 Nick Milton |
Raw Versus Jpeg Fine I use a Canon Rebel 300D, I shoot in the large Jpeg fine mode (highest setting except raw). My question is, is there really any difference? If I shoot a wedding, and then want to edit some pics before customer sees them, it's easy in Jpeg, Raw is so hard and time consuming - I have to convert to tiff to edit. And I can't see any difference in image. I take time to frame the shot carefully before shooting, this way I dont have much editing to do, just resizing. Am I off the mark here? Or am I right? I understand that by over editing the Jpeg it will lose quality, but after converting a Raw to Tiff doesn't that, too? All confused now (lol).
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Damian P. Gadal |
I believe that shooting in RAW or Tiff you will get more detail. Jpg uses different levels of compression, thus causing some loss of detail. RAW and Tiff will be much larger files and will require more storage, but you can always convert these images to Jpg after you're done editing and you will still have your orginal RAW or Tiff file to work with (providing that you work from a copy of the original image)... hth
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John Wright |
I would add a couple of things here. First, I believe the difference between shooting RAW and Large/Fine is actually minimal as far as the quality goes. What RAW does do is open some opportunities to modify the image as the camera saw it - Prior to applying it's "in camera" configuration. On the 300D - shooting RAW, you are given the chance to change some settings and effect the image by selecting a different Exposure compensation, white balance, contrast, color saturation, color tone, sharpness, and color space. All of these are set with the camera, but if you shoot Large/Fine the image is modified in camera with the settings as they are set prior to shooting the image. Shooting RAW, you can change all of these settings after the image is in the camera and transferred to your computer. I agree that it's more work to process the RAW image afterwards. If you shoot correctly from the start and configure your camera with the proper settings before shooting the image - your workflow will be shorter and you'll end up with fantastic images shooting in the Large/Fine mode. I hope that helps...
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Nick Milton |
Thanks guys. What is the most popular way of shooting images, for example, if you're taking a wedding, and the customer wants a slide show that evening, before you've created a contact sheet, etc. etc., would you do Raw or top Jpeg setting?
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- Gregory LaGrange Contact Gregory LaGrange Gregory LaGrange's Gallery |
You're not going to need raw for typical wedding photos and typical wedding photo sizes. For highly manipulated photos that a graphics artist might do, or for anything that would be possibly made into posters such as fashion, or shooting an ad for a product, an agency would want digital without compression. If you were to make a large file jpeg into a 20x30, you would see a difference between something that started out raw because without any compression that raw offers, software can extrapolate more info. But shooting large/fine jpegs, the image size is 11x17 when you open it in photoshop. So if you're just going to make regular size prints of somebody's wedding, and especially if it's uncropped and unchanged, all you'd need is large/fine jpegs. Just set the resolution high enough, and you'd have a good print. And with good lenses and good paper, I bet you could even do med/fine or large/normal jpegs if they are saved in the highest sized files. Just shoot a picture in a couple of jpeg settings and see how the prints look in the size you normally make. Because that's all that really matters, how does the print look.
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Wing Wong |
At the most basic level, what you get with shooting RAW is the ability to compensate for some exposure issues. It isn't that RAW captures more detail than JPEG, but rather, more detail is preserved. If you shoot raw, one of the things you will find is that you will be spared JPEG artifacting which while minimal in fine/super-fine modes, is still present. This becomes more apparent when you are sharpening/filtering the image. With RAW conversion to Tiff, this is not as much of a problem. For most prints, you will not even notice the difference. If you crop heavily or if you plan on blowing up the image to a large size, then shooting raw might be a better option. As usual, you will need to determine for yourself which option is better for your workflow.
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Wing Wong |
Regarding the "instant" slideshow: Depends on the computer you have. If you have a MacOSX system, you could do it with JPEGS in iPhoto right off the bat. Just make sure pictures are rotated okay. With windows and third party slideshow programs, it's really up to you. A quick and dirty way would be using PowerPoint if you don't have a slideshow program otherwise. In this regard, JPEG would be best as raw would require conversion before you have a file which most programs can read.
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Jeffrey Judd |
I have the Canon 10D and shoot in RAW/Large jpeg format. Using the Canon Digital Camera File Viewer Utility program, I can extract and save the jpeg file for manipulation by selecting "file", "save file" and "extract save JPEG" and still have the RAW file for future use.
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Artur |
Hi All, the most important aspect of RAW beside giving you ability to control most image processing on your computer, is 16 bit per channel color depth witch is not achievable any other way.
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Phil Forister |
I have a Canon EOS 10D and all I shoot in is RAW. I shot jpeg for months, and them immersed myself in RAW - I will never go back. With the right Raw conversion program - converting to TIFF/JPG is easy. Use the Photoshop 7.0 RAW/JPEG 2000 plug-in, or something like Capture One. I do not convert to Tiff, too big. I convert to JPG. Raw takes the data right from the sensor and saves it before; jpeg pompression, sharpening, white balance, contrast, saturation, etc. The best thing about shooting in Raw is White Balance can be set during conversion. A Jpg with an inappropiate or off white balance is tough to correct. In Raw, white balance has not been preformed yet. The second most important thing Raw gives you is latitude to correct moderate exposure problems. You can compensate, as you would with the camera, as much as 2 stops in either direction. Although I only recommend a 1/2 stop to a full stop. Give it a week, the advantages well outweigh the added post-processing. Download Capture One and give it a good try. If you want the best out of your photography - get it right at the shoot, and shoot in Raw to give you better control of the outcome of the photo.
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Robert Torrence |
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Derick A. Wiaderski |
I also use the Digital Rebel and I only shoot in RAW. I do this in the hopes that some day I might want to print a poster size print of something I've done. Processing is kind of a pain but if you keep up to date with your work it's nothing more than a couple hours of post work. I convert my RAW files to jpg to share on the net edit them in PS Elements and after I process all my images I save the RAW and the fully edited/compressed jpg's on CD's and properly label them. For the slide show, do you ever use the in camera slide show you can hook up to the TV. I love it. I get home from shooting, I plug the AV wires into my TV and everyone can see my work right then and there. As an aside I still carry my fully manual Nikkon, but I find myself looking for the LCD display. Good luck Derick W.
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Artur |
Hi All, another thing about RAW, Phptoshop CS has RAW converter build in and is able to give you ultimate control on conversion in 8 or 16 bit per color and has most of its tools and filters working in 16 bits. It is amazing, but be ware of big files, 6MB RAW makes about 32BM 16 bit PSD file. Also if you short on dynamic range in JPEG try same image in RAW and convert to 16 bit. Artur.
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Nick Milton |
brilliant responses guys thanks very much,love the help this site gives thank again to all.im now hooked on raw,and am doing ok,wish photoshop elements had a raw viewer built in though nick.
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Michelle B. Prince |
Hey guys, I shoot everything raw+ but basically use the raw only if I don't like the jpeg, is this bad? I have the raw converter by canon which is very simple, leading me to think that the program does some raw conversion before I see it. the one in pscs2 is more complicated, the image looking VERY raw when I pull it up. is the converted image from the raw so much better that I should be converting every image and not just the ones that need exposure or white balance adjustments? any comments welcome. thank you
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