RAW Vs JPG

On a steep learning curve with RAW, quite ignorant in fact, I came across this article and wondered if you agree with this article in general:

http://www.outdooreyes.com/photo172.php3

This particular article is pretty much over the top IMHO. It gives the impression that RAW acpture is vastly superior to JPEG, and that really isn't true. There are potential advantages, although I see very few images where those advantages are really demonstrated. And I see a lot of images and judge a lot of images in competitions.

My feeling is that JPEG is perfectly satisfactory and certainly far more convenient and also presents fewer compatibility issues with programs both current and for the future.

If you are not making images larger than A3 and if you are happy that you can expose accurately then my opinion is that the advantages of RAW are minimal.

There are many on these forums who will disagree with what I am saying, so all you can do is listen to what everyone says, try it for yourself and see how it relates to the work that you do.

IMHO

Having not yet got into RAW, (have dabbled with it) I can only say that I agree with John, but also add that if your shooting images for yourself, then shoot jpeg, if on the other hand your shooting these with the potential of selling or entering into competitions then I can see the merits of have a RAW "negative"

Its OK having complete control but to be honest who wants to return from holiday with hundreds of images and have to process each one individually?

I had a whale of a time editing my hundreds of RAW photos from Peru. But yes, it's not for everyone, and aside from the really nice ones, a lot got the "convert-to-jpeg-and-print" treatment.

It's up to you though. If one day you decide to home-process your photos, make the switch then.

Although I have been experimenting in RAW and I have only used the Pentax software and also Adobe Camera Raw in Elements 5.0. I have had reasonable success.

However my Epson R800 only goes to 8x10 (not metric in this yet) so I have been more than satisfied with JPEG. I took 650 photos in Mexico on my DS2 and I kept about 500. The joy was the minimal work in Elements compared to my usual scanning of 12 or so rolls of 36 transparencies and the associated post processing.

As John indicates I can see the potential when printing to much larger sizes but for now I am more than happy with JPEG. Now that I have the K100D my JPEGs seem even better.

Mike

Hi All:

I started shoting RAW because I was just shooting so many images when working JPEG and thus wanted to force myself to slow down a bit, when i purchased a notebook before Christmas this past year.

Because having the Pentax *DSI L2, I had shot over 4,000 and was starting to wonder if they where just take me because I am free sort of think because before this my largest number of images was in Shanghai in July 2004 for one week I shot over 200 prints.

Thus it worked, and now I back to using my tripod etc, and starting to enjoy fooling around with the digital world.

who said you HAVE to process each individually?

If you batch process the whole lot without changing a setting you get what you would have got if you'd shot JPG in the first place, the only difference is that if and when you find one which needs more manipulation, you can go back to the raw file and fiddle.

I'm afraid the only reason I can see for shooting JPG is space saving. But of course that is the great thing about these cameras, we are all free to set our menu and custom functions however we wish.

I do the same as mongoose - take all photos in RAW then batch convert to TIFF (with sharpening and auto correction turned on)

Any further correction is then done against the RAW file and then converted to TIFF for printing.

The only time I use JPG now is for web / video production.
After all storage is now so cheap there is no point is using JPG just to store files at home.

[quote="Mongoose"]Actually, Mongoose, I think Silkypix and the other good RAW converters should do a better job of producing the JPEG file than the small program contained in the camera.

And if you change a few settings, which takes very little time, you will definitely end up with a better JPEG.

In particular, even the best of us seldom get exposure exactly right - assuming there is such a thing as exactly right.

And white balance is nearly always capable of improvement.

In Silkypix, I split my pictures into batches which were taken under the same conditions. I then correct white balance once, and apply to all the pictures in the batch. I usually also apply any changes to contrast, sharpness and colour type at the same time.

The only thing which may get individual treatment is exposure, but this takes hardly any time.

At the end, I convert to JPEG in the size I want. I don't convert to TIFF unless I want to do post-processing in Picture Window Pro, but this is seldom necessary.

The whole process is so quick that I really can't see any point in shooting in JPEG, given that a slight deviation from the best exposure will result in a degraded final image.

If I wanted inferior images, I would have just bought a Canon.

G

Ditto

ROFL. That's just unkind
Matt

Thought the only use for a Canon was firing big round iron balls.

I agree, my point was that shooting all RAW you can easily get to where you would have been if you'd shot JPG without any further work on your part (provided you don't run out of storage space), but the reverse is not true.

I actually very rarely batch process the lot, generally I do go through and selectively enhance the images I really like, but even using the basic software which comes with the camera it's quite amazing what a little tweek to the WB and some messing with exposure/contrast/saturation does to a picture.

I think the most important point about shooting RAW is that you are preserving as much of the data about the image as it is possible to do. As new and improved RAW software becomes available one can go back to an older picture and re-process it, often bringing out qualities and details that were not apparent before. JPEG throws away a lot of data forever.

I would have to say to the original poster, who has only had her K10D a few days, forget RAW . . for now. Get to know your new tool first by banging off pics in JPEG format of whatever offers itself in front of your lens.

When you are familiar with how the camera behaves or rather, when you've tamed it by changing a few custom settings, then switch to RAW.

Treat your K10D as a very intelligent point 'n shoot, tweak its settings until you are comfortable with everything and how it works first. Make pictures (RAW) later.

Regards,

thanx, I agree and have come to the very same conclusion, will leave it out for now, I have more than enough to get to grips with and don't want to run before the walk...it's just you want to know it all NOW!!!