Originally posted by georgis But as a hobbyist I simply don't have that much time to kill sitting at my computer and fiddling with each and every image I shot over the weekend.
nor do I. Most I accept the default conversions (or apply my own customized preset which I find does better) - this takes all of a couple of *seconds* of my time. Then if there are certain images I wish to improve, I'll spend maybe as long 20-30 seconds each on them. I do this for only a small percentage of my shots. And even of those, most would probably have done just as well in JPEG (and make no mistake - I'd have been *just* as likely to want to improve them had I shot JPEG). But each week, there will be a handful (or more if I've shot a concert that week) in which shooting RAW saves the day.
So the bottom line is that shooting RAW costs me a couple of *seconds* of my time for the vast majority of my images. For 95% of my pictures - the ones that receive no custom processing, and at least half the ones that do - it provides no advantage at all. But it's the 5% of pictures for which RAW saves the day that makes those couple extra seconds of my time worthwhile. And when I say RAW "saves" the day, i don't mean cases where there was some magic setting I could made in camera to avoid this. Cameras don't provide curve controls, nor do they handle WB for changing colored stage lighting, and they come with built-in limits on aperture, shutter speed, and ISO.
Anyhow, for some people, those few of shots saved by RAW are not worth the couple of extra seconds of their time per day, the few minutes of their computer's time doing the conversion, and the increase in disk space. But you're *completely* misrepresenting the amount of work involved in shooting RAW. It really is only *seconds* of your time over and above JPEG. Literally *seconds*.
Quote: OK, just a little example from life here. Suppose you are a RAW shooter. You get home with a memory card full of images. Some of those images are really special and might need that special PP touch. No problem here, you just do that PP magic on those images. BUT, you still have the rest 90-80% shots that need to be processed from RAW to something
Indeed. Batch conversion takes but two seconds of my time. And even if I shot JPEG, I'd be doing this anyhow. I don't have enough room for every image I've ever shot on my laptop - at least, not if I keep them full size. And they're a pain to share full size, too. So whether I shoot RAW or JPEG, I would want to run a batch operation to generate smaller size JPEG's to keep on my laptop.
Quote: As I have learned and people in the thread have mentioned, default setting in RAW converters will not get you far
Why would you say that? The majority of the time and for the majority of people, they'll do at least as well as the camera. If you happen to have unusually specific tastes and in a blind test find you consistently prefer the camera's processing, create a preset to mimic this (a few minutes of your time once in your entire life), then apply that preset during your batch conversion (and this can be automated in most software).
Quote: So, you do that PP magic you did on those really special keepers on the rest. Going through each and every image and carefully tweaking settings.
Some people might be foolish enough to do this for images that don't need it, but for most us, a default conversion or applying simple preset is fine. If what you say were actually true, hardly anyone would shoot RAW. But what you say above is simply wrong.
Quote: You could say, well there is a great feature where you can copy/paste your PP "recipe" from one to multiple images. But in most cases this will hold true only four couple of images, because others - they are bit different and requite different tweaks.
if you're picky enough about the specific processing of your images that a simple preset or default conversion isn't good enough, then thats not going to go away just because you shoot JPEG. That's a complete and utter myth. If an image needs custom processing when shot RAW, it needs it when shot JPEG. And if it doesn't need custom need custom processing when shot JPEg, it won't magically start needing it if you shoot RAW.
Your inexperience with how RAW processing works is leading to you to assume all sorts of completely false things about it.