No need for RAW files.

[Papa Carlo]

Up to now I haven’t taken a single picture in JPEG, everything was in RAW. Then the workflow used to be the following: Open images in DPP and adjust WB according to the grey card reference. Then adjust the exposure, thankfully to the wide dynamic range saved in the RAW file.
Now I moved to the strobes with more consistent light output so I can rely on their color temperature. I also started using light-meter, which I bought primarily to set strobe ratio but since it is there I use it to determine the overall exposure.
It just came to my mind that I do not need RAW files anymore at least for studio work. The exposure is set better straight out of the camera than I would get tweaking it at PP. The same story is with the white balance. As an additional bonus I do not need monitor calibration and my photos are much more consistent. One thing about tweaking exposure after fact is that each picture looks nice but when viewed next to each other they look like belonging to different albums. Not anymore J

[sapearl]

Sounds like you have an excellent, consistent workflow going for studio work Papa. As long as everything is the same, I guess I don't see why you can't get excellent results with JPG only. But regarding monitor calibration, are you saying that you don't have to calibrate it anymore relative to the prints you get from your lab, or that you never had to calibrate it? - Stu

[Papa Carlo]

But regarding monitor calibration, are you saying that you don't have to calibrate it anymore relative to the prints you get from your lab, or that you never had to calibrate it? - Stu
I assumed (might be wrongly) that as long as I do not change color balance, brightness and contrast based on what I see on the screen I do not have to calibrate the monitor. In fact I do not pay attention if the colors on the screen are correct I just rely on my lights that say they have 5500K color. I also know that I must slide down tint by 12%.
Of course if I did a complex PP work with substituting colors etc that would be a different story. So far I am satisfied with the look of my prints ( but I am not an ubiased observer )

[sapearl]

Well.... that's hard to say to be honest. Depending upon how the monitor came setup out of the factory, that may or may not be the case. I guess the first question would be, how do your prints from the lab compare to what you see on the screen? If they match quite closely then you are in great shape.

My latest monitor arrived with the brightness and contrast cranked way up, and tint was off along with color temp - not terribly, but enough that it would have caused printing aggravation. I couldn't properly address good shadow detail or highlight information until I made those adjustments.

I don't do any studio work, but my wedding work is in a variety of venues and color temp is all over the map.

I assumed (might be wrongly) that as long as I do not change color balance, brightness and contrast based on what I see on the screen I do not have to calibrate the monitor. In fact I do not pay attention if the colors on the screen are correct I just rely on my lights that say they have 5500K color. I also know that I must slide down tint by 12%.
Of course if I did a complex PP work with substituting colors etc that would be a different story. So far I am satisfied with the look of my prints ( but I am not an ubiased observer )

[Papa Carlo]

Well.... that's hard to say to be honest. Depending upon how the monitor came setup out of the factory, that may or may not be the case. I guess the first question would be, how do your prints from the lab compare to what you see on the screen? If they match quite closely then you are in great shape.

No the prints do not look the same, actually they look better than on the monitor. But as I said I just rely that the image would be correct on the print so I am not trying to tweak it based on what I see on the monitor.

[sapearl]

Sounds like you have a solid understanding of color temp, WB and all that goes into it, and a very controlled environment. It works and that's all that counts.:D I'm not that experienced in a studio environment so couldn't rely upon my instincts like that.

[Titus213]

With your jpgs the data compression will lose data that can not be recovered. If you are saying you do nothing to the images from the camera to the printer that's fine.

If you are doing any corrections or changes in Photoshop I think you would be better off doing them with a RAW file - there is just more data there. Cropping for print size, sharpening for printing, blemish removal/skin softening, eye enhancement, just a ton of little things would be better from RAW. RAW isn't better just for exposure correction.

And that's one man's opinion.

[Papa Carlo]

With your jpgs the data compression will lose data that can not be recovered. If you are saying you do nothing to the images from the camera to the printer that's fine.

If you are doing any corrections or changes in Photoshop I think you would be better off doing them with a RAW file - there is just more data there. Cropping for print size, sharpening for printing, blemish removal/skin softening, eye enhancement, just a ton of little things would be better from RAW. RAW isn't better just for exposure correction.

Can you elaborate a bit more on that. I was sure that all items you listed almost do not take any advantage from being in a RAW file.
For example what is the disadvantage of a jpeg file when cropping ?
I thought cropping is simply a discarding some of the areas and it absolutely does not matter if that area is saved in RAW of jpeg.
Or blemish removal ? It is really mixing the original pixels with pixels taken from another area of the image. We do not need extra information saved in the RAW file to do this operation.
Of course there will be some loss of quality during coding/decoding/recoding as jpeg is not a loosless format. But that loss is very negligible compared to the loss of dynamic range for example.

[sapearl]

My own feeling.... cropping is cropping and if you don't want part of an image, just chop and toss. But it's gone forever. Since changes made to the RAW file are non-destructive, you could always go back and "uncrop" if you wish.

As far as range goes - highlight and shadow detail - this is where RAW has saved my bacon regarding "brides in the field." Many times I've been able to recover nearly blown highlight detail on the RAW file, as well as some dark shadow information on black tuxedos. More information = greater chance of recovery; RAW.

[545iBMW]

RAW is a digital negative, like previously mentioned, file changes are non-destructive.

JPEG is a compressed file. Everytime you open, edit and close a JPEG file, the file decompresses and compresses. Everytime it does that, you loose bits of info. Your picture degrades. I've seen a few year old pics of mine taken from P&S degrade in time because of this compression/decompression.

For me, I bought L lenses and expensive bodies to get the best quality I could get.
So why waste all that capability by using JPEG? If you want to shoot JPEG, shoot JPEG + RAW. Burn or save the RAW and keep it somewhere and edit your JPEGs.

[Titus213]

I just figure that the more info I have to start with the better the image will look. Perhaps it doesn't matter with cropping but this implies that the larger sensor sizes, 15 meg, 21 meg, don't offer any advantage. You are just operating on more data which in my simplistic view translates to a better looking final product.

The same goes with any other manipulation. The transitions achieved are finer, the color range better, etc.

If you are happy with jpg by all means use it. Many people do. I need all the advantage I can get.

Hop over here: http://photography-on-the.net/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=18 and see what they think. Lots of opinions.

[Hermes]

I find that colour channels, particularly the red channel, tend to blow out very easily with JPEGs. Skin tones are never as flattering and generally everything looks harsher some of the subtlety of the original lighting is lost. There's also the fact that in camera sharpening is very crude compared to a decent sharpening process in photoshop.

I'm very precise with my metering & ratios and I very rarely use any exposure compensation when processing but I still shoot RAW and I just couldn't get the same results with straight-out-of-camera JPEGs - the in-camera processing doesn't have enough options or flexibility, and the format doesn't handle colour well enough.

[Papa Carlo]

RAW is a digital negative, like previously mentioned, file changes are non-destructive.

JPEG is a compressed file. Everytime you open, edit and close a JPEG file, the file decompresses and compresses. Everytime it does that, you loose bits of info. Your picture degrades. I've seen a few year old pics of mine taken from P&S degrade in time because of this compression/decompression.

For me, I bought L lenses and expensive bodies to get the best quality I could get.
So why waste all that capability by using JPEG? If you want to shoot JPEG, shoot JPEG + RAW. Burn or save the RAW and keep it somewhere and edit your JPEGs.
You could save your original JPEG the same way as you are suggesting to save RAW :-)

[Titus213]

You could save your original JPEG the same way as you are suggesting to save RAW :-)

Saving a jpg from a RAW process is not the same as saving the jpg processed by the camera. The data the camera throws away is not useable or recoverable. That data can impact the quality of your final image if you do any processing after you take the image.

[Papa Carlo]

Saving a jpg from a RAW process is not the same as saving the jpg processed by the camera. The data the camera throws away is not useable or recoverable. That data can impact the quality of your final image if you do any processing after you take the image.
OK, I give up.
The point of this post was that using consistent lights and a lightmeter I do not have to do much post processing :-)

[Titus213]

And the point of the responses is that if you do any corrections after the fact you are better off doing them from a RAW file....

But in an effort to maintain unity and peace, and not rub anyone RAW, if you want to do it wrong you go right ahead...:lol:

[TMR Design]

It's much tougher, it not impossible to recover pixels that have been altered or destroyed with a JPG file. If you're doing any editing with a JPG and then save that file then that's one generation of loss, minimal as it may be. But every time you open that file, perform additional edits and save again, you're destroying the file and its pixels and so it becomes, as Will Crockett would say, "pixel fatality".

With a RAW file, as others have said, it's nondestructive and you can edit, close the file, open the file again, over and over and not suffer any loss. If you need to save or export a JPG you do that from the RAW file (digital negative) and you can always go back to the original master file for additional edits, cropping, color adjustments, cleanup and blemish removal, etc.

Sure the files are larger, take more time to transfer, open and manipulate, but you always maintain complete control without suffering any loss of data.

Of course, this can be a non-issue depending on what you're shooting and who you're shooting for, as well as the type of output, or if there will be output at all.

[Hermes]

The whole additional edits, re-saving thing is a non-issue IMO. If you want to edit an out-of-camera JPEG without suffering further compression you can easily save it as a .psd or a .tiff and then re-export it as a JPEG whenever you want.

The point is that it will always suffer from the limitations & flaws of the original (poor colour rendition, clunky capture sharpening, basic contrast boosting) due to the source image being a JPEG processed by the camera with very primitive settings.

[TMR Design]

I agree Hermes but the problem is that many people do not understand file formats, just as they don't understand the benefits of a RAW file.

Those that don't understand have no clue about saving as .psd or TIFF and they end up doing exactly what I was suggesting. I've seen it a million times. They open a JPG out of camera. Make some edits and save. Then go back in to tweak and save. The following day they learn a technique for smoothing or sharpening and then open the file and save.
Each time it's to the file that has been previously edited and not back to the original file.

Sadly, it becomes a serious issue with data loss that is out of control.

[Jim M]

Although I now shoot raw, I do know a very serious pro who shoots JPGs virtually exclusively. He gets it right in camera. I went to raw when I kept getting into situations where the dynamic range was giving me problems. Back when I shot JPGs exclusively, I always archived the original and never worked on the original. I always worked on a copy. It takes me much longer to get to the finished product with raw images and if I could get what I want with a JPG, you can bet your sweet bippy I'd shoot JPGs. I shoot 500-1,000 images at a time and they need to be keepers. That leads to a lot of processing. If the OP is getting what he likes shooting JPGs, then power to him. I'd do it if I could.

[roman_t]

i know also one pro who works with jpgs and tiffs only. he is very good on landscapes.
i see difference between camera jpeg (best quality) and jpeg i get in acr - whatever i shot in studio or not. i dont process thousands of images so i love working in acr too much.

[Papa Carlo]

i know also one pro who works with jpgs and tiffs only. he is very good on landscapes.
i see difference between camera jpeg (best quality) and jpeg i get in acr - whatever i shot in studio or not. i dont process thousands of images so i love working in acr too much.
So can you describe the difference ? Beter ? worse ? just different ?

[hawk911]

OK, I give up.
The point of this post was that using consistent lights and a lightmeter I do not have to do much post processing :-)

That's one thing, but to say you can/should shoot JPEG now over RAW?:confused: that like the picture on my TV in 720p is just as good as 1080p.

[DerekW]

But if you're seating area is 15 plus feet from your 1080p 42" plasma, then you might as well have purchased a 720p because you are not close enough to see a difference.
Now if you sit 5 or 7 feet away, you might notice the difference. And that is what Papa carlos are talking about.

[Papa Carlo]

That's one thing, but to say you can/should shoot JPEG now over RAW?:confused: that like the picture on my TV in 720p is just as good as 1080p.
That is still true. If I do not do significant post-processing what is the point of RAW ? As for 720 vs 1024 I was not aware that JPEG has less resolution than RAW.

[hawk911]

it's the amount of data you have to work with. RAW, as you know, gives you everything the camera could possibly capture. JPG is something less than that. If jpg works for you, who are we to tell you differently. I shoot everything in RAW, but that's my personal choice.

[Tim S]

As far as range goes - highlight and shadow detail - this is where RAW has saved my bacon regarding "brides in the field." Many times I've been able to recover nearly blown highlight detail on the RAW file, as well as some dark shadow information on black tuxedos. More information = greater chance of recovery; RAW.
I started shooting all my drama performance work in RAW. It is amazing the detail you can bring up from a "missed" exposure.

[DerekW]

I started shooting all my drama performance work in RAW. It is amazing the detail you can bring up from a "missed" exposure.

Carlos point is that he has his studio down to a science, so he doesn't miss on the exposure.

[macroshooter1970]

You could save your original JPEG the same way as you are suggesting to save RAW :-)

do what works for you, seems like you are being a little lazy though.

[roman_t]

So can you describe the difference ? Beter ? worse ? just different ?
to my eye - better, for sure.
just yesterday client asked me for session and they need raw only without any postprocess. usually, they want tiffs if its for publishing.

[Shooting]

With your jpgs the data compression will lose data that can not be recovered. If you are saying you do nothing to the images from the camera to the printer that's fine.

If you are doing any corrections or changes in Photoshop I think you would be better off doing them with a RAW file - there is just more data there. Cropping for print size, sharpening for printing, blemish removal/skin softening, eye enhancement, just a ton of little things would be better from RAW. RAW isn't better just for exposure correction.

And that's one man's opinion.

I could not agree more. I used to be a jpeg shooter even in consistent lighting but I soon learned that raw is the way to go in everything. Raw has saved my behind more than once...

[kmcconn9]

This thread could really benefit from some photo examples of the picture quality between RAW and JPEG...

[Titus213]

This thread could really benefit from some photo examples of the picture quality between RAW and JPEG...

That would be a great idea. If you could post raw images.

[TMR Design]

We're not going to see any difference on the web with compressed and resized jpg's. Ultimately it's not going to be a visual difference in the product. It's more a case of having a master with non-destructive editing abilities, but half the stuff we scrutinize over and make a big deal about don't make a bit of difference in the final prints unless you're really processing the heck out of images and blowing them up.

Everyone wants to compare and talk tech but I challenge most of those people to take a blind test where they have no idea of which file was RAW or JPG or the level of processing done. I'd put money on the fact that many people couldn't tell the difference.

[XterraJohn]

That is still true. If I do not do significant post-processing what is the point of RAW ? As for 720 vs 1024 I was not aware that JPEG has less resolution than RAW.


I think that one major advantage of RAW is that of data preservation. If they invent a new image format 5 years from now that has smaller file sizes than JPEG and uses lossless compression, then, theoretically, I can go back and export all of my RAW files into that new format with no loss of data. If all I had was JPEGs, how am I ever going to recover that data that was lost?

What if 10 years from now you decide that you want to change your pictures into heavily-manipulated digital "art?" It seems that having those original RAW files would be an advantage here.

I guess my point is that, while you may not need RAW files today, who's to say that you're not going to want them at some point in the future? To me, a RAW file is like a film negative, and a JPEG is like a print. If you were shooting film and were completely satisfied with the prints that you made today, would you then destroy your negatives?

[egordon99]

That is impossible, because RAW data is NOT an image, it's just data.

You could do a comparison between an image processed by the camera's JPG processor (using some basic settings), and the SAME image (good use fof RAW+JPG) processed by a human being using Photoshop/Lightroom/DPP and eventually rendered into a JPG suitable for printing or web viewing.

This thread could really benefit from some photo examples of the picture quality between RAW and JPEG...

Here's a little info on WHAT RAW is -

First off, your camera ONLY shoots RAW. When you select JPG, the camera takes the RAW data and pipes it into it's on-board JPG processor to generate the JPG "image" to save to the card.

When you shoot RAW, the RAW "data" goes directly to the card and is not an image.

To generate an image, you use a RAW processor (software on your PC) which turns the data into a viewable image, much like the camera's JPG processor. The difference is that YOU have complete control over the image generation process. You can change the white balance, adjust the contrast/brightness/black point/etc....

So you can leave these decisions up to the camera's little processor (and hope it makes the right decisions since they are irreversible), or save the decisions for later where YOU have complete control over it.


If you are bored/technically minded, google "Bayer Sensor" and pay attention to the bits (pun intended) on de-mosaicing. :lol:

[kmcconn9]

Thank you for this information. But reading it presents one other question....might be newbish..

If I shoot a picture in RAW + JPEG, load them to the computer, then convert the RAW to JPEG without any modification, would you see a difference between the two?

Sorry if this question is dumb, I am just trying to understand RAW and its conversion process.

That is impossible, because RAW data is NOT an image, it's just data.

You could do a comparison between an image processed by the camera's JPG processor (using some basic settings), and the SAME image (good use fof RAW+JPG) processed by a human being using Photoshop/Lightroom/DPP and eventually rendered into a JPG suitable for printing or web viewing.



Here's a little info on WHAT RAW is -

First off, your camera ONLY shoots RAW. When you select JPG, the camera takes the RAW data and pipes it into it's on-board JPG processor to generate the JPG "image" to save to the card.

When you shoot RAW, the RAW "data" goes directly to the card and is not an image.

To generate an image, you use a RAW processor (software on your PC) which turns the data into a viewable image, much like the camera's JPG processor. The difference is that YOU have complete control over the image generation process. You can change the white balance, adjust the contrast/brightness/black point/etc....

So you can leave these decisions up to the camera's little processor (and hope it makes the right decisions since they are irreversible), or save the decisions for later where YOU have complete control over it.


If you are bored/technically minded, google "Bayer Sensor" and pay attention to the bits (pun intended) on de-mosaicing. :lol:

[egordon99]

IF you use DPP (Canon's Digital Photo Professional) to convert the RAW file using the SAME settings you used in-camera, and DPP used the SAME algorithms that the on-board processor used, then they would be identical.

[egordon99]

The part-in bold is more or less impossible. There is no such thing as converting a RAW to JPG without ANY modifications. You can use the default parameters in a RAW converter though.....

Thank you for this information. But reading it presents one other question....might be newbish..

If I shoot a picture in RAW + JPEG, load them to the computer, then convert the RAW to JPEG without any modification, would you see a difference between the two?

Sorry if this question is dumb, I am just trying to understand RAW and its conversion process.

[bobbyz]

We're not going to see any difference on the web with compressed and resized jpg's. Ultimately it's not going to be a visual difference in the product. It's more a case of having a master with non-destructive editing abilities, but half the stuff we scrutinize over and make a big deal about don't make a bit of difference in the final prints unless you're really processing the heck out of images and blowing them up.

Everyone wants to compare and talk tech but I challenge most of those people to take a blind test where they have no idea of which file was RAW or JPG or the level of processing done. I'd put money on the fact that many people couldn't tell the difference.

I agree. People get so much hung up that just using jpegs is somehow going to make their super duper shot a not so good shot. And you keep hearing this image loss with saving jpeg data. I think it someone keep making big changes and then saving on top of the same jpeg file, then sure but I don't think anyone who does that.

If you shoot properly with correct exposure and WB, I find that I rarely need to do any processing if any in PS. BTW - I do shoot RAW as I think external RAW converters do a better job.

[egordon99]

+1

ACR gives you much more control than the camera's on-board processor. On-board, for saturation you have like five steps? ACR you get 200 (as you can go negative!), AND you get the one right below saturation (doah, can't think of it right now)

BTW - I do shoot RAW as I think external RAW converters do a better job.

[Scott Vogan]

You absolutely have more control to working with the RAW files. It is a digital camera, not a super PC, it only has so much computing power in the few seconds that it takes to write the file. They all CAPTURE it in RAW, the cameras decode and save as JPG.

Personally, I do both on the card, I have JPG for reference in high res that I presort to a directory. Then I work the RAW and compare to the camera JPG. Big difference in the quality between the two !

[agedbriar]

The main (and always present) advantage of shooting RAW, IMO, is that you are setting the development parameters in real time, watching the impact each selected value has on the picture and how it possibly interferes with some other parameters that you set a moment earlier, thus optimizing the whole combination based on what you are seeing on screen.

Setting the parameters on camera is based on guessing their optimal values. It may be a very educated guess, but still you can never be certain that the picture you have gotten (and you are satisfied with) is indeed the best of all the available - but never seen - variations, subtle as they might be.

It often happens to me that the version I like most is not the one I had in my mind when I clicked.

[kmcconn9]

Gotcha. Well I will shoot a couple pictures in raw and convert them and pp and see what they look like. Thanks for the input.

[DAMphyne]

do what works for you, seems like you are being a little lazy though.

It always seems like anytime a question about using JPEG brings on a lot of nay-sayers and name calling.
For myself, I am a "Lazy" computer operator, I spend more time getting exposure right in camera, then I don't have to sit at my computer and make them different.
You cannot save a RAW file altered, only save-as in a different format. If you save-as when altering a JPEG, there is no loss in the original file.
It is correct that you could process the RAW file into a JPEG and get it "Better" than the in-camera processor. After all, the companies got together and spent $150 on the JPEG processors that are in our cameras.

I personally can't tell the difference, when viewing a print, if it was shot in RAW, JPEG, or any other exotic format.
Probably could pixel peep and see a difference, if I spent time at my computer making comparisons.

I know a lot of people that gave up shooting transparencies because they couldn't get exposure right and needed the latitude of negatives to get what they were shooting for.
Then send them off to the printer and let them process the image as the automated printer sees fit.

The OP is right in his thinking, correct exposure is the better way to good images.
Just because the photographer ops for using the camera processor, doesn't mean he's lazy, or inept.
Maybe he's just efficient at using the camera and it's design.