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RAW or JPG shootout (handbags at dawn)

bforbes
Posted 01/01/2012 - 22:14 Link
The tutor for our Photoshop course maintained that JPEG was someone else's interpretation of how your RAW file should look. So now I use RAW+
tigershoot
Posted 01/01/2012 - 22:37 Link
RAW. I upload to a stock agency and they are looking to reject the image for all manner of reasons. I aim to get the exposure bang on even in RAW as trying to rescue a wrongly exposed image almost always leads to 'noise' rejections. Now that I have a K-5 this may be less of a problem but it's too soon to say. Ironically the first image I uploaded since going to the K-5 was shot as a JPEG and it got rejected for artifacting. I smoothed it in LR and it then did make it. I sometimes found my K20 got the white balance totally wrong which is where having RAW is so great.
K3iii, K3ii, K-5, K-x, DA150-450mm, DA16-85WR, DA16-45, DA18-55WR, DA18-135WR, DA35 F2.4, M100mm F4 Macro, DA55-300mm, FA50mm 1.4, AF360 Flash, AF540 Flash
davesexton
Posted 01/01/2012 - 22:42 Link
Using JPG throws away so much editing potential. Even in the best composed, metered and exposed shot, there is always more to be had out of an image from some thoughtful post processing... RAW is definitely best for this!
Capture: Pentax K-1, PENTAX HD PENTAX-D FA 24-70mm F2.8 ED SDM WR, PENTAX 100mm f/2.8 WR Macro, SAMYANG 14mm F2.8 ED AS IF UMC, SAMYANG 35mm F1.4 AS UMC, • SAMYANG 85mm F1.4 AS IF UMC

Processing: Adobe Bridge for organisation, DxO Optics Pro Elite for RAW development, ON1 Photo RAW for some 'stylising' and Affintiy Photo for more involved edits.
Sprocketdog23
Posted 01/01/2012 - 22:58 Link
So far RAW is definitely the leading choice here...... a few posts have said because they have fun with all the PP image tweaking, which is a good point, but I suspect thats not the case for everyone. How confident do people feel about the 'in camera' JPG engine of their Pentax DSLR's? Is there an expectation that images might go wrong if you shoot JPG for instance?

I've only owned my K-5 for a couple of weeks, but the jpg output seems pretty good to me, and I have not yet had any issues with blown highlights or lack of shadow detail, and the 'in camera PP' seems to be highly responsive and very tuneable. When I've shot with RAW+ and processed both the DNG & JPG images in Gimp, the final images turn out as identical, but the jpg's take about quarter of the time to process. I feel pretty confident that the out of camera jpg's perform well enough, and require just some minor PP tweaks for my everyday photographic uses anyway.

Also - Is it just my dated Mac, but is PDCU just awful to use? It seems to absolutely crawl on my machine, to the point where it is unusable.
'The best camera you ever have is the one in your hand'
Sprocketdog23
Posted 01/01/2012 - 23:15 Link
bforbes wrote:
The tutor for our Photoshop course maintained that JPEG was someone else's interpretation of how your RAW file should look. So now I use RAW+

That's an interesting comment, but only technically correct up to a point, as you still have to work on the RAW file in software, which has been designed by other people for their interpretation of the workflow, so your final result might vary, it will never truly be your own. To really test your tutor, ask him/her to process the same RAW file in Aperture, then in Lightroom, then in Capture One Pro. Without direct comparing, see if they can produce an identical resulting output each time. I suspect not, but not because they are not any good at it, but because the workflow is different for each brand, and differences, although probably minor will creep in.
'The best camera you ever have is the one in your hand'
NaimKhan
Posted 01/01/2012 - 23:18 Link
Sprocketdog23 wrote:

... I've only owned my K-5 for a couple of weeks, but the jpg output seems pretty good to me, and I have not yet had any issues with blown highlights or lack of shadow detail, and the 'in camera PP' seems to be highly responsive and very tuneable.

Sprocketdog, below are 2 versions of the same shot. The first one is the JPEG from the camera while the second was the RAW file processed in PSE9. You can see that the highlight in the bridge are way blown which I have avoided by processing the RAW image.
Comment Image


Comment Image
PPG
tigershoot
Posted 01/01/2012 - 23:28 - Helpful Comment Link
Great shot but FWIW I think the bridge looks underexposed. I tend to push the exposure up in LR and then add some 'Recovery' to get the now over-blown highlights back.
K3iii, K3ii, K-5, K-x, DA150-450mm, DA16-85WR, DA16-45, DA18-55WR, DA18-135WR, DA35 F2.4, M100mm F4 Macro, DA55-300mm, FA50mm 1.4, AF360 Flash, AF540 Flash
NaimKhan
Posted 01/01/2012 - 23:31 Link
tigershoot wrote:
Great shot but FWIW I think the bridge looks underexposed. I tend to push the exposure up in LR and then add some 'Recovery' to get the now over-blown highlights back.

Thanks.
The point is that you can do that with RAW but not JPEG.
PPG
davidstorm
Posted 01/01/2012 - 23:40 Link
RAW (DNG) - I can't see the point in shooting always in jpeg as it takes so much away and adds nothing! This is not because I don't know how to use the camera, as others have already said it's just more flexible.

Regards
David
Flickr

Nicola's Apartments, Kassiopi, Corfu

Some cameras, some lenses, some bits 'n' bobs
tigershoot
Posted 01/01/2012 - 23:47 Link
I have also read that you should never get rid of your original RAW files as better software in the future may convert them to an even higher standard. Good job disc space is cheap these day though!
K3iii, K3ii, K-5, K-x, DA150-450mm, DA16-85WR, DA16-45, DA18-55WR, DA18-135WR, DA35 F2.4, M100mm F4 Macro, DA55-300mm, FA50mm 1.4, AF360 Flash, AF540 Flash
Sprocketdog23
Posted 01/01/2012 - 23:50 Link
Thanks for your post NaimKhan, which illustrates to me a number of things, mostly around what people expect their camera to be able to do. Firstly that shot is a really difficult lighting situation, and the dynamic range of the K-5 is being pushed very hard. I don't think there are any DSLR's able to fully handle the EV range here in a single shot. Indeed, the JPG has blown highlights, but the processed RAW has lost the shadow detail to quite some extent, so the approach at the shoot needs to reflect what the final output is intended to look like.

In this shooting situation, I would shoot with RAW, (mainly because the edit workflow is simpler in this situation, but you could do bracketed jpg's and get the same result) but then I would create several RAW edits with a range of exposures (from a single RAW file in your RAW software afterwards). Its straightforward to combine them to reveal the accurate exposure for each area of your image.

Lovely shot by the way.
'The best camera you ever have is the one in your hand'
Edited by Sprocketdog23: 02/01/2012 - 00:02
Frogherder
Posted 02/01/2012 - 00:01 - Helpful Comment Link
Raw+, simply because lots of others do the same.

I invariably show just the JPGs and currently just store the RAWs away waiting on the day that I figure out how to make a decent fist of PP.

I'm arrogant/naive enough to think I can get the exposure correct, but sufficiently insecure to know that I don't

Bernard
cabstar
Posted 02/01/2012 - 00:55 Link
@Sprocketdog23 Get yourself a copy of lighroom, learn workflow within lightroom & you will end up shooting raw permanently.

My lightroom is setup to auto noise reduction depending upon ISO speed & which body I shoot with. Adds just a few seconds to the import process.
PPG Wedding photography Flickr
Concert photography

Currently on a Pentax hiatus until an FF Pentax is released
bforbes
Posted 02/01/2012 - 01:15 Link
Sprocketdog23 wrote:
bforbes wrote:
The tutor for our Photoshop course maintained that JPEG was someone else's interpretation of how your RAW file should look. So now I use RAW+

That's an interesting comment, but only technically correct up to a point, as you still have to work on the RAW file in software, which has been designed by other people for their interpretation of the workflow, so your final result might vary, it will never truly be your own. To really test your tutor, ask him/her to process the same RAW file in Aperture, then in Lightroom, then in Capture One Pro. Without direct comparing, see if they can produce an identical resulting output each time. I suspect not, but not because they are not any good at it, but because the workflow is different for each brand, and differences, although probably minor will creep in.

I believe he meant that a RAW file retains all the information your camera took in, and it's up to you what you do with it. In contrast with JPEG an engineer has developed software in your camera to produce an image that he thinks you want. He then discards the unused information, which limits your ability to alter his choice
Sprocketdog23
Posted 02/01/2012 - 01:37 Link
cabstar wrote:
@Sprocketdog23 Get yourself a copy of lighroom, learn workflow within lightroom & you will end up shooting raw permanently.

My lightroom is setup to auto noise reduction depending upon ISO speed & which body I shoot with. Adds just a few seconds to the import process.

I just started this discussion as a bit of light hearted fun. I actually teach post production, so am very familiar with all Adobe products from Lightroom/Photoshop through to Illustrator & After Effects. I have used these products daily in my job since the early 90's (practically since the launch of Photoshop - anyone remember Tiger Mountain or Photostyler?)

To be honest, I will shoot RAW if I can't determine the exposure accurately, or I'm unsure that any camera I'm using will not be able to cope with the lighting situation ( I love the one button RAW switch on the K-5). Mostly though, the kinds of shots I find I'm taking these days don't need to be shot in RAW, thats all. They end up re-sized to 800x600 and uploaded as LQ jpg's on my photo-blog, so going through the RAW journey is a little overkill.

A couple of years ago I ran a printing business, mostly doing canvas prints and very large paper prints for business clients. I always shot in RAW for commercial jobs, it was failsafe, easy to manage through Adobe Bridge, and images were instantly repeatable, as you well are aware.

I much prefer Aperture myself, although at home I am a great advocate of Open Source tools such as Gimp for Photo Editing, Blender for 3D modeling & animation, and Inkscape for Illustration. About five minutes ago I was editing in the free to use Pixlr Editor link online, it works a treat. The future of Adobe products is going the same way, on line and by subscription. The whole nature of photo editing will change fundamentally in the next few years.
'The best camera you ever have is the one in your hand'

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