Are Jpegs better processed by DPP vs. in camera?

[John E]

Is there any advantage to shooting only raw and letting Canon's DPP process the images into jpegs vs. producing jpegs in camera? I've heard the files are larger by using DPP but don't know if this translates into better jpegs.

[kevin_c]

At least if you shoot RAW you are the one in control of the end result, not the camera.

[sapearl]

I'm trying to remember where I read it, but you are better off having your PC/Mac and program of choice convert the RAW file to JPG as opposed to letting the camera do it.

Don't get me wrong - the camera will do a good job. But as the author explained, it's CPU typically has less time and horsepower/memory to do the conversion than your PC. And as Kevin aptly pointed out, YOU are in control of the final result. Do you want a particular shot MORE saturated, or with LESS contrast, or brighter or warmer? I prefer doing it myself - but then that's just my shooting style.;)

[rooeey]

There is a lot of argument over this subject of which a forum search would uncover for you.
Personally i do both and would now consider my RAW conversions better than my cameras conversions...Maybe due to my taste.....
I say choose RAW and JPEG from the menu do some of your own conversions and compare as an experiment....

[sapearl]

Now that I try to remember, I think it may have been one of Scott Kelby's books that claimed you were better off using the CPU in your PC since it's under "less pressure" to perform.

The argument was that shooting in the field puts the camera under some time constraints due to buffering, shooting, recording..... so there is compromise, etc. Logically your PC/Mac has more "leisure" time to do a more thorough job.

[Curtis N]

If the question is specifically on shooting large fine JPEG vs. shooting RAW and converting in DPP without adjustment, then DPP at least gives you the option of less JPEG compression and higher quality (technically) than the camera will produce. You also have the option to convert to TIFF (8 or 16 bit) with no compression at all.

Whether or not that reduced compression actually can be manifested in a visual difference is a matter of debate.

[frankgindc]

Personally, I'm of two minds (at least) on this:
1) First, as others have pointed out, I think the best thing about RAW is that you have more control and the place that you are going to be more likely to *need* that control is with difficult lighting conditions. i.e., blown highlights or too dark darks that need lots of adjustment. Once you or the camera process the adjustments and then convert to jpeg, some of that data that would be needed to make a big adjustment is lost. So if the camera does it and then converts into jpeg you are a bit limited in how much big adjustments you can make. RAW is a better failsafe, for sure.

2) All that said, as others have pointed out, who do you trust to make those judgements, you or the camera. Well, frankly, for most shooting situations, the camera probably knows better than me (and I shoot mostly RAW, just for that "fail safe" factor). For example, to shoot in RAW you need to manually select your own ISO and other exposure elements (depending on the mode), and more than once I"ve been shooting moving from shooting indoors to outdoors or guitar player to drummer and back and have forgotten to make those adjustments so I end up shooting at a speed or with an ISO that I wouldn't have wanted. I might be a bonehead but its a factor to keep in mind. Plus, making the adjustments yourself requires you to learn the ropes -- there is a learning "curve" involved -- plus it takes some time to set up a workflow for this, the file sizes are bigger, not to mention that there are different RAW converters out there to muddy the waters, etc.

In short, for someone that needs to worry about saving a picture or maintaining max flexibility later (i.e., shooting a wedding) RAW is the way to go. But it "costs" a bit in time and effort and won't make a difference in many situations where special treament is not needed.

i.e., it's a close call for me and, I think, for most shooters. On the other hand (if I still have any left), for that "fail safe" reason alone, I tend to shoot mostly in RAW.

Frank

p.s. As an experiment, you could shoot in RAW+jpeg mode and the review pictures to see what % are "good to go" as jpegs already.

[John E]

Thank you all for your imput. I was just wondering if JPEGS converted from raw were better since their files are larger. I've been shooting RAW + JPEG recently just to have the best of both worlds. However, when converting my RAW files into JPEGs using ACR, I never can seem to the right mix of all the slider adjustments, and the JPEGs from the camera always seem to look better (skin tones are especially hard to get right). I am getting the feeling that I should shoot raw and let Canon's DPP convert to TIFF or JPEG which would give me better results.

[frankgindc]

Yeah, that's the thing: Canon knows how to interpret their RAW files better than the 3rd party vendors. You might be able to get close or in some cases better conversions with the other converters but it can take alot of trial and error. I use Lightroom (which has the same RAW converter as ACR) for its ease of use and workflow features, but I think that DPP usually does better images.

[davidcrebelxt]

Dpp will even need adjustments to get that "pop" back into the images... you should never go into a RAW converter thinking you are going to leave the image as the converter's default settings interpret it.

One notable exception I've noted time and again is Zoombrowser, from Canon. It's conversions left at default seem to mimic the processing that the camera itself does (at least for my 350d.) And you can also do less compression than camera does for those .jpgs, if that's important to you.

-as far as the original question of better processed... it all depends on the skill of the one doing the processing. If you don't do anything, perhaps you are under-processing. On the other hand, some people OVER-process their images. The only way to really learn though, is to just start playing around with it.