[kiwi_jono]

Wow Sagitta, thats a nice shot. I actually like the original better - looks more natural to me.

[Nuff]

I like 2nd one better. I don't care if it looks natural or not. It has more punch. Good photos rarely look natural.

[wildman]

But to be honest, after trying it, I can’t see a single bit of difference that makes it worth the effort.

I think you answered your own question - the marginal difference you see, for the way you work, isn't worth the hassle.

Speaking only for myself I find shooting raw easier. When I'm out in the field shooting birds it's easier to just worry about getting the basic exposure in the ball park and worry about how the final image will actually look when I get home and can fuss with it in detail and with more accuracy on a big screen with powerful software. I find this much easier, then trying to set the camera optimally out in the field for each shot under changing conditions. Shooting RAW gives you the latitude to shoot this way jpg does not.

Different strokes for different folks.

[Sagitta]

I look at RAW as sort of the modern equivalent of developing your own vs JPG which is more like dropping the film off at the Fotomat. While the JPGs will usually be perfectly fine, more often then not there will be something (major or minor) you'll want to tweak.

[L33tGreg]

I don't think I could ever remember to set my white balance correctly under each and every lighting scenario....

[SpecialK]

What sort of adjustments are they? any examples so I know what I'm looking for (not using photoshop, but I can see if my software has an equivalent)

"Blacks" - sort of saturation for black - helps pale blue sky
"Recovery" - a highlight recovery thing
"Fill Light"
"Brightness" - sort of like curves, this raises the exposure of the darker values, mostly leaving the highlights alone (The "exposure" slider uniformly raises the exposure across the image)
"Clarity" no idea:-)
"Vibrance" no idea :-)
"Sharpening"
"Noise Reduction"

Once the raw file is opened, you get all the usual jpg adjustments, a couple of which are similar to the raw tool.

What does this mean, that a RAW file can't be overwritten?

Editing software does not save a file in PEF format, so the original can not be overwritten.

When I shot jpg, the first thing I would do was make a back up. But because I always rename files and sometimes renumber them, keeping both files matched up becomes a bit of a job.

[JinDesu]

"Clarity" no idea:-)
"Vibrance" no idea :-)

Increasing clarity will increase contrast for midtones.
Increasing vibrance will increase saturation of less saturated colors - basically if you increase saturation of an image, you can end up with over-saturated areas. Increasing vibrance normalizes the saturation across the image. Great for skin tones.

[Sagitta]

Increasing clarity will increase contrast for midtones.
Increasing vibrance will increase saturation of less saturated colors - basically if you increase saturation of an image, you can end up with over-saturated areas. Increasing vibrance normalizes the saturation across the image. Great for skin tones.

My lightning shot I posted above utilized a healthy dose of clarity and vibrance sliding.

Saturation/Sharpening tweaks tended to blow the shot out more than I wanted them to.

[wombat2go]

I presently just use camera jpgs of highest quality.

The jpgs are of a reasonably small size (3MB) and portable meaning they can be archived straight from camera to storage and put up to cloud and opened with any image viewer. The camera jpg can be retained intact by "save as' just as a raw file can.

The Eizo sRGB here is 17 inch wide and 1920 pixels across, with Nvidia GPU cards, VGA and Gimp; all that equipment is 8 bit .

As I see it, to get any benefit by stepping up to higher resolution image files, I would first have to increase the hardware quality.

It would be nice to have a new 10 bit Eizo with extended gamut and Displayport: ColorEdge CG243W | EIZO
Is anybody using DisplayPort?
What GPU, drivers and editing software for still photography with DisplayPort?

[JinDesu]

My lightning shot I posted above utilized a healthy dose of clarity and vibrance sliding.

Saturation/Sharpening tweaks tended to blow the shot out more than I wanted them to.

Yep - I usually apply a bit of vibrance if I want my image to not seem oddly saturated.

[GeneV]

Camera JPEGs are quite good most of the time, but I still shoot raw. The problem with shooting JPEG only is that you may not know which shot will need the extra help, and if all you have is the 8 bit JPEG, you are stuck. There are numerous photos where I decided later that the shadows needed more help than works well on a JPEG. Highlight recovery in ACR seems to be more effective than trying to pull blown detail from a JPEG later as well.

It can be a bit of a pain not to be able to share photos until you have run a raw processor, but with Raw+ shooting, and today's bigger, cheaper SD cards, you can have both. I do this anyway when I use an Eye-Fi card. Raw files are too slow downloading over WiFi, so I send a small Jpeg to my computer or iPad for viewing and keep the raw on the card.

[DeadJohn]

For viewing on a typical computer screen, you won't see much difference between RAW and JPG. I often set my camera to save the RAW (DNG) + JPG (at only 2 megapixels). A 2 megapixel JPG is fine for posting to the web but the RAW gets used for my best images. RAW supports better adjustment before printing and can salvage a poorly exposed image.

[IchabodCrane]

I haven't found a JPEG setting in my Pentax camera (K-30) that can accurately output a photo of a dozen red roses. They all tend to appear orange to some degree. By contrast, I can get beautiful and accurate color of the roses via the RAW image. Nothing revealing here... the question of reds in Pentax's JPEG engine has been discussed many times. Most other shots -- the JPEGs look fine.

[Miguel]

Ok, I’ve had a go at taking a RAW image and playing with it in software, people say it’s clearer, more detail, better colour, more ability to edit.

But to be honest, after trying it, I can’t see a single bit of difference that makes it worth the effort.
The editing tools are exactly the same, the only difference being that the RAW file starts off with certain bits at a preset level (ie: JPG black slider starts at 0, RAW the same slider starts at 5)

The only benefit I could see was that it was easier to save some things like clouds that were blown out, but the difference between JPG and RAW seemed minimal to me. Every other adjustment was exactly the same as JPG with the same results as JPG.


I want to like RAW, I really do, and I’ve seen some rather good results from it in magazines (especially with B&W conversions and being able to replicate coloured filters like in the film days……. When I tried I couldn’t get anything outside of what I can with JPG though, any tips there? That’s a big one I want to learn to do)

Anyway, what am I doing wrong?
Am I missing something? is the software missing something? Are people exaggerating the difference between RAW and JPG?

I’ve been using an *istDS to take the pictures, and the software is Cyberlink Photodirector (I think?)

Even before dealing with the differences between how to process each file format, I'd be more curious about how you evaluate any photograph. If you are only talking about screen images (and not prints which are more demanding), what kind of monitor are you using? Then, is it calibrated and profiled using a hardware device?

Poor quality monitors (most laptops fall into this group) cannot convey a wide range of continuous tones. The serious advantages of a well processed RAW image becomes more apparent with superior equipment. If you cannot see most everything, then it is difficult to improve upon it.

There are many intricate aspects of working RAW images. For example, a well-processed RAW image has custom sharpening applied by the photographer. On jpgs the camera exercises this judgement. You can supplement, but doing it right can be a challenge, as it is often better to undo in that context.

In addition to hardware-related limitations, there is an aesthetic learning curve as well for some people. In my opinion, many people with cameras don't know when they are viewing a nicely exposed and well processed image. Especially common for folks who don't make prints.

Why don't you post before & afters of a couple of your test shots?

M

[SpecialK]

Increasing clarity will increase contrast for midtones.
Increasing vibrance will increase saturation of less saturated colors - basically if you increase saturation of an image, you can end up with over-saturated areas. Increasing vibrance normalizes the saturation across the image. Great for skin tones.

Thanks. I do read the manual (mostly).