Do you really need to shoot RAW when using LR3?

raw is the negative whereas jpeg is the processed image, you don't process a printed photo so why process a jpeg? my 2cents. Also no professional in their right mind will ever shoot jpeg only, its just not worth the trouble.

yazoo wrote in post #13133201
raw is the negative whereas jpeg is the processed image, you don't process a printed photo so why process a jpeg? my 2cents. Also no professional in their right mind will ever shoot jpeg only, its just not worth the trouble.

Professionals do as a matter of course shoot jpg only though. If it works and they can get it right in camera, who are we to knock it?

SeanH wrote in post #13133169
I hate to burst everyone's "bits or larger color space" bubble......but what was that format that 95% end up with?

Oops.......LOL

It's quite simple -- people shoot Raw so that they can develop their photos since Raw gives you the most latitude for that processing. Then, one can convert to an 8-bit compressed jpeg as a final output.

Or, for some graphical editing, a jpeg can work as long as you are not trying to "push" the actual image. But even then, if you convert to a jpeg and then open it in an app like Photoshop you will still need to save/re-compress it again, meaning more loss. Doing the initial conversion as a high-quality jpeg will certainly help, although the "best" approach is to convert to a "lossless" format like tiff or psd.

But, if you have no wish or need to "develop" your photos then shoot jpegs! But then you will have limited your ability to process your images -- your choice!

yazoo wrote in post #13133201
raw is the negative whereas jpeg is the processed image, you don't process a printed photo so why process a jpeg? my 2cents. Also no professional in their right mind will ever shoot jpeg only, its just not worth the trouble.

ctranter wrote in post #13133346
Professionals do as a matter of course shoot jpg only though. If it works and they can get it right in camera, who are we to knock it?

I'm a died-in-the-wool Raw shooter, although I agree that there are scenarios when shooting jpegs will "pay off", and this does come up in the professional realm a lot.

For example, professional sports shooters will occasionally point out that they are shooting as a job, and their job requires that they shoot and then upload to an editor on the spot. The convenience of jpegs and the speed of the smaller files makes shooting in jpegs the wise choice, even for some the only choice.

Bear in mind that many people who are shooting professionally are not out to produce art but a "product" that willl be consumed then go away. They have no need and no want to have a Raw to work on, but to just deliver a high quality jpeg will meet the need.

It should go without saying, though, that a pro who goes for the straight jpeg approach would be expected to produce top-quality images out-of-camera! Otherwise, the momemt one needs to process a jpeg, the limitations come into play! You can do a few quick things, sure.

OP's question is not whether or not he should be shooting RAW, or the benefits of RAW, or RAW vs JPEG ... but rather, whether you benefit by using RAW rather than JPG in Lightroom. The answer is "Yes" simply by virtue of what Lightroom was designed to do. Yes, you can process JPG's in lightroom ... yes, you can just use it to catalog your JPG's (and even video files, I think? :confused. But regardless of your stance on RAW vs JPEG, if you're using Lightroom to process your images then you stand to benefit by using RAW.

rpaul wrote in post #13133774
OP's question is not whether or not he should be shooting RAW, or the benefits of RAW, or RAW vs JPEG ... but rather, whether you benefit by using RAW rather than JPG in Lightroom. The answer is "Yes" simply by virtue of what Lightroom was designed to do. Yes, you can process JPG's in lightroom ... yes, you can just use it to catalog your JPG's (and even video files, I think? :confused. But regardless of your stance on RAW vs JPEG, if you're using Lightroom to process your images then you stand to benefit by using RAW.

Heh! If you followed the beginning of the thread you will note that some of the fun discussion came from the fact that the question was

To which a quick answer would be "NO!"

Of course from there it became why one may prefer to shoot Raw and the advantages that come from it, and then of course some chiming in of advantages from shooting jpegs!

Well, a few shots later and I think the quality is there, but should I make the mistake to pixel peep I'm seeing alot more noise - is this normal?

Although I did also introduce a flash, which I don't normally use, so perhaps that skewed my results.

I switched to shooting RAW a while back and I definitely think that it was worth it. Initially I was using DPP and Photoshop 7.0 to process my images, but I've since upgraded to Lightroom and Photoshop CS5. The very first thing that I noticed about shooting RAW was how awful my pictures looked when I opened them. When you shoot in jpeg, the camera automatically applies sharpening, noise reduction, colour balance etc. for you so that when you open the images, you get something that's immediately presentable. With RAW, you have to do all that yourself... that is why you are seeing noise. In Lightroom, all you need to do is add some noise reduction and your photos will start looking a lot better.

Incidentally, the only drawback I've found to shooting RAW is that it slows down the framerate when you are shooting in continuous mode (I noticed this a lot when shooting an airshow).

Well, for me this question was answered at an event (non-paid) where I was trying out some new equipment. Halfway through I realized that it didn't really matter and so I switched to jpg's for the rest.

Oh. My. Goodness. I will never do that again. LR3 is SO quick processing raw files, but frankly (and yes, maybe this is just the way that I shoot and process) the jpgs took 3 times longer to make look nearly as good as the RAW files. Not exactly sure why, so it may be user error. Shoot all in RAW and processing is quick, painless, and did I mention quick? And love the way the end files look...

John, in addition to the above replies, in regards to noise I just add a bit of a comment:

As was said, when you are shooting jpegs cameras ass some noise reduction -- how much depends on whether you have High ISO noise reduction turned on and to what level. But, from what I've heard, some noise reduction gets applied even if you don't have that setting turned on.

But Raw files don't have special processing applied -- you apply Noise Reduction in your Raw processor. And, understand that Lightroom sets a default of zero for Luminance Noise Reduction. So, if you are shooting in low light, using a high ISO, adding some noise reduction just becomes routine. For Color NR there is a default of 25, because this setting doesn't do any real damage, but Luminance NR can wipe out detail, so if you take an image in good light, and get a good exposure with a lower ISO, you won't want or need to apply much if any NR.

Sharpening is another thing that can, well, surprise people. Digital images have a "soft" effect resulting from an "antialiasing" filter over the sensor. How soft varies with the camera, but in general the Raw capture will appear a bit soft. To compensate, the camera applies Sharpening when creating a jpeg, but again, the Raw file won't have that. Again, it's up to you in the Raw software to apply Sharpening.

The Lightroom default for the amount of sharpening is a low 25. For those well-exposed low ISO images you can be pretty generous with your shapening, using the little preview to watch out for any over-sharpening artifacts. But for the lower ISO/low light shots, sharpening needs a light touch.

The other controls in the Sharpening and Noise Reduction panels do various things...I'd read the Lightroom Help on these things and then if you have questions, ask away!

Thanks for explaining why the noise was there, yeah its simple to get rid of and part of my usual routine anyway it just struck me that it was more pronounced than with jpegs - at least now I know why

So, there is a thread that has been going in the General Photography Discussion sub-forum about Raw shooting with some overlap but also some variety of thinking. You can check the thread out here:

https://photography-on-the.net …/showthread.php​?t=1094135

Read through the whole thread if you like!

But, a bit ago I recalled a fun story about how I ended up in a busy night shooting in jpeg, and in the process because I was in a rush and crowded, I ended up underexposing a bunch of shots! I brought the jpegs into Lightroom and got some pretty cool results!

If you want to see the story/example, I'm posting the link. Be aware that it's one of my "Long...winded" posts, so you may want to wade down until you actually get to the pics and the story!

Here's the post:

https://photography-on-the.net …p?p=13137577&po​stcount=31

Well, I've learnt a couple of things about all this -

The Bad
RAW takes longer to process, not actual computer time, but theres a bit more faffing to get it where you want
I found myself being a little more critical, so threw away more duffers than usual
Never pixel peep!

The Good
The images somehow just look better - again not sure if its down to using flash or because I'm taking longer over them
Images take strong contrast without loosing detail - before using strong contrast I would usually loose eye detail so avoided it

Here are a couple:

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