Comments on: JPEG v. RAW

By: J.B.

J.B. — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 13:52:46 +0000

As a rule RAW but its the classic “It Depends” question. I tend to go with RAW for most stuff especially if the lighting and exposure is going to be tricky. I never do both because of having to deal with the file size. I’m also pretty new and still tend to use the preset program modes that choose everything for me (only in certain situations while I’m still learning) and they all force me to use JPEG for those.

By: Bradyo

Bradyo — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 09:07:43 +0000

i started shooting RAW about 2 yrs ago and i never looked back.

By: David

David — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 02:48:01 +0000

AH, but Scott, did you not say that you don’t consider an image a photograph unless it is printed? lol

But you are right, once you touch upon all of that you have to got deeper and deeper into the explanation…Whats Bit depth? ProPhoto? Gamat?….one answer leads to 10 more questions.

By: Scott

Scott — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 16:15:28 +0000

David – please note the part of my post where I said -

“Here are SOME of the advantages of shooting in RAW”

Not all – this isn’t the place for a white paper or an in-depth approach. Blogs don’t lend themselves to that sort of thing. Most sites don’t mention the 16-bit advantage for printing because in fact, less than 1/10th of 1 percent of photos are ever printed.

By: David Tanner

David Tanner — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 15:45:41 +0000

I’ve just started using RAW + JPG with my itty bitty Canon A720IS (hacked). The main problem is getting the file converted into a readable format by my MacBook (I convert to TIFF). However the quality leap seems to me to be very apparent especially when cropping.
Other good points of the hack are battery status and histograms. Why aren’t these things standard??

By: David

David — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 03:43:43 +0000

Nice post Scott, but one thing I always see missing in articles like this (well you ever so slightly touched upon it) is that when you shoot RAW, you are able to produce a 16-bit ProPhoto file which when printed will kill anything Jpeg could produce. Most mid level home inkjet printers are able to produce much wider colour saturation (depending on the ink/paper combo) AKA Colour gamut then a 8-bit Jpeg can give. If you are lucky enough to have access to the new Epson 11800 you can then take advantage of that 16-bit Prophoto file and produce prints that are damn right sick looking (that being good) I saw a side by side comparison of a 8-bit sRGB print and a 16-bit ProPhoto print…..Its like setting a SDTV beside a HDTV….Night and day. Once I say that I was converted.

Oh and Lightroom never touches the actual pixel of a file be it Jpeg, Tiff, PSD what have you. It is a metadata editor. If you want to actually apply the edits to the pixel you have to export it and it makes a whole new file.

By: Rudi

Rudi — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 03:55:35 +0000

I would never store archival images as JPEGs, for all the reasons outlined above. In the past, I used to keep copies of my original RAWs and then a separate archive of converted TIFs (these were only the important images, the keepers, ones that I worked on and printed or used in some way). Lately, I have been converting my RAWs into DNGs and archiving them that way. Why? Because Adobe has a good track record of keeping backwards compatibility, they are pushing hard to make DNG a standard (and it is becoming one), and most importantly, I can save my image AND THE ADJUSTMENTS within one single file (no sidecar files to keep track of).

I still keep an archive of TIFs for my worked images, but a PSD would be just as good (PSD is actually a derivative of TIF, and both were developed as standards by Adobe – that is why I’m so confident of DNG’s future viability!). I store mine as TIFs only because in the past I came across a program or two which didn’t recognize PSD files, but that was in the old PC days, it might not apply these days.

As Scott mentioned above, at the first sign that my chosen format is about to become obsolete, I will be converting my files to whichever new format promises to be the next standard. In addition, I will probably keep an old machine with whatever old program that still recognizes my about-to-become-obsolete file format, just-in-case.

By: TJ Asher

TJ Asher — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 01:24:04 +0000

Oops! My comment should read: I do see there are times where it makes sense to shoot in JPEG mode.

By: Argyle

Argyle — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 23:03:37 +0000

I’m a novice having fun with a good point and shot. I’ll be Jpg for a while but I love to know what is what. Just like Raw is more info for your image, TWIP is more info for my head. I’ll process it there.

By: Arif

Arif — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 22:50:20 +0000

I think one of the problems with RAW is the fact that most point and shoot cameras, even the high end ones don’t give you the option of shooting in raw. This is something I really don’t understand – the image starts of as RAW in every camera so why can’t they save it as such, or if there is some technical difficulty save it to an alternative lossless format that records the information more efficiently.
Also I can’t lug a DSLR with me wherever I go, but I can easily fit my Ixus in my pocket. I was thinking about getting a G9 but it’s too expensive a premium for a feature (ie shooting raw) that every camera should have and also far too big to take with me – my pocket space is limited seeing as I gather more and more “stuff”.