our esteemed moderator will agree with that!

However, I think the most important advice is to nail the exposure properly, because with JPEG there's much less room for error.

I still think, OI, that you haven't tried a proper RAW converter yet. It takes very little time to adjust and process a batch of pictures in Silkypix. If you are taking hours then either you have the wrong approach, or you're such a perfectionist that you will spend hours whatever you are doing.

G

I wouldn't presume to comment!

To answer the question directly, RAW gives you unprocessed information from the sensor. You can decide white balance, sharpness and everything else for yourself.

With jpeg, a Pentax engineer has decided for you what the white balance, sharpening et al will be according to his taste.
They are skilled people and make good choices.

I prefer to decide these things for myself because, for example, I do not want to apply the same sharpening to a portrait of a woman as I do to a landscape.

For inexperienced or rushed people, it's likely that the Pentax engineer will decide better than they can what they want or need.
For experienced or fussy photographers, RAW is the way to go.

Only you can decide what is best for your purposes. Most people will be happy with the jpeg option, I think. While it'll always be a compromise, it'll rarely be wrong. With RAW, you can turn out awful results if you wish.

Personally, to paraphrase Ghandi. I prefer my awful to your best.

To be fair, that's litttle different to the decisions made when designing a film. In the case of digital that decision can be adjusted in the menus and honed in Photoshop if required.

If I want daylight film with 81A filter I just set Cloudy in the WB menu. Generally though I use Daylight, which equates to the colour temperature I like.

I'd maintain that it's not as random as you suggest.

I take that point and I didn't intend to imply that it was random. But when you alter the jpeg parameters, you alter and jettison certain things immutably, before you make your picture, as a choice of film does.

With RAW it is as if you could alter the film after you had shot it.

I can see all kinds of reasons for using jpeg and I do so myself when taking pictures for eBay, for example.

But a RAW file in the library is always there in its nakedness, ready to be tailored to the task at hand.

And at my age, a RAW file is about the only thing I get to see naked!