JPG v RAW

seany said:

5-10% better.....is it worth it.. :suicide:

Had a little dabble with RAW, and for the moment, I have made the decision to stick with large/fine jpeg.

Why you may ask....or may not.. :rotfl:
Where I was struggling to get good quality from my 75-300 at times, now I have the 'L' beastie, quality is just soooo much better.

After an airshow, I just ain't got time to process 400-500 RAW files.. :eek:
And I have other hobbys to persue..

Now maybe if I went Pro.....gave up the day job....
 
i shoot raw, it just allows me to further play with the image

the whitebalance is a good tool for me, able to control the colours alot finer than in photoshop
 
Mr Jones, what software do you use to adjust the raw files?
 
ive tried a number of differnt progs

started with digital photo professional that ships with the 20D, its ok, but didnt really like it
then used PS CS plugin for raw, didnt like that either


ive been using rawshooter essentials 2005 for about a week now and find it alot better than the others.

still open to others though :)
 
Still 90 to 95% shots are just as good (but then thats one opinion), does make you wonder if for most shots (for guys like us at least) is all that's needed
 
i think for amatuers hi-q jpegs are fine, but for the pros the flexibility of raw must be better? Also, raw is quiet cool if your not anygood at exposure like me and keep getting it wrong, it can help loads!
 
Just a thought. Maybe it's the other way round. Pros generally get the jpegs right, and don't have time for extensive editing, but amateurs got another shot at it?
 
possible i suppose, some cameras like the 20d give a high quality Jpeg as well as the raw, allowing the photographer to see instant results and still fiddle with the digital 'negative'
 
I use RAW i guess because i've found it to be a "get out of jail free card" in terms of its subsequent flexibility. Manipulations in RAW cause less degradation than those in PS. I use CameraRAW to screen out the keepers then batch process those shots i want to take to CS . The odd picture i really like i'll work on extensively in RAW before shipping to CS. I only really use CS to work on shadows and sharpen.
My only real worry is the long term support for the ever changing raw files... jpg i suspect will be around in one form or another in 20 years...CR2 i'm not so sure.
 
Jpegs automatically output at 72DPi whereas raw files can be converted to higher DPi's without any fuss whcih can only be good for printing
 
Raw can be handy if you have a difficult shot like a person back lit by a bright window in quite a dark room. You can process the image twice: one where you expose for the person and one where you expose for the window or other bright spots in the picture. Then, you merge the two together. Doing it from the raw file allows you to adjust things without too much degradation - something that isn't possible from a jpeg. Of course you could take a sequence of bracketed shots but thats not always convenient.

But image quality wise the difference between jpeg and raw is getting less and less as in-camera jpeg engines get better and better.
 
I mostly shot in raw, as tyefi said it's a get out of jail free card. It's like having a second chance at the shot. I then send them to PS for levels/curves ect, and then save them as tiffs as they leave you with a better quality image then a jpeg.

ASH1
 
Personally, with my own type of photography (birds), life is just too short to use RAW... and I know a lot of pro's in my own field think the same. Speed of use and getting far more shots on the card vs the difference between a well exposed jpg and a RAW file just isn't worth it.
I can certainly see the benefits of RAW for many photographers though.

Andy
 
Pink Fairy said:
Personally, with my own type of photography (birds), life is just too short to use RAW... and I know a lot of pro's in my own field think the same. Speed of use and getting far more shots on the card vs the difference between a well exposed jpg and a RAW file just isn't worth it.
I can certainly see the benefits of RAW for many photographers though.

Andy

Thats me too. :smashin:

If the shot is a good one, no need to faff around with RAW
 
tomson said:
Raw can be handy if you have a difficult shot like a person back lit by a bright window in quite a dark room. You can process the image twice:

That's one of the main uses i have for RAW...forget more MP and a full size sensor the day they come up with something with more than 5 or 6 stops of dynamic range i'll be buying it! Like i say i find postprocessing in RAW then 16bit Tiff to CS seems to offer improvements over starting with Jpeg.
The point about file size is well taken though just had to buy two new 200Gb drives to cope with the load.
 
Johndm said:
Thats me too. :smashin:

If the shot is a good one, no need to faff around with RAW

But if it's not then your stuffed. At least with raw you may be able to rescue it.

ASH1
 
ASH1 said:
But if it's not then your stuffed. At least with raw you may be able to rescue it.

ASH1

The latitude for recovering a poor jpg shot is still huge, hardly 'stuffed'.
 
Recovery of highlights in RAW is way ahead of anything i've been able to pull off from jpg. At the other end of the scale working with shadows in RAW linear gamma is a pretty blunt tool compared to what you can do in tiff or jpg.

Each has pros/cons..."right" or "better" comes down to personal preference.
 

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