Unprocessed RAW v JPEG print test

Last night I deecided to see what the difference is between an untouched raw and straight from camera jpeg photograph when printed out. I set my K10D to RAW+jpeg and photographed a book shelf with the camera on a tripod and using self timer.

I was always lead to believe at least in the magazine articles I saw on the subject some time ago that a raw image will look dull, flat and need some post processing before being useable.

The crops I printed out at 200% revealed the raw image to be the same in colour and contrast but sharper than the jpeg!

I opened the images in Photoshop Elements 6 and printed from there.

I've been using raw for a few months now but have never tried to print the unprocessed raw photo.

Has anyone else tried this?

Interesting that the RAW was sharper. I'll have to have a look at some where I've got jpg and jpg+raw.

shim

There is no such thing as an unprocessed RAW image. There is just RAW data that a program has to process to make an image that you can see.

Different RAW converter programs have different default settings, and some will produce more acceptable results than others without any input from you. Of course it also very much depends on the qualities of the original photograph: how well exposed and sharp it was.

But no matter how good the photo, the final image will definitely look softer than a JPEG from the camera (with medium sharpness setting) if the program's sharpening settings are truly zero - but they won't be zero by default, and some programs may not even allow them to be really zero.

"Zero" doesn't mean that the image is softened, it just means no sharpening is applied. It is the norm for digital images to be sharpened - whether it's done by the RAW converter on your computer, or the JPEG engine in the camera.

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~Pete

Sorry, I meant I hadn't processed, altered or saved it in another format myself.

But.....I'm afraid the raw image was still sharper than the jpeg.

What are your jpeg settings?

I find the colour to be better on RAW photos than jpegs with my K20D, truer to life - one photo of my grandson his sweater was a dull red but came out orange in the jpeg. i gave up shooting RAW+jpeg after that!

I realised what you meant, but I'm not sure you realise how much processing your program is doing for you.

The image is only sharper than the JPEG because the program has sharpened it more, or used a type of sharpening that looks stronger. These settings are variable - which is a main point of using RAW. It definitely would look softer if no sharpening was applied at all.

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~Pete

All I did was open it in photoshop, crop and print. Are you saying photoshop sharpened it at some point?

I'll have to try another program.

Gwyn, the jpeg settings are all default.I did notice the reds slightly more intense but I was more concerned with the sharpness than anything else.

Ashley, Photoshop opens it in Camera Raw which will apply some default sharpening to it unless you have altered the defaults for your camera.

Yes I reckon Phototoshop must have sharpened it at some point. I don't have a copy of Photoshop myself so can't tell you exactly how that particular program works or what settings to look into.

Silkypix Developer Studio is one program that does allow no sharpening at all (including demosaicing), though it sharpens by default. I'll post a demo.

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~Pete

Had a look at 2 photos. ACR applies about 25% sharpening by default when I set it to zero and removed all the other defaults the output was very flat and not as sharp as the jpegs. The default settings of ACR seem to output very close to the camera jpeg providing it hasn't changed the colour space. Obviously these defaults can be tweaked to actually improve the image and the jpeg could be tweaked to a more limited extent.

My sharpness setting on the camera is the default central position, so that must include some sharpening. The manual just gives the options of more sharp and less sharp for the slider.

shim

Thanks for the input. I'm wiser now. I didn't realise default sharpening was automatically applied.

Out of interest, does everyone here shoot raw or jpeg?

Here's a demo. Four versions of the same image. All 100% crops. The JPEGs are from the K10D (set to medium sharp) with no post processing (apart from cropping). The differences between the camera's Bright and Natural settings are most interesting, I think.

(Actually this was shot as a RAW only, but I put the RAW back on the memory card and into the camera to develop JPEGs. The JPEGS are exactly as they would be if I had shot JPEGs in the first place).

RAW processed with Silkypix with all sharpening settings at zero:



JPEG Natural:



JPEG Bright:



RAW processed with Silkypix with my custom settings:



I shoot RAW for everything, but plenty of photographers better than me stick to JPEG.

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~Pete

Thanks for taking the time Pete. Very interesting.

If you want to print from a raw file save it to a Tiff file first, it is a lossless format best for printing and keep your raw file as a master. jpg is fine for the internet, I always save to tiff for printing, try it.