JPEG vs RAW

[designguy79]

I'm seeing that there's situations that really benefit from shooting RAW but I think it's misleading to imply that shooting JPEG leaves you completely at the mercy of the camera. That's simply not true. And while you may not be saying that explicitly... everyone arguing in favor of RAW is implying that.

Who is arguing in favor of RAW?

The conclusion I am reading from this discussion is...

RAW provides the most possibilities and assurance of lossless compression, but means larger files and having to convert.

JPG means smaller file sizes, no conversion and, most of the time, will not be the deciding factor on a good photo.

 

[OreoCookie]

So you're just arguing here for the sake of arguing?

Not at all. I'm just not among the `always recommend RAW crowd' even though I use RAW myself after careful evaluation. Is that really so weird?

A camera set to do anything automatically can most certainly "break" a picture. If you want photos that capture your vision unfailingly, then don't let the camera make any decisions for you.

That wasn't my argument.
I was saying that a photographer takes the pictures and they don't turn out well because he or she used a Canon or Nikon, because he or she uses RAW instead of jpg. I agree that in some cases, using RAW instead of jpg gives you more leeway, but this just matters if you look at the details. It won't matter when you ask yourself the question whether the photo is good or not.

 

[designguy79]

It would be nice to hear some RAW advocates admit that you can actually salvage a bad shot from a JPEG.

I guess I am one of the RAW advocates?

I agree that you can salvage bad shots from a JPG, and I don't think that anyone here would disagree with that.

It is just with RAW, you can push it a little further and/or have better results (assuming all things being equal; comp, lighting, blur)

Also, I agree 110% that RAW vs. JPG is not the "make or break" point for 99% of photos. (maybe more?)

 

[Phrasikleia]

I'm seeing that there's situations that really benefit from shooting RAW but I think it's misleading to imply that shooting JPEG leaves you completely at the mercy of the camera. That's simply not true. And while you may not be saying that explicitly... everyone arguing in favor of RAW is implying that.

That's hyperbole; nobody here is making such totalizing statements. The point is that the potential exists when shooting JPEG to get a file that is significantly worse than what would have been possible with a raw file. It's up to you to decide whether or not you're willing to take that risk on a given shot.

It would be nice to hear some RAW advocates admit that you can actually salvage a bad shot from a JPEG.

Sure you can, but your salvage options are greater with a raw file.

 

[VirtualRain]

Ok... I think we are all now on the same page... I was under the impression, I suppose falsly, that RAW advocates were implying that JPEG was junk. In fact, that's the hypothesis that I started with when I did this experiment. I now know that I can salvage even some major issues from a JPEG but if the shot is really important (as most are) the best option is to shoot RAW if I want added PP flexibility.

 

[steve-p]

That's incorrect: if you use software such as Aperture or Lightroom, there is no degradation, because versions (I don't know what they are called in Lightroom) are just small files that contain the instructions for all adjustments. They are applied each time you open the picture and hence, there is no loss of image quality. Aperture does not distinguish between formats here, it works the same for all pics. Ditto for things such as lens correction tools.

In order to do that with JPEG though, it first has to decompress the image into a full size format internally (including compression artefacts which may not be apparent), apply the adjustments and recompress it again, which will cause some further artefacts/degradation, as it's effectively compression on top of compression. Whether you can see them or not is another matter though. Also you have to bear in mind that the correction tools are working on a version containing artefacts from the first JPEG encoding, which is not exactly the same as a RAW file. I've done this plenty of times with older JPEGs and it's usually OK, but not always.

JPEG tries to compress files in such a way that the eye will not notice the bits it has discarded based entirely on the image it has at the time, including exposure, any sharpening applied, saturation, white balance etc depending on the camera settings used. There are inevitably artefacts, but they are as invisible as it's possible to get within the parameters of the quality level chosen. If you start editing the image after it's already encoded, then there are no guarantees the artefacts introduced previously will not become visible.

I do shoot RAW, because it's a safety net. It means not having to worry about how much sharpening the camera wants to apply, or what it's doing with white balance, or saturation, or relying on absolutely perfect exposure - all that can be done in post-processing. Sometimes with high contrast subjects it's necessary to adjust highlights and shadows for the best picture, which the camera could never do anyway. And since memory cards are huge and disk space and RAM are not a problem anymore, there's not really any downsides - apart from the need to post-process of course - but that generally doesn't take very long in Aperture. In a perfect world where every picture was perfect every time right out of the camera, I would use JPEG - but it's an imperfect world

 

[stagi]

One thing that also makes my mind up about shooting RAW is that with a Jpeg file the camera is doing certain image adjustments to the file before compressing. As technology improves those adjustments the camera made might not be the best way to process your file. If you shoot RAW and lightroom algorithms improve more in a few years you can always go back to the RAW file and have all of the info to work with.
It just gives you more to work with and for the cost of hard drives it's way worth it to me.

 

[Dextor143]

can some post an example of RAW pic and its PP?

that will help me as well..


I just want to know how much detail you can get back from RAW

 

[VirtualRain]

can some post an example of RAW pic and its PP?

that will help me as well..


I just want to know how much detail you can get back from RAW

Did you see my post at the start of this thread?

You can see in the final pic of the set where I used Aperture on the RAW image, that the text came back a bit better on the page and the shadows cast by the box and especially the wine glass on the paper are much better.

 

[OreoCookie]

In order to do that with JPEG though, it first has to decompress the image into a full size format internally (including compression artefacts which may not be apparent), apply the adjustments and recompress it again, which will cause some further artefacts/degradation, as it's effectively compression on top of compression.

Again, this is incorrect if you are speaking of Aperture or Lightroom. Yes, they generate a preview (which is a jpg), but the picture is rendered afresh each time you open it and there are no new artefacts appearing, the picture is not compressed again.

It's like opening a jpg in Photoshop, do manipulations and then saving it as tiff (or some other lossless format of your choosing). There is no recompression. The preview is only used, well, as a preview and as soon the corrections are applied onto the original file, the rendered version replaces the preview.

And since memory cards are huge and disk space and RAM are not a problem anymore, there's not really any downsides - apart from the need to post-process of course - but that generally doesn't take very long in Aperture.

Using RAW taxes your system a lot more than shooting jpg -- not if you're working with Photoshop, but if you work with Lightroom or Aperture. If I take, say 80 pictures in RAW, then just to load them into memory takes up about 640+ MB*. My machine has a RAM limit of 2 GB (first-gen MacBook Pro).


* My D80's RAW files take up about 8-9 MB per picture on average.

 

[steve-p]

It's like opening a jpg in Photoshop, do manipulations and then saving it as tiff (or some other lossless format of your choosing). There is no recompression. The preview is only used, well, as a preview and as soon the corrections are applied onto the original file, the rendered version replaces the preview.

If you only ever use a lossless format such as TIFF from then on, that's true - but if you resave it as a JPEG at any point then it's being compressed twice compared to the original image before it was first encoded in the camera.

 

[pdxflint]

To me my RAW files are my 'negatives.' No matter how I process them, or what converting software I use, I can always go back to them and start from scratch. I guess the same is true to some degree with .jpegs handled with non-destructive photo manipulation software, but it's already been processed once...based on the camera settings. I've shot many .jpegs in the past that had something mis-set based on a previous setting that I hadn't noticed, and the white balance was off, or the saturation was set too high or too low, or too much in-camera sharpening was applied, etc. etc... and it's much, much more difficult, and far less satisfactory when trying to fix these images. If they're just snapshots... well who cares. But, if the shot was unique, non-repeatable...it's painful when that happens.

I do shoot .jpeg at times, knowing ahead of time what the purpose of the shots is for. If I'm messing around or doing stuff I'll never print or display big, I .jpeg it - but my default is RAW just in case.

It's a little trickier understanding the best way to handle RAW files, depending on the camera manufacturer - and that's why I actually now have gravitated to Capture NX (Nikon) to handle my critical images. The amount of control and adjustment, from noise reduction to sharpening to taming highlights and bringing out shadow detail, boosting color very subtly, protecting skin tones in the process... correcting for lens distortions/abberations... converting to .tiff files... the list goes on... the control is so much more powerful with this software. For the down and dirty quick conversions, often iPhoto, heck even Picasa will do an admirable job, but the option is always there to really maximize/optimize the image using the .NEF (Nikon) or RAW file when you want to.

It only really costs you storage space. You can always dumb down the image, but you can't go up.

 

[OreoCookie]

If you only ever use a lossless format such as TIFF from then on, that's true - but if you resave it as a JPEG at any point then it's being compressed twice compared to the original image before it was first encoded in the camera.

Again, I use Aperture to manage my pics -- which includes my old jpgs. I love this piece of software. That's the big advantage of it: you don't really care what format your pics are in, it just works and it works with optimal quality, i. e. no degradation.

@pdxflint
Absolutely, yeah, it's the digital negative. I think the analogy carries over quite nicely: back in the film days, most photographers were interested in prints (= jpgs created from RAWs) and only a few of them developed film themselves.

Beyond storage, my problem is RAM: my computer has a 2 GB RAM limit and I'd like to have at least 4, or better, 8 GB.

 

[chrfr]

Other issues to consider when deciding to use JPEG or raw:
You're stuck with the noise reduction and sharpening settings on the camera in your JPEG files. Canon's noise reduction can be quite destructive to image detail that raw processing software can preserve. A camera's special exposure modes such as black and white mean you've also given up any possibility to reconsider how you want to process an image when you take a real look at your images on the computer.
For me, that's way too many options lost by using JPEG, so I've never used it on my DSLRs.

 

[firestarter]

Yet another reason to use RAW... the range of colour captured (gamut) is a lot larger for a RAW file.

Most folks capture jpegs in sRGB colour space. This is really poor - a standard designed to describe low end monitors and TV sets. The camera can sense much richer colours, and modern inkjet printers are able to print those colours too. Capture in sRGB/jpeg and you've thrown that information away.

It is possible to change your camera settings to capture jpegs in Adobe RGB - which is a wider gamut, but this is unwise as:
- The files will seem very dim and unsaturated on a regular non-colour managed screen
- Jpegs are only 24 bit colour, and that's too low a resolution to use with Adobe RGB without starting to notice posterisation (distinct stepped colour changes in what should be a smoothly-changing colour).

RAW captures very wide gamut files, and when they're opened for processing in a good application like Photoshop or Lightroom, they're converted to 16 bit ProPhoto RGB, which preserves this richness.

RAW is demonstrably superior, and as you become more skilled at processing and printing, you will come to regret capturing in jpeg.

 

[JeepGuy]

I just want to know how much detail you can get back from RAW

here is an extreme example
original

PP JPG

PP from Raw

images from http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/jpg-follies.shtml

there are some great articles on this site

 

[sidewinder]

Again, this is incorrect if you are speaking of Aperture or Lightroom. Yes, they generate a preview (which is a jpg), but the picture is rendered afresh each time you open it and there are no new artefacts appearing, the picture is not compressed again.

It's like opening a jpg in Photoshop, do manipulations and then saving it as tiff (or some other lossless format of your choosing). There is no recompression. The preview is only used, well, as a preview and as soon the corrections are applied onto the original file, the rendered version replaces the preview.

Using RAW taxes your system a lot more than shooting jpg -- not if you're working with Photoshop, but if you work with Lightroom or Aperture. If I take, say 80 pictures in RAW, then just to load them into memory takes up about 640+ MB*. My machine has a RAM limit of 2 GB (first-gen MacBook Pro).


* My D80's RAW files take up about 8-9 MB per picture on average.

A JPEG file is compressed. There is data missing. There will be artifacts and other issue not present in the RAW file.

If you edit a JPEG file with any editor, you are working with incomplete data that has already been converted from the RAW data by some "engine" the way it saw fit. Using Photoshop, Lightroom, Aperture, etc.,....it doesn't matter. If you edit the JPEG file and write it out to a lossless format such as TIFF, you are not losing any more data, but you aren't getting any back either. When you finish editing the image, you will convert it to JPEG which will compress it again causing more lost data and more compromises on image quality.

Let's relate this back to film. Editing a JPEG is similar to taking an 8x10 photograph and taking a picture of it. Then using the resulting negative to reprint the picture the way you want. Editing a RAW file is like reprinting the picture the way you want from the original negative.

If you use the best equipment available, you can get really good results the first way. But it will never be as good as the second.

So, if you are mostly content to take pictures and accept what the camera gives you, there really is no good reason to shoot RAW. RAW offers more control and better quality edits. But, if you don't need that, it is overkill.

S-

 

[VirtualRain]

here is an extreme example
original

there are some great articles on this site

I think this is a terrible example... a) who would ever look at that shot and say... "Ah, I'll just fix it in post"... BS, you are going to fix your exposure and take it again. b) That camera must be borked, or this example was way under-exposed on purpose making this a very unrealistic example... no camera is going to meter the scene to give this kind of exposure.

Post processing of RAW should not become a replacement for crappy photography skills or a broken camera.

 

[OreoCookie]

A JPEG file is compressed. There is data missing. There will be artifacts and other issue not present in the RAW file.

In practical terms, jpg artifacts (the blocky artifacts you know from Internet 1.0 ) are not really an issue, it's more the loss of data that you cannot recover.

So, if you are mostly content to take pictures and accept what the camera gives you, there really is no good reason to shoot RAW. RAW offers more control and better quality edits. But, if you don't need that, it is overkill.

Agreed, that's exactly it

@JeepGuy
That's exactly a situation where RAW is `useless:' the photo is not properly exposed. If noobs take pictures like that, then the first course of action is to learn how to expose properly and not to switch to RAW, because `you can fix it.'

 

[sidewinder]

In practical terms, jpg artifacts (the blocky artifacts you know from Internet 1.0 ) are not really an issue, it's more the loss of data that you cannot recover.

No, in practical terms, JPEG compression artifacts are indeed a rather significant issue.

S-

 

[OreoCookie]

No, in practical terms, JPEG compression artifacts are indeed a rather significant issue.

Really? I can't remember the last time I've noticed them. (On the other hand, it's been a while since I've shot jpgs.) Do you have any examples from your library?

 

[toxic]

I think this is a terrible example... a) who would ever look at that shot and say... "Ah, I'll just fix it in post"... BS, you are going to fix your exposure and take it again. b) That camera must be borked, or this example was way under-exposed on purpose making this a very unrealistic example... no camera is going to meter the scene to give this kind of exposure.

Post processing of RAW should not become a replacement for crappy photography skills or a broken camera.

this isn't a good example, but this is still an example of when the dynamic range of the scene far exceeds the dynamic range of the camera. you can either expose for the shadows or the highlights, but not both. this is where flashes, GND filters, and HDR come into play, but it isn't always possible to use these methods.

the exposure latitude is then important - Jpegs will give you something like 8 stops (EV) of DR, RAWs give you that, 1-1.5 EV in the highlights, and 2+ EV in the shadows, for around 11 EV overall. negative film gave something like 15 EV of dynamic range. you likely won't use it all in the final image, you might not even make use of it in most of your images, but the important thing is that the information is there for you to manipulate as you like.

 

[HBOC]

Nowadays with technology, I think that JPEG compression has come a long way (in a good way). You can blow up a picture, shot in JPEG to 8x10 or even 10x15, and they will look great. Although that depends on the photographer/gear/etc. I think for 95% of the population, JPEG is perfect.
There really is no point in shooting RAW, and then spending time PP'ing it, only to use the images to post online or email. Out of the 1000s of images i have shot in RAW, i have enlarged maybe 30 of them.

I got into the practice of shooting RAW years ago. You never know when you will want to enlarge an image years down the road. I have found myself shooting JPEG more often, just because it gets tedious quick having to work on snap shots, so to speak.

When i go on "photo" excursions, as I call them (ie; shooting waterfalls, seascapes, landscapes, etc), I WILL shoot nothing but RAW. Obviously there are situations where shooting RAW or CR2 (Canon RAW, and whatever other formats there are out there) are a no brainer.

In closing, I think that shooting in RAW, and then printing from a JPEG version of that RAW file is kinda pointless. I print only from TIFF files of the original RAW files, if that makes sense. Many self serve places have that ability. 3 or 4 years ago, you would be hard pressed to find a place that yielded this capability. Also, JPEGs do keep compressing. I am sure there are methods that limit this, but i never work JPEGs, as they are already worked via the camera..

 

[HBOC]

Also, seeing the differences between RAW and JPEG files posted online is kind of misleading (well it IS misleading). They are BOTH JPEG files, although the RAW file, by nature, will retain more detail. Since there is no way to post a RAW file, or even TIFF, the best way is to do an experiment yourself. You will notice a lot more difference on the screen then you would looking at a RAW converted JPEG vs a JPEG. The differences will be subtle once printed until you reach a certain size, ie; anything over an 8x10.

 

[Edge100]

There really is no point in shooting RAW, and then spending time PP'ing it, only to use the images to post online or email. Out of the 1000s of images i have shot in RAW, i have enlarged maybe 30 of them.

Yes, there is. Flexibility in white balance and exposure is absolutely worth it, if you really care about the details. Now, before JPEG shooters come back in a tizzy, I know you can make excellent final output from a JPEG. But the fact is, when you shoot JPEG, you are throwing away information and allowing the camera to make crucial decisions on your behalf. It's not just about enlargements; it's about maintaining control over your photos.

In closing, I think that shooting in RAW, and then printing from a JPEG version of that RAW file is kinda pointless.

Sorta; to me, the disadvantage of JPEGs is that they limit your ability to tailor your image as you see fit. The fact that they are 8-bit COULD limit the quality of your prints, especially where you need fine colour gradations, but I've never seen this in practice.