Torn raw jpeg?

[cruzyn56]

Prelude: I know this has probably been hashed over numerous times. With the enhancements to the algorithms in the cameras and sensors can the in-camera jpeg give just as good an image as a raw converter with less time invested?

I have read numerous posts/articles on the benefits of both jpeg and raw. Listened to testimony of only shooting jpeg from a photog on assignment from Parade magazine and National Geographic and still wonder which one to shoot?

When I shot film and slides what was developed was what I got and I seem to maintain that same philosophy with digital. I am not one to spend hours with a computer manipulating the images with software (work in IT and therefore am inundated with it). I love photography and capturing images, but don't really have the ambition to really learn photoshop.

If I am pretty much going to batch the raw images into jpeg with perhaps some saturation and sharpness enhancements wouldn't it be faster to do with the camera? I understand that on certain images raw might give some additional lattitude with adjustments but wouldn't that be the exception than the norm?

[kufel]

no way the camera will give you enough saturation/contrast etc.
don't forget about white balance... your off by 1000K and you spend a lot of time correcting it in PS. C1Pro actually will save you time... And C1Pro is THE converter in my opinion, give it a try and you'll never shoot jpegs (just converted my buddy....)

[rdenney]

Prelude: I know this has probably been hashed over numerous times. With the enhancements to the algorithms in the cameras and sensors can the in-camera jpeg give just as good an image as a raw converter with less time invested?

If you just take vacation snaps of the kids at Disneyworld to show the family, then it doesn't really matter, though one wonders why the expense of a DSLR for such a limited application.

But if you have any artistic intentions, or think you might, even for those pics of the kids standing next to Mickey Mouse, then No Way. JPEG is a repeating compression approach--every time you edit the photo even just to crop it, the compression algorithm gets reapplied on top of the artifacts from the previous time. JPEG is in 8-bit color, and if you try to do any big processing on it (if the camera turns out not to be as smart as you), you'll posterize the image.

And how can the camera visualize the final displayed image for you? Visualization is the basic skill of photography as art, and it's an artistic process, not something that can be reduced to software rules.

RAW works in 16-bit color, which gives you the ability to make big tonal moves without leaving big holes in the histogram. You can fix color temperature, as someone else mentioned, which is not at all easy using any other method. You can adjust exposure after the fact, and you can manipulate the histogram during conversion.

Look, for quickie proofs, extract the embedded JPEGs, throw them on a CD, and take them to Wal-Mart. But when you find the one image that could be great if you could do this or that to it, you'll be glad you still have the original sensor instructions instead of a pale projection of them.

Keeping only JPEGs is like making internegatives of slides and then throwing the slides away. You just lose too much.

Rick "who does know people who keep their prints from vacations and throw the negatives away, but who isn't one of them" Denney

[cruzyn56]

Thank you.

I do find that even with kids baseball pix, shot jpeg, I spend quite some time reviewing and cropping. I will shoot raw for the next game and definitel for the Alaska cruise.

[PhotosGuy]

but don't really have the ambition to really learn photoshop. You don't really need to as you can do a lot of the basic adjustments with this, + it's free:
http://www.outbackphoto.com/artofraw/raw_18/essay.html