RAW vs. JPG - A good read

AtSea wrote in post #11964808
RAW til I die

Yup

I shoot both if I don't have the need for quick action.
That way I can keep JPG for everyday photos that don't need special PP, and take advantage of RAW files when it is indeed needed..
For fast action most of the time I shoot jpeg for as many shots as possible..

tzalman wrote in post #11959865
His argument is entirely specious. If today he is satisfied with 0 minutes of tweaking, why would he jump to 5 minutes with RAW? Maybe 1/2 a minute would be enough? Or he could do a batch conversion in DPP at default settings (no tweaking) and, at 5 seconds per conversion, in 25 minutes, while he's drinking coffee, have RAWs plus the same jpgs, which leaves him the option of doing selected tweaks where his wonderful camera setup let him down. Or using the same time and effort he put into the camera setup he could probably design a custom preset in LR/ACR that even batch applied blindly would give him better quality than the camera can and, once again, leave him the option of additional tweaks.
IMO, failure to leave yourself with the maximum options to do as good a job as is possible is an indicator of a lack of professionalism.

This particular photographer is making his living as a professional.
He is getting quality results with his technique. He sells them.
People like me have the luxury of a day-time job and the possibility to play around with different SW and tweaks as we please, no deadlines.

Photography of today has 'lost its focus' if you pardon the pun.
Instead of the end result, people are concentrating on the equipment and the processes -or workflows if you like. Forums are filled with shots with no content other than impress somebody with the metadata.

I was perfectly happy with CS3, shooting RAW on my 40D.
With the 5D II I was a lot less happy as getting the CS3 to read its RAW format was not very straight forward. I swore a lot. As I got my camera used, no CD or operating manual, I spent quite some time getting the DPP. Thanks to some dishonest people, I finally managed to get it and some other things as well.

Shooting with a 5 D II with nothing but Picasa to look at your RAW pictures was no fun.
This RAW format shock was the third of its kind: From 20D to 30D, from 30D to 40D and now from 40D to 5D II. Please do not start telling me about .dng here.

Obviously, if you have all the latest versions of your SW, shooting RAW you have better chances to get decent shots even if you goof up. There are people who like to wear belt and suspenders. There are some who have to.
The point here is that the Digic IV of the 5D II has the torque to do a lot of things on the run. Why not take advantage?

BTW the statement that a RAW is inherently better than the manufacturer's specifically tuned camera JPG is false. Canon has specific lens profiles to correct optical problems.
Lumix LX3 RAW has more distortion than its JPG where correction has been applied.

garbidz wrote in post #11971606
This particular photographer is making his living as a professional.
He is getting quality results with his technique. He sells them.
People like me have the luxury of a day-time job and the possibility to play around with different SW and tweaks as we please, no deadlines.

Photography of today has 'lost its focus' if you pardon the pun.
Instead of the end result, people are concentrating on the equipment and the processes -or workflows if you like. Forums are filled with shots with no content other than impress somebody with the metadata.

I was perfectly happy with CS3, shooting RAW on my 40D.
With the 5D II I was a lot less happy as getting the CS3 to read its RAW format was not very straight forward. I swore a lot. As I got my camera used, no CD or operating manual, I spent quite some time getting the DPP. Thanks to some dishonest people, I finally managed to get it and some other things as well.

Shooting with a 5 D II with nothing but Picasa to look at your RAW pictures was no fun.
This RAW format shock was the third of its kind: From 20D to 30D, from 30D to 40D and now from 40D to 5D II. Please do not start telling me about .dng here.

Obviously, if you have all the latest versions of your SW, shooting RAW you have better chances to get decent shots even if you goof up. There are people who like to wear belt and suspenders. There are some who have to.

Wow, umm, well, I see you have shot Raw with several cameras, and, well, you still get the same benefits, but are you saying you can't keep up with the software? I use the Adobe software that I can afford, and I also use the Canon software Digital Photo Professional -- it's free, so I'm not sure about why you are having hassles with it -- and you also have the DNG converter -- why are you so hung up with this?

Shooting Raw still has the advantages it has always had. You can shoot jpeg if you like, and nobody is here to attack you for it, but you can't attack the advantage of shooting Raw 'cause it doesn't make any sense!

Although I am very sorry that you had software problems and I hope you are enjoying your camera(s) now, it is a bit of a red herring, isn't it?

There is nothing in Digic that isn't in DPP plus more, why not take advantage? Why do it "on the run" if you don't have to? Even on my antiquated computer (XP, 2 GB RAM) a batch DPP conversion to unresized jpgs takes no more than 5-6 seconds per file. I can only imagine how a 7i, 64 bit, 8 GB machine flies through hundreds of shots. While making and drinking a cup of coffee he could have exactly the same jpgs and the chance to reconsider decisions taken or forgotten under pressure.

DPP is no less from Canon. Every maker supplies a converter that embodies the same processing as its firmware. Moreover, dismissing Adobe, Phase One and other third party firms as inadequate or inept is misinformed, to say the least. Not all the good brains are in Tokyo. And what of full DR, finer control of white balance / color balance, linear processing, 16 bit and wide gamut output and the other advantages of RAW? These are inconsequential?
Have you seen Post #29?

And MacDonalds sells a lot of hamburgers. I did not ask them to cater my daughter's wedding.

tzalman wrote in post #11971771
And MacDonalds sells a lot of hamburgers. I did not ask them to cater my daughter's wedding.

That made my day, Elie

Is it wrong that I shoot raw+jpg and only adjust little things with Adobe camera raw? Then use that image and open with photoshop to do final editing? I'm not sure if I should do it different.

Brendo666 wrote in post #11973163
Is it wrong that I shoot raw+jpg and only adjust little things with Adobe camera raw? Then use that image and open with photoshop to do final editing? I'm not sure if I should do it different.

What do you mean "is it wrong"??

Some things are best done in the Raw processor -- color corrections and luminance tones are handled best when you are working with the full range of Raw data. Beyond that if you want or need to use the Photoshop tools, well, that's up to you. I rarely go into Photoshop myself -- if I can do everything I need in my Raw processor (Lightroom) I'm very happy -- my workflow is more efficient that way and I don't get bogged down with a lot of copy files.

tonylong wrote in post #11974555
What do you mean "is it wrong"??

Some things are best done in the Raw processor -- color corrections and luminance tones are handled best when you are working with the full range of Raw data. Beyond that if you want or need to use the Photoshop tools, well, that's up to you. I rarely go into Photoshop myself -- if I can do everything I need in my Raw processor (Lightroom) I'm very happy -- my workflow is more efficient that way and I don't get bogged down with a lot of copy files.

i have tried to use lightroom but i just didnt understand the workflow part enough to get full use of it. i wish i could learn it rather quick. any good resources?

There are three excellent books on Lightroom by Scott Kelby, Victoria Bampton and Martin Evening, and while you are waiting to get one or more of these sent to you there is the pdf of Lightroom Help and then the abundant tutorials on Lightroom through Lynda.com, AdobeTv and KelbyTraining.com!

tonylong wrote in post #11976773
There are three excellent books on Lightroom by Scott Kelby, Victoria Bampton and Martin Evening, and while you are waiting to get one or more of these sent to you there is the pdf of Lightroom Help and then the abundant tutorials on Lightroom through Lynda.com, AdobeTv and KelbyTraining.com!

thank you, i will look into all of this, i also just used lightroom today completly for a shoot i just did. quick question, when you have your workflow and you want to close the program today can you just do so after editing photos or do you have to save the whole workflow?

Lightroom saves your processing into its database so that when you are done doing what you are doing all you have to do is close Lightroom.

tonylong wrote in post #11977081
Lightroom saves your processing into its database so that when you are done doing what you are doing all you have to do is close Lightroom.

Thank you so much!

tonylong wrote in post #11971711
Wow, umm, well, I see you have shot Raw with several cameras, and, well, you still get the same benefits, but are you saying you can't keep up with the software? I use the Adobe software that I can afford, and I also use the Canon software Digital Photo Professional -- it's free, so I'm not sure about why you are having hassles with it -- and you also have the DNG converter -- why are you so hung up with this?



Shooting Raw still has the advantages it has always had. You can shoot jpeg if you like, and nobody is here to attack you for it, but you can't attack the advantage of shooting Raw 'cause it doesn't make any sense!

DPP upgrade is easy to get if you have an old version installed.
If not, it is another story.
I do Bridge and Photoshop. I started with PS 5.0 a while back.
Now I downloaded the test version of Aperture but my Mbook Pro has only 2 GB of RAM.
If I upgrade it, I lose battery life which is not so great to start out with.
On my other machine with 4GB RAM I have not installed it yet.
Between the hangs and the crashes the Aperture seemed something of a Swiss knife app, versatile and intuitive.

Now having shot JPGs a couple of weeks, I notice it is a mixed blessing.
I just do not have enough daylight time here with the work I do to really go deep enough to it. My friend shooting model shoots does JPG only. He is very good in getting it right.
He also sells his photos and I could ask him to cook for any holiday dinner since he is a good cook as well.

MacDonalds I can live without.