RAW or JPEG

[steve1840]

Just a quick question of personal preference I guess......

I see many great pictures here on the forum. I was just wondering if you guys prefer to shoot straight to JPEG or shoot RAW.

I've never shot in RAW before. Does it really open up more options for post processing?

[Derf]

Jpeg, I shoot raw if the white balance is way out of wack or if I am doing a really long night time exposure only.... Well Mabe wedding formals too ;)

sorry for the typo....was posting from my iPhone

[steve1840]

THanks Fred.

[JDANDO]

RAW for me.

[lijk604]

Raw, plain and simple. Shooting JPEG allows the camera to process the image, RAW gives you the control to process the way you see fit. Yes, you can edit JPEG's, but then you have already lost critical file information that only RAW files have.

[PhilDernerJr]

I like it raw. But I shoot jpeg.

[jerslice]

If I need to process it quick, jpeg...so news related events. Anything important or when I'm generally shooting - RAW. Never know when you'll get a total keeper in which the RAW would allow you to perfect it.

[Spunker]

Dumb question time. Since I'm fairly new to the photo phase of my aviation passion what is the difference. I thought RAW meant undoctored. Thanks in advance for the help in explaining.

[megatop412]

RAW format contains the unedited/unprocessed data that is normally sent through the camera's processing engine to produce the jpeg. Photographers who want the ultimate control over post processing shoot in RAW because it allows them to change things as though they are able to shoot the photo again. So, if you messed up a photo shot in full sun by shooting it in flourescent WB, you can just change that in post.

Depends on how much control you want. Most cameras produce pretty good jpegs on their own, but once they come out you can't adjust some things because they're already set in stone.

The down side is RAW files are huge and you get a lot less pictures per SD/CF card.

I started shooting RAW about a year ago and converting them to jpegs using DxO. Are my photos actually better? Sometimes, and then only by a low to moderate amount. Nikons do a pretty good job making jpegs. I'll probably get tired with all the extra time it takes to shoot in RAW and go back in a few years.

[Zee71]

I shoot RAW....RAW file would be equivalent to having an unprocessed negative from a film camera. In a RAW file all the sensor information is contained with in the RAW file with minimal processing.

When shooting JPEG correcting an exposure problem is more difficult than when shooting RAW. Additionally, because the JPEG file from your camera is already compressed, if you open and edit it with editing software, and then save the file as a JPEG again, the file starts to loose quality and each successive time the file is edited and saved again, the quality keeps degrading.

Bottom line.........if you set the exposure correctly and compose your image correctly as well, then this will save you a bunch of time during post processing.

[gonzalu]

My take on this VERY HIGHLY DEBATED question... it is probably the most asked question on anything digital photography related.

First of all, let's go back to the old days: Reversal vs. Slides? :-)

Second, for those who may not know (you'd be surprised) the RAW images on most top cameras today is a TIFF base for storage of the bit data itself, the pixeld data that is, and then lots and lots of meta data or instructions on how those pixels were captured and how to render them properly to the manufacturer's specifications and tastes. Some RAW engines are really raw which means the least doctored (some Canon cameras) and some are a bit doctored before being stored (Some Nikon cameras do SOME noise reduction even before sending to storage) but that's a longer discussion :-)

The JPEG that comes out of your camera has gone through a RAW processor which takes the RAW data and process it almost instantly and with a very very small not very powerful computer. When you hear DIGIC or EXPEED those are dedicated computers specifically designed for the task of processing RAW images to JPG or TIFF a lot like Adobe ACR / LR, Bible, DxO and the native software from Canon/Nikon/Sony etc. So there have to be compromises in exchange for speed.

OK here goes my reasoning.

1. Quality. You can never get the best out of your camera from the JPGs. This is a fact and you can argue all you want with yourself and others but when you look at the facts, it comes down to ultimate quality. JPG straight out of camera is never going to be as good as you can get out of the RAW image.

The main question I ask myself and you should too is what will be the ultimate destination or desire for that image you;re shooting. If shooting strictly for Web output and you don;t care much about ultimate quality, JPGs out of camera are really good lately. Most recent cameras have great control of the JPG being output so you can get terrific images, especially for Web size. All that control is still not ultimate control :-)

For example, the Demosaicing of the RAW data is done very quickly and there is always bound to be missing data. Which leads me to my second reason RAW is better:

2. Data. Please don't ever destroy data. Your camera is likely choosing and storing 12 bits of data per color pixel if you have a new camera. Some recent cameras have 14 bits per color being selected and stored. Remember the sensor sees infinite pixel data but can only capture and store whatever it can by technical limitations. If you then store that data in an 8 bit container, JPG, and then not store the original RAW capture, you are essentially throwing away those bits of data forever, done, case closed.

If you ever decide you need the extra quality from the RAW data for whatever reason after you see the JPG, for example because of White Balance, Exposure, Color Balance (not exactly the same as White Balance which is a WHOLE IMAGE deal where Color Balance is color relationship between colors within parts of the image) Sharpness and that is my third reason:

3. Sharpness. This is the deal breaker for me. JPGs out of camera have been proved to be less sharp than those processed properly via a longer more dedicated RAW workflow on a desktop computer/program.

It takes a lot of processing power to demosaic a RAW image. There are a lot of math calculations to be made to figure out how to decide the level each pixel should be in relation to another pixel adjacent to it when both received the same exact light through a filter LOL. The longer you have to give more CPU power to the process, the better your result.

If someone asked you to take your best slides, make beautiful prints out of them and then throw away the original slides would you do it? This is a fare comparison of RAW vs. JPG.

STORAGE and PROCESSING and TIME. ALL are very valid arguments and they should be personal ones, not actual reasons for RAW vs. JPG being better than the other. The decision should be a personal one based on facts, research and personal preference. As long as you know and understand that RAW is always going to be better and why and why you may NOT want to use it you will make a sound decision.

For me it has to do with ULTIMATE IMAGE QUALITY. I always try to achieve the highest quality images no matter what I am shooting. I have had a few situations where my old images have enjoyed advances in RAW image processors and have gone back and extracted more quality out of those original RAW files. This is also worth considering.

What do I shoot? :-) RAW+JPEG FINE... always. It takes up a lot of room. My 140,000 digital images (or thereabouts) are 95% indexed and managed in Lightroom 3.3 and are stored on two RAID 5 arrays (one of the arrays rotates between Mom's house and mine for backup) each array being 6TB right now. About 2TB is used up by all my images RAW a+ JPG as well as the Lightroom Catalog and Metada and Thumbnail and rendered preview data.

My main editing computer is a very old Intel QX6700 Core 2 Quad Extreme processor with 8GB of RAM and is still quite capable of dealing with the images. I built it back in 2005 and while the Nikon D3 14 bit images are a bit harder for it to process, it is still reasonably usable. New PC will be built soon as soon as I get an injection of disposable income in about 100 years hahahaha.

OK, sorry for the long winded response but it is something I also struggled with for a while way back when I decided to get my first DSLR and vowed NEVER to give up my Kodachrome slides ...

Do yourself a favor and take a RAW+JPEG sequence of images, bring them to your computer and do some pixel peeping at 100% and 500% zoom levels. Use both a native RAW processor (Capture from Nikon, or Digital Photo Professional from Canon) and take a look at places where lines are supposed to be sharp. Also look at details like a person's eyes, skin, etc.

For planes, I look at small logos and text on the body. Sky Team logos are hard to render as they are very small and finely detailed. Also look at online comparisons of Out of Camera JPG vs RAW processed JPGs.

And remember that your camera is ALWAYS capturing raw and your camera will be the RAW processor on JPGs out of camera and you make the JPGs if you bring the raw data into your computer. If your workflow uses software such as Lightroom or Bible or Aperture your workflow is hidden enough that you can't really tell the difference. If you are processing your RAW images in ACR, yes, it would be VERY tedious and looks like more work for little gain. In that case, I suggest using Bridge instead of straight to ACR.

Oh finally, most RAW image formats STORE a FULL VERSION of the JPG FINE image that would be output should you choose to use only RAW. This means that you can just use software that extracts this data for you (remember this JPG is rendered by the camera at the same time of the shot just like if you selected JPG only in camera) and will be just as fast as just using the JPGs. The good thing is you still have the RAW file there in case you ever want it/need it.

[gonzalu]

In web size, it matters little to none... so if your goal is to output to web only, sharpness likely has no matter and if you have good light and exposures, probably not matter either. However, you should make sure your TONE CURVEs are set correctly in camera for each situation. A strong tone curve will DELETE data that may otherwise be saved in RAW. Say the bottom of the plane in a super sunny day, the JPG will delete a lot of the data in the belly and if you ever want to extract that data, you can;t... the RAW file can be processed many different ways from the same image... more contrast, less contrast, etc. etc.

OK, these are NOT scientific in any way but quick comparisons. I took the same image both the JPG out of camera and the corresponding RAW and processed them in Adobe ACR 6.3 to make the comparison even. The processing was strictly at default. Then I used my basic workflow to process both and output to web the way I normally would.

NOTE: this forum theme resizes images indiscriminately so please right-click and view image to see the original image :-)

http://manny.smugmug.com/photos/1165295865_qJX6e-O.jpg

The above image has no other processing ... it was strictly a RESIZE of the main image. The thumbnails are 100% crops of the original image. Hopefully you can discern the slight sharpness differences. The bottom right thumbs are the same as the upper left ones but with USM 200,0.2,0 twice.

These are the full size output from JPG and RAW

JPG
http://manny.smugmug.com/photos/1165295873_vgw2R-O.jpg

RAW
http://manny.smugmug.com/photos/1165295869_TgyKd-O.jpg


and an animation of the two. Not sure if the Animated GIF is supported here on these forums and of course the details may be different due to how GIF stores data but the idea was to show the different tone curves on the JPG and the RAW. I will do a shadow noise and detail comparison next...

http://manny.smugmug.com/photos/1165295892_aYeUo-O.gif

[gonzalu]

Here in a different example, a different image was chosen... The image has levels applied and the GAMMA slider was moved up to 2 from 1. The RAW image was similarly processed and the raw development was using ACR 6.3 defaults. The resulting crop was magnified by enlarging to 500% using BiCubic method. Both saved as JPG 12 not optimized.

Note the JPG image looks cleaner, less noise as the Nikon EXPEED processor will always apply noise reduction. The RAW image has ZERO noise reduction as by default, the ACR engine does not apply noise reduction.

The Nikon de-noising algorithms are much better than any third party software as they are tuned to the CMOS chip signal to noise ratio directly rather than solely mathematically calculated.
JPG
http://manny.smugmug.com/photos/1165431519_FX8qx-O.jpg


RAW
http://manny.smugmug.com/photos/1165431509_avY84-O.jpg

With proper noise reduction in the RAW process in ACR or LR, you can get as good if not better results than the JPG.

The difference in detail is clearly apparent. You can not gain back the detail in the JPG. And also, JPG will always compress and create block data as it is perceptually indistinguishable at certain sizes and compression levels. USABLE does not mean actual quality ;-)

[steve1840]

I really wish that the RAW files weren't so large. I was looking through the manual for my camera last night and then set it up to shoot raw + jpeg and the number of photos I can take dropped drastically! I have an 8GB CF card in my camera and I think that had it been completely empty Id be able to only about 300 pics on it. I guess its time to invest in an external hard drive and some more CF cards.

[Derf]

after many years and storage of over 700Gigabite of images... Raw is simply not practical for everyday shooting for me. over 500K images and I am very selective on what I shoot in raw. I would rather shoot 1000's of images during air-show than a few hundred. The "TINY" increase in image possibilities is not worth the "HUGE" difference in size. It comes down to taking the image right the first time. Raw for me is not worth it nor is it practical with the amount of shooting I do. Most people do not have a lead finger or camera teathered to a car battery 24/7 like me. Manny is correct with what He says, but with his 4 shots of the engine at full size, I can hardly see any difference at all and could never justify the size difference with that or anything else I have seen. I tried to justify it and can only see a benefit in white balance. For this reason alone I will shoot RAW. I have don an entire wedding in Raw and editied about 20 images in raw and the rest I used the JPEG images. If I had all the memory cards in the world, I still do not think I would be shooting raw.

I use it when I need it. I do not like to use it and do not see a benefit unless I look at pixel level...and then I do not see much either. For horrible white balance it is awesome! My $.02

One more thing...the differences in the JPEG and RAW shown with the flashing back and fourth of the 777 Air France does not predict how the JPEG was setup. You can change every setting from sharpness, Saturation, Contrast etc. Point and shoot shots always look better than DSLR cameras right out of the box because it is setup for us to process the DSLR shots after and the Point and shoot has the contrast/Saturation/sharpening turned very high. There will be some processing done by the camera but if the image has too much contrast (Shadows are really dark and brights are over exposed) you should change the contrast in the DSLR. You would be amazed at the difference. Most people never go near these settings on the camera yet know photoshop well and are good photographers....Go FIGURE!


Good Read Manny

[Spunker]

wow, some great info, thanks guys!

[seahawks7757]

So think of the song Shots and the way it goes,

and replace it with RAW
RAW, RAW, RAW, RAW, RAW, RAW, RAW......

Just my .02

[megatop412]

While it is true about RAW yielding higher quality, you have to ask yourself if you want to be a slave to RAW or not. Because it can make you its little bitch if you let it.

The only people I knew who ever blew their stuff up large enough to see these differences shot film, and even then, you would still be looking at the picture as a whole, never a piece of it. None of the photo exhibitions I have been to had people sticking their noses right up against the prints, they were being viewed at a distance, because the perspective is all wrong up close.

I think it's neat to be able to magnify part of a digital image to 100, 200, even 400%, but that's really just a parlor trick for ****s and giggles. The beauty of an image(and that goes for a photo, drawing, painting, or piece of art) lies in the exposition of its entirety, the composition of elements, the rendering of color and shape. I can't justify wasting precious life time on an extensive RAW workflow that gives me minimal results, unless I end up having paying clients that I want to deliver the best possible products to. This obsession with sharpness, noise, megapixels, and 12-bit vs. 14-bit processing are solely artifacts of the digital revolution; where did the idea that noise is bad come from??? I never heard people say that with film. Back then people appreciated grain, it gave the shot some character.

Don't get me wrong, I love taking and looking at sharp photos. But given the applications most of us(on this forum here) apply our craft to, I think we've passed the threshold of practicality with the RAW/jpeg debate.

[gonzalu]

Fred, William,

You both have a GREAT point and are very valid and real. Indeed you MUST weigh your benefits to yourself and your style and desire. I ultimately decided I was in it for the pure excellence of it, to create the most purest form.

William, if you think of your analogy in another way, would you say the same thing? Sticking your nose up against a painting or not may not be your desire but I certainly do. I love to see the texture of the paints and oils and the texture of the medium, the canvas, the rag... There is something magical about touching good quality paper.

I can assure you that a good quality print is much better looking even at a distance when the original was absolutely the highest quality. This again, is MY taste and not trying to convince you to switch. It is down to what we want to achieve for ourselves. Another way to see it is if you were asked to select your favorite color from a set of 10 color choices or from a set of 100 choices, you may find yours in the set of 10, but I guarantee you the large majority of the sample asked would rather select from a larger palette. Such is my stuggle. Looking at 100% crops is what is all about... 100% is the REAL DEAL... any other zoom level is fake in any direction :-)

I look at the ENTIRE image at 100% and I look for things like CA and focus... all important when printing either small or large.

And finally, YOU have to look at yourself in the mirror and if you;re happy with your results, you have won... wehter 8 bit JPG or 14 bit RAW...

I have about 90% of my shots perfectly shot when I pressed the shutter, as Fred put it, and I am very happy with the JPGs... Heck I myself have given entire shoots to clients straight from JPGs. and I still like to have the RAW files for that just in case, for that enlargement that may come. If you KNOW and can deal with the fact that all you need is a web version, by all means, the JPG will likely suffice. I have tons of family events shot strictly on JPG :-) But I imagined the subject here was about Airliners and ultimate quality results.

Finally, Fred mentioned P&S vs. DSLR and you'd be amazed at how my D3 is set: Vivid, Sharpness at max and saturation at max... I like my images to POP OFF THE SCREEN when I cull images on ingestion. Also that way if I want to use an image straight out of camera, they are ready to go...

This can be debated for years. Entire websites are devoted to the debate. I love the debate and really just want to spread knowledge, not really change minds. That is up to the photographer. Armed with good solid knowledge we make better decisions.

Happy shooting to all and may your JPGs be pure! LOL

Now, can someone please hold down that Finnair MD-11 cargo in good light so I can get a shot of it? Thank you!!