[rustynail925]

How can i convert Raw files (DNG) into jpeg in LR2?
Is it the same quality if i shoot Jpeg from the camera than shooting raw and then convret it to Jpeg?

---

Last edited by rustynail925; 11-11-2009 at 05:08 AM.

[eccs19]

I'm no expert in Lightroom, but you can get similar results as your camera, plus you can do lots of other things that your camera may not be able to do. You can get different results from one picture without loosing quality, as the original RAW file doesn't actually change. To actually export as a JPG, I usually right click on the picture and select Export. There are setting in the export area where other adjustments can be made. (picture quality, size, etc.)

[rustynail925]

I mean if i shoot raw and then convert it to jpeg files. will it be the same quality than just shooting Jpeg from the camera?

[pschlute]

I mean if i shoot raw and then convert it to jpeg files. will it be the same quality than just shooting Jpeg from the camera?

It depends on what you want to do with the jpeg. If the jpeg from the camera is not going to be edited further you will find it will suit your purpose 90% of the time. If you want to edit the file on your computer to any degree you are better shooting raw and using computer software to convert it to jpeg.

Shooting raw will give greater lattitude when processing it into a jpeg or tiff. The ability to extract detail from underexposed areas can be very useful, among many other advantages. When you work with the raw file you have all the captured data available, so any editing you do will have the best chance of giving you the best result...ie without excessive noise/posterisation etc.

[WMBP]

How can i convert Raw files (DNG) into jpeg in LR2?
Is it the same quality if i shoot Jpeg from the camera than shooting raw and then convret it to Jpeg?

Rusty,

Here's what I do. You will probably want to do the same thing or something close.

1. I shoot raw (.PEF) in my cameras.
2. I insert the card into the camera and copy the images for a date into the corresponding date folder inside the big folder that contains all my photos.
3. I launch Lightroom 2.5 and import the new photos WITHOUT MOVING. "Without moving" is one of the import options.
4. After the import is done, I immediately convert images to DNG. (This causes the files to get even smaller.)
5. I also rename my files so they have this format: YYYYMMDD-HHMMSS-file#.
6. I select, rate, keyword and process the images.
7. In Library, grid view, I select the files I want to export, and click the Export button (lower left corner of the screen).
8. In the export dialog that appears, I select the options I want. I may restrict the size of the exported jpegs, the quality (compression), etc. And of course I pick the folder where I want the exported files to be created.

That's it. The direct answer to your question is ## 6 & 7 above.

NOTE that exporting to jpeg is the last stage and the simplest. All of my editing is done to the raw files.

Will

[rustynail925]

How come when i view the raw files using picasa photo viewer sometimes the image changes? like the brightness and color.. for example when i click next photo the image appears has better contrast, color, IQ then it just change to a lighter one.. It has vibrant colors and then it changes to a lighter color and contrast.

[rustynail925]

What are the advantages of Raw when doing PP? Cant notice any difference when a Jpeg file..

[WMBP]

How come when i view the raw files using picasa photo viewer sometimes the image changes? like the brightness and color.. for example when i click next photo the image appears has better contrast, color, IQ then it just change to a lighter one.. It has vibrant colors and then it changes to a lighter color and contrast.

Picasa, like Lightroom, does non-destructive editing. This means that, when you do something like increasing the contrast, Picasa (like Lightroom) doesn't actually change the contrast in your original file, rather it saves an instruction memo that says "increase contrast". Then it applies that instruction to the version of the photo you are viewing on screen. If you make a bunch of changes, there will be several instructions in this hidden instruction file.

Now, every time you go to view the file, Picasa (like Lightroom) has to apply those instructions to what you see. And sometimes this means that you'll briefly see the unedited version flash on screen before you see the version with instructions applied.

*

There is sometimes another difference in the color in Picasa. Sometimes I edit a photo in Lightroom and think I've got it right - and then I view it in Picasa and I think it doesn't look quite the same. This doesn't happen most of the time. Some of the time, I'm pretty sure it's a reflection of the fact that, in Lightroom, I'm working with a very dark gray background, while in Picasa, the editing background is white. This makes the darkness/lightness levels in the photo seem a bit different. The most common difference that I observe is that a photo that seemed okay in Lightroom looks a bit too dark in Picasa.

There may also be a slight difference in the way that Lightroom interprets color reading from the raw file, and the way that Picasa displays color in the jpeg that I exported from Lightroom. But I don't think this is a big problem. I work on a color-calibrated computer, and I don't see these differences very often.

Will

[WMBP]

What are the advantages of Raw when doing PP? Cant notice any difference when a Jpeg file..

This is a big question and you could spend the rest of the day reading various answers on the Internet. I'll try to give you a short version.

Let me start where I always start: by remarking that you are shooting raw willy-nilly, and there's nothing you can do about it. Raw is simply what the camera "sees." All digital cameras do raw capture. The issue isn't whether you will shoot raw. The issue is whether you will save the raw data so you can work with it yourself on your computer, or whether you will let the camera's little processor convert the file to a jpeg for you.

Now, the basic advantage of raw files is that they contain more data than a jpeg can contain - a LOT MORE. A raw file can make finer distinctions in hue and luminance than a jpeg can. When you let the camera convert the raw data to a jpeg for you and you do NOT save the raw file, the camera throws a ton of data away. It's lost forever.

Why is this a problem?

Well, a lot of the time, it is not a problem, for most photographers. The truth is, your camera does a pretty good job of making normal raw-to-jpeg conversions. If you are satisfied with the jpegs your camera creates, well, that's cool. Maybe you don't need to save the raw files. That's still a legal choice!

But just about the only compelling reason NOT to shoot raw is that the files are much larger. And that's not a very compelling reason any more, since storage is cheap. I personally want to keep all of the original raw capture data.

When does it make a difference to me in post-processing? It matters in at least three different situations. No, I'll give you four.

First, when I shoot raw, I can leave the camera on auto-white balance and then fix white balance problems on my computer. You don't have nearly the same latitude to fix white balance problems if you have only the jpeg and if the jpeg's white balance is off. The jpeg represents a kind of "translation" of the original, and if the translation is wrong, you can't really fix it without going back to the original. For me, this is reason enough to shoot raw. I leave my cameras on auto-white balance and I NEVER worry about white balance while shooting.

Second, the raw file gives me more data to work with in difficult exposures, including actual problems. For example, say I overexposed the shot. If I was shooting raw, there may actually be a fair bit of data in the bright areas of the shot that I can recover in my raw processing program by pulling the exposure down. Imagine that there are 100,000 different gradations of shade or color, and that level 100,000 = blown highlight with a loss of data. Now imagine that a jpeg "rounds" the data to the nearest 1000. That means that if there are data points in the raw capture that are around, oh, 99,868, in the jpeg conversion, they'll be rounded to 100,000 and basically blown - irrecoverable. But in the raw file 99,868 is NOT a blown highlight: it's a data point that you can actually work with. So, when there's a problem with the exposure, a raw file provides more latitude for fixing problems.

The third advantage of raw is simply that, having more data to work with is inherently good, even when there isn't an exposure problem. Yesterday I shot a sunset. I got my exposure just right in the camera - by which I mean that I used the right shutter speed, aperture and ISO and I didn't blow the highlights. Now, when I got the raw files into Lightroom, I had a lot more data to work with in the bright sky and clouds than I would have if I had only the jpeg to work with. I was able to tweak contrast and colors a little more finely than I could have otherwise.

The fourth advantage of raw is that, with raw, you have the ability to reprocess your photo in different raw converters, and possibly get better results. Some folks here think that Silkypix does a better job interpreting colors from Pentax raw files than Lightroom does. But Lightroom 3 beta has a new raw processor in it, and it seems to me that it is doing a better job with my raw files - including my old raw files. A jpeg is an egg that's been cooked. You can put salt and pepper on it, or ketchup, or strawberry jelly, but you can't UNCOOK it. A raw file on the other hand is an egg that you cook a copy of; you can go back later and cook another copy of the same egg and it might taste better. SO if you save the raw files, you get a certain amount of future-proofing for your images. Better raw converters in the future may produce better jpeg conversions.

*


Let me add two more comments.

If you don't save the raw file, you're letting the camera do the raw-to-jpeg conversion for you, using its dinky little internal brain. That dinky little brain does a pretty good job much of the time, but it should be obvious that it simply can't be as precise or subtle as your computer's very big brain can be. How often will this difference matter? Hard to say. But I don't think there's any doubt about the theoretical advantage of doing conversions on your computer. This is really a corollary to point 3 above.

Finally, if you have the raw file, even within the same raw converter, you can try different conversions yourself.

*


Jpeg conversion is a form of translation, analogous to literary translation. If you're a translator working with a 5000 word dictionary, you can do fine most of the time, translating news stories, letters, and you'll probably do a fine job translating a lot of literature - because in most languages, knowing or recognizing 5000 different words will take you pretty far. What if you're translating high literature, like poetry? A non-English speaker trying to read Shakespeare with a 5000 word dictionary is going to run into a lot of problems. Saving your raw files is like being able to read Shakespeare with the Oxford English Dictionary handy.

Will

[WMBP]

In my previous response, I made the case for raw.

I want here to restate that, while the case for raw is very strong in theory, its less easy to say how strong it is in practice. In other words, whether saving raw files and doing processing and conversions on your computer will REALLY make any difference to you, is up to you. The answer might be no.

If I was doing nothing with my camera but shooting, oh, passport photos, I would shoot medium-quality jpegs and never think twice about raw.

If I were just a snapshot photographer who used Picasa as my only processing software and who seldom fiddled with my photos even in Picasa, I would probably not feel any need at all to have raw files.

If I were primarily a news photographer, sending photos to an editor by cell phone or something like that, I might be happy saving jpegs only.

Those are three obvious - and totally legitimate - types of photography where the slight trouble involved in saving raw might not be justified. There are, I am sure, many other justifiable reasons to ignore raw. I know some good pros who still don't shoot raw.

So as long as you know what you're missing, there's nothing wrong with NOT saving the raw files. If you give raw a try and just don't see the point, then give it up.

*

I would bet that having the raw file matters to me less than 50% of the time. I would guess that I could get quite satisfactory results from high-res jpegs, oh, 70% of the time. Having the raw is really important to me only about 10% of the time. That means there's about 20% of my photos where I am happy to have the raw file but could live without it.

The problem is, I very seldom know whether the next shot I take is going to be one of the 70%, or the 20%, or the 10%.

Will

[Eruditass]

Great post, Will.

[egordon99]

First off, your camera ONLY shoots RAW. When you select JPG, the camera takes the RAW data and pipes it into its on-board JPG processor to generate the JPG "image" to save to the card.

When you shoot RAW, the RAW "data" goes directly to the card and is not an image.

To generate an image, you use a RAW processor (software on your PC) which turns the data into a viewable image, much like the camera's JPG processor. The difference is that YOU have complete control over the image generation process. You can change the white balance, adjust the contrast/brightness/black point/etc....

So you can leave these decisions up to the camera's little processor (and hope it makes the right decisions since they are irreversible), or save the decisions for later where YOU have complete control over it.

[rustynail925]

Rusty,

1. After the import is done, I immediately convert images to DNG. (This causes the files to get even smaller.)
2. I select, rate, keyword and process the images.
3. In Library, grid view, I select the files I want to export, and click the Export button (lower left corner of the screen).
4. In the export dialog that appears, I select the options I want. I may restrict the size of the exported jpegs, the quality (compression), etc. And of course I pick the folder where I want the exported files to be created.

Will

1. I thought DNG is bigger than PEF?
2. So for example if you have 400 raw files you just convert all of it to Jpeg?
3. Supposing you have 400 raw files and you have 120 bad shots, 250 ok shots and 30 great shots which you want to edit/develop what will you do with the it?

Thx Will for all the effort youve made in helping me understand.. Appreciate it !

[egordon99]

I use CS3/Bridge/ACR/Photoshop, but you could do something similar in LR.

1)In Bridge, just browse through files, anything I plan on delivering gets a "6" (5-stars are for family stuff, so the six is for customers). I set up Bridge so I don't even need Ctrl-6, just six.
2)Once I cull through them all, I filter so only "6" shots are shown.
3)I select 10 at a time to open in ACR
4)In ACR, I just quickly go through each shot, adjusting WB, exposure, black level, contrast, brightness, fill light. Sometimes I go into more sliders/tabs, but I try to keep it basic.
5)Hit done, and bring up 10 more.
6)Once I'm done with all the shots, I use ImageProcessor along with a custom Action driving "AbsoluteSharpeningWeb" to generate 800-pixel wide sharpened-for-web shots. This creates JPGs in a designated folder
7)Go into designated folder and upload to my Gallery2
8)Re-run ImageProcessor again to generate full-resolution JPGs to burn to DVD for customer
9)Go to sleep

For step #4, I find I can go through about 100 in ~1 hour or so. I have my iPod hooked into a nice audio setup (Mackie 1202 XDR mixer into Tannoy Active Reveals) so I can listen to tunes while I work. I used to use iTunes but it would bog down my PC too much.

[Marc Sabatella]

DNG is not inherently bigger than PEF. The only reason it may appear that way in some cases is that some cameras can compress PEF files but not DNG files. So straight out of the camera, DNG files from those cameras will be bigger than PEF, yes. But LR can compress DNG just fine, so whether you shoot PEF or DNG, LR can create a compressed DNG for you that should be the same size as the compressed PEF. Note some cameras don't even comrpess the PEF. It all depends on your specific model. But bottom line, the compressed DNG created by LR is as small a RAW file as you're going to get.

Will post gives some great arguments for RAW. but if you're looking for the world's simpelst demonstration, set your WB to "cloudy" and take a couple of pictures indoors under tungsten light (or vice versa) - one RAW and one JPEG. Try to correct the resulting terrible colors in LR, and *then* see if the difference between JPEG and RAW doens't become obvious.

As for converting to JPEG, I only bother doing that for the shots I want to keep on my laptop hard drive or upload somewhere. Most shot just stay RAW and get copied off to my external hard drive (assuming they aren't simply deleted). I also don't bother to generate full resolution JPEG's - what would be the point? I batch generate JPEG's that are 1200x1800 pixels - big enough for a 300dpi print at 4x6", more than big enough for web use. Only time I ever need anything else is if I want to print bigger (or give the image to someone else to print bigger), so in those ver rare cases, I'll go back to my original RAW file and either print directly from that, or else generate a full size JPEG or perhaps TIFF if I'm looking for even higher quality.