RAW or JPG what should I use

[just joan]

I have a new digital rebel.
I have read and reread the info on RAW and JPEG.
It just is not sinking in.

WHAT is the advantage to RAW and please spell it out SIMPLE.

IS there a reason I should leave my camera ON RAW all the time?
OR should I just put it on RAW for special occasions.


thank you

[Andy_T]

Joan,

welcome to the forum!

Plain and simple ... start with JPG, and get used to the camera.

Later, learn more about RAW and find out whether it is helpful to you.

Normally RAW can be helpful when you have difficult lighting conditions or very important events (e.g. your brother's wedding), because it allows you more flexibility and can bring better quality.

The price to pay is less convenience ... extra time needed for post processing, camera takes longer to write the files to CF, your card will not hold as many images...

Best regards,
Andy

[Cadwell]

LOL... OK...

1. RAW will give you the highest possible image quality because JPEG compression loses detail.

2. It's easier to fix certain image problems such as colour casts caused by strange lighting in a RAW file.

3. It's easier to deal with certain over/under exposure issues with a RAW file.

The downside is that you have to perform post processing in order to make the image useful.

[just joan]

QUOTE
Normally RAW can be helpful when you have difficult lighting conditions or very important events (e.g. your brother's wedding), because it allows you more flexibility and can bring better quality.

So would shooting at a basketball game be "difficult lighting conditions"?
I have a 50mm f/1.8 lens.
I want to take great pictures with NO FLASH.

So RAW or JPEG?
And or anyother suggestions.
I am going to go to a game on valentine's day and parents want me to shoot all their kids since they have spotted my "hot camera" last weekend.

[Cadwell]

So RAW or JPEG?
And or anyother suggestions.
I am going to go to a game on valentine's day and parents want me to shoot all their kids since they have spotted my "hot camera" last weekend.

RAW or become confident/proficient with Custom White Balance before then. Otherwise you're likely to have a lot of pictures with kids who look like they have jaundice.

[Andy_T]

So RAW or JPEG?
And or anyother suggestions.
I am going to go to a game on valentine's day and parents want me to shoot all their kids since they have spotted my "hot camera" last weekend.

OK, forget my first advice.
Learn about RAW immediately :lol:

Some more food for thought:

Post processing tutorials list: http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=34606

Noise reduction: http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=57047

Best regards,
Andy

[trakmeister]

Hi
I was in a similar situation, except I bought a 10D and have decided from day one to shoot everything in RAW.
Bought Camera Raw with Adobe Photoshop CS by Bruce Fraser which is a great help with workflow and other useful info.
Mike

[sdommin]

OK, forget my first advice.
Learn about RAW immediately :lol:

Andy, I thought your first advice was better: shoot JPG until you learn more about the camera and photography in general.

Why is it that when someone comes on and asks this question, all the answers are "shoot RAW"? What answer would you folks give to this question:

"Hi, I'm 16 years old and I just learned to drive. What kind of car should I get - a Porsche or a Ferrari?"

[just joan]

[QUOTE=Andythaler]OK, forget my first advice.
Learn about RAW immediately :lol:


OK
no problem
perhaps I will put it on RAW and just shoot some stuff around the house.


SO
IF it is RAW
DO I use photoshop?
I read your tutorial and printed them off. BUT is that photoshop?

Can I "fix" these RAW images like I do the JPEG photos?

AND...I see turn them all into TIFF. right??

[cecilc]

When I first got into digital SLR'ing (OK...I know that's not a real word!) ....

I was content to shoot everyting in jpg and post process as necessary .... and I was continuing to read and learn about RAW advantages, disadvantages, workflow issues, etc.

Then I tried RAW and became a convert and then shot EVERYTHING in RAW, became somewhat of a jpg snob, and spent a bunch of extra time in post processing ....

But now I've hit a middle road and shoot RAW only when the lighting demands that I must have a little more flexibility in processing than jpg - but that's not really a lot of times, to be honest (not that I nail all of my exposures - that's not what I'm saying or what I'm implying here). It's just that jpg now covers most of my bases and situations (basketball included). I've shot basketball in both jpg and RAW and had success with both formats.

For basketball, I find it more important to nail the white balance. A wrong color balance to your shots will kill even the best exposed and focused shot you take because it won't look right .....

OK ... jpg or RAW for basketball .... that's going to be a personal choice. You can shoot basketball in jpg and have great shots. You can shoot in RAW and get great shots if you want to spend the extra time in processing - and you WILL spend extra time in processing.

My advice would be echoing the first piece of advice: shoot jpg and learn about your camera and exposure and what-not ..... when you feel comfortable with it, then try shooting in RAW. By then, you'll have shot enough to be able to make some good comparisons.

Good luck with it, and don't forget to have fun while you're at it ....

[Cadwell]

Why is it that when someone comes on and asks this question, all the answers are "shoot RAW"? What answer would you folks give to this question:

"Hi, I'm 16 years old and I just learned to drive. What kind of car should I get - a Porsche or a Ferrari?"

Well, to answer your direct question I'd say "Ferrari". They're a lot nicer to drive than Porsches.

The answer is usually shoot RAW because if the shot is important, that's the best way of shooting it. You've got more lattitude in fixing a stuffed up shot in RAW than you have in JPEG and the image quality is higher. The downside is that there's a bit of extra effort involved in processing it...

[just joan]

WILL spend extra time in processing.

HOW many more steps can the processing be? for example.

[Monito]

Disk storage costs one dollar per gigabyte these days. A Raw file for a DRebel (D300) is about 6 MB. Assuming you back it up onto an external disk drive that is 12 MB or about 1.2 pennies per image. The cost is negligible.

Invest in another Compact Flash memory card for extra space and shoot Raw. Immediately convert all your Raw images into JPEG when you get home each day, in batch, with your Canon software, or other batch software. Then you will be able to continue using JPEG as you have and you will have the Raw image later for when you really know how to take advantage of it for rescuing pictures or for extracting maximum possible quality.

[just joan]

"Immediately convert all your Raw images into JPEG when you get home each day"

What is the easiest way to do that?
I have a "card reader". I just push the button....all the images come up.

I suppose they will be RAW if I am shooting in RAW.
I...what burn them to CD as RAW?
Then save them to my compter as JPEG...if so is there a easy way to do the whole batch?

[Monito]

I use DIM 4 (freeware) to download my Raws from my card reader. I have configured it so that it changes the meaningless _MG_493.CR2 file names to a more meaningful date and time stamp like 20050208-110937.CR2. I then use Canon DPP to view and delete ones I don't want to keep and to do initial processing on ones I want to keep. DPP came with the 20D, but not the DRebel (300D). The EOS Viewer Utility (EVU) that came with the DRebel will do the conversion in batch for you.

[Pekka]

Why is it that when someone comes on and asks this question, all the answers are "shoot RAW"? What answer would you folks give to this question:

"Hi, I'm 16 years old and I just learned to drive. What kind of car should I get - a Porsche or a Ferrari?"

The question here is: "should I throw away my negatives after I got first set of prints?"

(actually, RAW is not negative - it is undeveloped negative.)

[Andy_T]

Joan ...

most important ... if you have any possibility over the weekend, then PRACTICE!!!!

Best regards,
Andy

[tim]

Read this book (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/032127878X/qid=1107482395/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/102-0424281-9778527?v=glance&s=books&n=507846).

[Pekka]

WILL spend extra time in processing.

HOW many more steps can the processing be? for example.

1. Open RAW(s) in RAW application (I use Capture 1 Pro)
2. Tweak appearance to your liking (this can be anything from using the defaults to complete new settings - in C1 alterations are done is realtime speed).
3. Save in desired file format (in batch if needed).

I do not really like the Photoshop's RAW plugin: IHMO it is slow and uncomfortable to use - with C1 I get results I need very fast and intuitively, copying settings between photos is very easy. Usually there is no need to edit the image in Photoshop after saving in e.g. as TIFF in C1, unless you want to do further noise reduction, retouching or local hue changes.

[tim]

CS PS seems to give me more control than C1, though C1 is faster. If PS CS RAW plugin did cropping it'd be ideal.

[CyberDyneSystems]

Joan,

As you may have allready guessed,. there is no simple explanation to this,.. and opinions can be very conflicting :)

Eventually,. you can get the best possible image quality and flexibility by using RAW.

[just joan]

OK
I shot a few RAW pictures

I figured out how to open them with Zoom browser.
THE ONLY THING I COULD change was contrast, color and brightness.
THAT WAS IT.
FINALLY after some time I got it to crop.
The image looked not too hot...kinda grainy.

WELL how can I do more to this image.
I converted them to TIFF.
NOW do I go to photoshop and do all the creative stuff.




ALSO
now that these RAWs are converted to TIFF are they REALLy going to be better images than if they were JPEGs converted to TIFF.

HELP
.........................

[Scottes]

How about "shoot RAW + JPG" ?

If the shot is fine then the JPG will be fine. Certainly good enough for now!
But if it came out underexposed or with an incorrect White Balance then you can possibly save/improve the image with a RAW converter.
And you don't have to do it right away since you also have a JPG of the shot.

Even though I'm a huge proponent of shooting RAW it must be understood that it's a bit more work and can be quite a bit more learning. Learning a new camera can be daunting enough.


Note: I believe that the 300D embeds the JPG inside the RAW, so a RAW converter must be used to extract the JPG. So it's still more work than just shooting JPG, but if the shot is OK then it's very very little extra learning.

[Scottes]

now that these RAWs are converted to TIFF are they REALLy going to be better images than if they were JPEGs converted to TIFF.

Yes, definitely. But it might be hard to tell the difference. :-)

When using RAW at first, just try to concentrate on setting exposure and white balance - especially if you already know Photoshop. I don't understand why you could only change contrast, color and brightness. Perhaps someone more familiar with Zoom browser can help there.

[just joan]

WELL
I tell ya
IT was easy to shoot RAW and I converted them in a "batch" to TIFF.

I just can't believe that a task as simple as that could make all the difference in the quality of photo.

HECK
I think it was harder to pick the proper exposure etc than to do the converting

[Scottes]

Well, the converting is easy. And by doing nothing else other than converting in batch you will most likely not see a difference. It's there, but very few people can tell the difference.

Now, if you do some editing of the RAW file - like exposure or white balance - then you will definitely see a difference. And if you ever have to "rescue" a shot that was 1.5 stops underexposed then you will love RAW for ever more.

[just joan]

"Now, if you do some editing of the RAW file - like exposure or white balance "

OK my friend that is my problem
MY options were only color, contrast and brightness. I was offered nothing else. I used ZOOM BROWSER it was the only way I could get the RAW to open

[Scottes]

Do you have Photoshop CS? It has a RAW converter built in. And there's an update available.

Many people here also use DPP, Canon's Digital Photo Professional(?) which might have come with your camera (and there's also an update available). Others use Breeze Browser which is very easy to learn and has a free trial. I personally love Capture 1 from PhaseOne.com - though it seems to be a bit trickier to learn how to use. And there's also Bibble which I thought was very good, too.

Zoom Browser should be able to change exposure and WB - perhaps someone who knows it will stumble across this thread and help. Otherwise you might want to poke around a bit and some one or more of the ones I listed. I'd recommend Breeze Browser for ease of learning and the price is $50 I think. Or DPP which is free. Bibble & Capture 1 are much more expensive and a bit harder to learn (though not overly difficult).

[just joan]

My camera came with
adobephotoshop elements 2.0 and
zoom browser ex

ARE there updates for these? IF so where can I get them ?
AND will it help me with RAW images

[Scottes]

You can get DPP, too. And check for ZoomBrowser updates.

Go here: http://www.canon.ca/english/index-customersupport.asp?pid=245
Click on Download Drivers
English Language (or whatever)
Then you can get ZoomBrowser EX 5.0 Updater for Windows and Digital Photo Professional 1.5.0 Updater for Windows

You *may* also want/need File Viewer Utility 1.3.2 Updater for Windows - if DPP doesn't run it might be looking for drivers contained in FVU 1.3.2.

[dijitul+philm]

The reasons to at least sometimes shoot RAW are fairly clear, but why do some in this and in other threads so commonly advise RAW editing and then the conversion to JPG? JPG's are lossy files and my understanding, though limited, is that you will lose some data every time you later open and then save a JPG as opposed to a file saved as a PSD or TIFF. Is my understanding that a file shot as a JPG can be saved in Photoshop as a non-lossy file (PSD or TIFF) and then no longer lose data when saving even though it was originally a JPG?

[Jesper]

Some more info about RAW:

Understanding Raw Files (http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/understanding-series/u-raw-files.shtml)
The RAW Truth (http://www.luminous-landscape.com/essays/rawtruth1.shtml)

[gramps]

My camera came with
adobephotoshop elements 2.0 and
zoom browser ex

ARE there updates for these? IF so where can I get them ?
AND will it help me with RAW images

I think Adobe is still offering an update to PSCS for Canon customers, look here
http://store.adobe.com/store/products/master.jhtml?id=catCanon