Reasons to use RAW over best quality JPEG

normhead · 01-10-2013, 04:03 PM

My advice would be shoot jpeg as long as you can. But, before you start thinking you need better camera equipment, give Raw a try. For us, we are at shows, people compare our work to the guys a few feet away. So it's all raw for us.

redimp · 01-10-2013, 04:43 PM

Originally posted by normhead

My advice would be shoot jpeg as long as you can. But, before you start thinking you need better camera equipment, give Raw a try. For us, we are at shows, people compare our work to the guys a few feet away. So it's all raw for us.

Not even considered better camera equipment; been dismal conditions mostly in the UK since I got my K-30 so not had enough opportunity to enjoy what seems to be a fantastic bit of kit yet. It will be mostly jpg with a bit of RAW thrown in for learning purposes in the immediate future.

westmill · 01-10-2013, 04:55 PM

Another point in question is the simple fact that every camera is different. I started off with the Olympus E1 which was fantastic, but it was also only 5 million pixel.
To get enough quality to match top 35mm you needed to shoot in RAW. I used it for years. Then the D300 was born which became a giant leap forward. Even JPGs were better or as good as medium format. Not only that, but different cameras can produce good or not so good JPGs. The D300s are not bad but RAWs are notably better.
The K5 can produce great JPGs which are more than just usable. Things have moved on. I am a full time pro and I shoot and use both. If i was not a pro I would prob not change much. I would likely shoot in RAW. Thats simply because I simply get enjoyment from getting the best out of my images though. The truth is, thats a bit sad in many ways lol. When is enough enough ! How much quality do we need in reality. There would still be those thinking they are better because they shoot RAW if they were shooting a camera with 100 milion pixels with every lever of DR lol. JUDGE THE PICTURE AND NOT THE METHOD

Use whatever works for you.

demp10 · 01-10-2013, 07:16 PM - **1 Like**

Storage is very cheap so do yourself a favor and shoot RAW+ even if you prefer to use JPEGs out of the camera; just archive the RAW images.

Sooner or later you will cross the threshold and you would like to do more with your images the same way I assume you transitioned from point-and-shoot to DSLR, or from low MPixel count to higher. At that time you'll regret that you did not save those old images in a format that allows manipulations and improvements not possible with JPEGs.

Think of it as an insurance policy. All it takes is to copy more data to your drive for archiving.

kkoether · 01-22-2013, 10:26 AM

Last summer I purchased Coral PaintShop Pro X5. It has a nifty tool to do HDR from 1 RAW photo. It has to be in RAW format not any other format. It has allowed me to do some neat processing on some of my Boat Racing shots.

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

Had I shot these in .jpg I would have been out of luck or had to do a lot more work.

Colbyt · 01-22-2013, 12:27 PM

Originally posted by normhead

My advice would be shoot jpeg as long as you can. But, before you start thinking you need better camera equipment, give Raw a try. For us, we are at shows, people compare our work to the guys a few feet away. So it's all raw for us.

This is excellent advice.

I am a recent convert to raw. Photoshop Elements makes it really easy to get the image you wanted if you have the raw file. I suspect Lightroom may be better but I don't own that.

loyah1 · 01-25-2013, 10:41 AM

Shooting Raw + jpeg is the best of both worlds. But, sometimes I just don't have the time or patience to post process the raw file.

westmill · 01-27-2013, 12:57 PM

I am mostly a RAW shooter, but there are pros and cons no matter what you shoot. The simple fact is there is no right and wrong, only the best way for the individual. Once you know all the Pros and cons you make your own decision. I personly have no time for those that profess one is better than the other, other for themselves. Just enjoy

BirdDude007 · 01-30-2013, 08:02 PM

I have chosen mainly to shoot RAW, why? because I found that with RAW I can just copy them into an external hard drive while I am importing them into Light Room, I am not that good at PP in any of my software programs, but with the insurance of having a copy of my original "negative" I know that one day when I do develop some skillz in PP then I can ALWAYS go back into my archived images and bring them back to work on.
Lightroom is set up on my machine to backup everytime I close it, so it backs up all my image adjustments in the form of "digital Instructions" which is non destructive, I dont even have to save any of my images in JPEG like I use to do in the days of my lack of understanding on how to store images. Instead, when I want to post an image or print one that requires the use of converting the file to JPEG, I have the option to just find the image in LR and export the individual image as a JPEG copy, and still retain the original image in RAW!
When I upload my images to a hosting site I have a direct uploading tool in LR that makes it all go smoothly and I am actually impressed at the quality of the posted images. I used to upload images directly into the forum for posting, now all I do is upload the images into my flickr site and just post a link to the image in here and then I a lot happier at the quality of image that gets posted in here.
Another think I learned with doing everything in RAW is one big simple reason- You can ALWAYS convert a RAW image into any other file format (ie-TIFF, PNG, GIF JEPG, etc...) but you cannot go the other direction with JPEG without some image quality issues.
I have RAW images from three years ago (when I started in a DSLR) that are STILL the original uncompressed, unaltered file/image, and I can just grab those files and work with them as if I just taken them right out of the camera. From the old days of shooting only in JPEG and not knowing any better I have learned that I really screwed up many times, not realizing that a JPEG just re-compresses every time I saved it, or changed it, heck I didnt know any better until I took my Graphic Design course......now I know better! There are photos I took with a point and shoot camera back eight years ago that I really wish I had shot with in a RAW format, in fact I have many awesome shots that are of one copy that are really small files and I will be lucky to blow them up any bigger than a 4x6 print, and I am talking about some really important family shots I took of my baby girl when she was little, makes me wish I took the shots with film because I STILL have a few boxes of film 35mm negatives that I can always have scanned and printed of my other baby girls.
so I like to use the analogy of-"Saving your files as a RAW file is very similar to saving film negatives....they will always be there"
Hopefully this will help you out OP, there are lots of good arguments in here for or against RAW vs JPEG, just keep in mind-You can ALWAYS convert a RAW into a JPEG and not the other way around.

**Digitalis** · 01-31-2013, 01:43 AM

Originally posted by normhead

Even in film days guys bracketed. There were some guys shooting 8x10 who went through ridiculous lengths to make sure they didn't blow an exposure because it was so expensive to miss one

As an 8X10 photographer I can confirm that, actually I still carry a top of the line digital exposure meter with a spotmeter attachment for this very purpose - because 8X10 film is becoming rarer and rarer, not to mention more expensive. I want to get the best image I can. Shooting Jpeg is almost like shooting polaroid - once the image is fixed there isn't much you can do with it.

Eulogy · 01-31-2013, 02:34 AM

RAW is nice if you're going to obsess over details. If you're looking to just have some fun shooting photos though, I find JPEG to be the best, as if you mess up exposure, you can always shoot 6 more in that second(And not worry about eating your card space)

That said, I still shoot mostly in RAW, as I'm a bit of a nut.

slip · 01-31-2013, 09:16 AM

This is an easy one for me. With my old k10 I have rescued up to 4 stops under exposed...and still had a great looking photo. Anyone who has edited .Jpg knows that even if it was possible, the end result would be terrible

Thanks

Randy

**jatrax** · 02-01-2013, 02:06 PM

Although I have only shot RAW the last few years I have been rather ambivalent on this thread's topic. Each to his own, so to speak.

But this morning I needed a couple of pictures of Mt. Hood for a presentation and looking through my archive I found a number of jpg's and some DNG's. None were quite up to the standard I was looking for but I thought with some processing I could get what I needed. I found I could do nothing useful with the jpg's, the more I tried the worse they looked. The DNG's were quite easy to get into shape and I am well pleased with the results.

I am not sure that this was an exact test as the jpg's were a bit older but with my processing skills I am glad I had the DNG files. Maybe someone else could have gotten something useful from my jpg's but it was beyond me.

Sagitta · 02-01-2013, 05:33 PM

My K-x broke in April, and I've been SLR-less ever since.

I've been able to go back and tinker with some RAWs I shot of before the camera died when I'm especially jonesing to shoot with something beyond my point and shoot since then.

JPGs don't have much wiggle room for post processing beyond a certain level.

**arnold** · 02-01-2013, 05:48 PM

Originally posted by Sagitta

My K-x broke in April, and I've been SLR-less ever since.

I've been able to go back and tinker with some RAWs I shot of before the camera died when I'm especially jonesing to shoot with something beyond my point and shoot since then.

JPGs don't have much wiggle room for post processing beyond a certain level.

Don't you have a film camera? My K5 is just a backup for my 40 film cameras.

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01-10-2013, 04:03 PM	#61
normhead Pentaxian Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Near Algonquin Park Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 40,451	My advice would be shoot jpeg as long as you can. But, before you start thinking you need better camera equipment, give Raw a try. For us, we are at shows, people compare our work to the guys a few feet away. So it's all raw for us.

01-10-2013, 04:43 PM	#62
redimp Senior Member Join Date: Jan 2013 Location: Lincoln Photos: Albums Posts: 106 Original Poster	Originally posted by normhead My advice would be shoot jpeg as long as you can. But, before you start thinking you need better camera equipment, give Raw a try. For us, we are at shows, people compare our work to the guys a few feet away. So it's all raw for us. Not even considered better camera equipment; been dismal conditions mostly in the UK since I got my K-30 so not had enough opportunity to enjoy what seems to be a fantastic bit of kit yet. It will be mostly jpg with a bit of RAW thrown in for learning purposes in the immediate future.

01-10-2013, 04:55 PM	#63
westmill Veteran Member Join Date: Jan 2012 Location: Stoke on Trent Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 1,146	Another point in question is the simple fact that every camera is different. I started off with the Olympus E1 which was fantastic, but it was also only 5 million pixel. To get enough quality to match top 35mm you needed to shoot in RAW. I used it for years. Then the D300 was born which became a giant leap forward. Even JPGs were better or as good as medium format. Not only that, but different cameras can produce good or not so good JPGs. The D300s are not bad but RAWs are notably better. The K5 can produce great JPGs which are more than just usable. Things have moved on. I am a full time pro and I shoot and use both. If i was not a pro I would prob not change much. I would likely shoot in RAW. Thats simply because I simply get enjoyment from getting the best out of my images though. The truth is, thats a bit sad in many ways lol. When is enough enough ! How much quality do we need in reality. There would still be those thinking they are better because they shoot RAW if they were shooting a camera with 100 milion pixels with every lever of DR lol. JUDGE THE PICTURE AND NOT THE METHOD Use whatever works for you.

01-10-2013, 07:16 PM - 1 Like	#64
demp10 Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2011 Location: Atlanta Photos: Albums Posts: 602	Storage is very cheap so do yourself a favor and shoot RAW+ even if you prefer to use JPEGs out of the camera; just archive the RAW images. Sooner or later you will cross the threshold and you would like to do more with your images the same way I assume you transitioned from point-and-shoot to DSLR, or from low MPixel count to higher. At that time you'll regret that you did not save those old images in a format that allows manipulations and improvements not possible with JPEGs. Think of it as an insurance policy. All it takes is to copy more data to your drive for archiving.

01-22-2013, 10:26 AM	#65
kkoether Pentaxian Join Date: Jul 2008 Location: Huber Heights, OH, USA Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 731	Last summer I purchased Coral PaintShop Pro X5. It has a nifty tool to do HDR from 1 RAW photo. It has to be in RAW format not any other format. It has allowed me to do some neat processing on some of my Boat Racing shots. Before: After: Before: After: Had I shot these in .jpg I would have been out of luck or had to do a lot more work.

01-22-2013, 12:27 PM	#66
Colbyt Veteran Member Join Date: Dec 2010 Location: Central Kentucky Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 1,418	Originally posted by normhead My advice would be shoot jpeg as long as you can. But, before you start thinking you need better camera equipment, give Raw a try. For us, we are at shows, people compare our work to the guys a few feet away. So it's all raw for us. This is excellent advice. I am a recent convert to raw. Photoshop Elements makes it really easy to get the image you wanted if you have the raw file. I suspect Lightroom may be better but I don't own that.

01-25-2013, 10:41 AM	#67
loyah1 New Member Join Date: Dec 2009 Location: SF, CA Posts: 5	Shooting Raw + jpeg is the best of both worlds. But, sometimes I just don't have the time or patience to post process the raw file.

01-27-2013, 12:57 PM	#68
westmill Veteran Member Join Date: Jan 2012 Location: Stoke on Trent Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 1,146	I am mostly a RAW shooter, but there are pros and cons no matter what you shoot. The simple fact is there is no right and wrong, only the best way for the individual. Once you know all the Pros and cons you make your own decision. I personly have no time for those that profess one is better than the other, other for themselves. Just enjoy

01-30-2013, 08:02 PM	#69
BirdDude007 Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2009 Location: Las Vegas NV Photos: Albums Posts: 784	I have chosen mainly to shoot RAW, why? because I found that with RAW I can just copy them into an external hard drive while I am importing them into Light Room, I am not that good at PP in any of my software programs, but with the insurance of having a copy of my original "negative" I know that one day when I do develop some skillz in PP then I can ALWAYS go back into my archived images and bring them back to work on. Lightroom is set up on my machine to backup everytime I close it, so it backs up all my image adjustments in the form of "digital Instructions" which is non destructive, I dont even have to save any of my images in JPEG like I use to do in the days of my lack of understanding on how to store images. Instead, when I want to post an image or print one that requires the use of converting the file to JPEG, I have the option to just find the image in LR and export the individual image as a JPEG copy, and still retain the original image in RAW! When I upload my images to a hosting site I have a direct uploading tool in LR that makes it all go smoothly and I am actually impressed at the quality of the posted images. I used to upload images directly into the forum for posting, now all I do is upload the images into my flickr site and just post a link to the image in here and then I a lot happier at the quality of image that gets posted in here. Another think I learned with doing everything in RAW is one big simple reason- You can ALWAYS convert a RAW image into any other file format (ie-TIFF, PNG, GIF JEPG, etc...) but you cannot go the other direction with JPEG without some image quality issues. I have RAW images from three years ago (when I started in a DSLR) that are STILL the original uncompressed, unaltered file/image, and I can just grab those files and work with them as if I just taken them right out of the camera. From the old days of shooting only in JPEG and not knowing any better I have learned that I really screwed up many times, not realizing that a JPEG just re-compresses every time I saved it, or changed it, heck I didnt know any better until I took my Graphic Design course......now I know better! There are photos I took with a point and shoot camera back eight years ago that I really wish I had shot with in a RAW format, in fact I have many awesome shots that are of one copy that are really small files and I will be lucky to blow them up any bigger than a 4x6 print, and I am talking about some really important family shots I took of my baby girl when she was little, makes me wish I took the shots with film because I STILL have a few boxes of film 35mm negatives that I can always have scanned and printed of my other baby girls. so I like to use the analogy of-"Saving your files as a RAW file is very similar to saving film negatives....they will always be there" Hopefully this will help you out OP, there are lots of good arguments in here for or against RAW vs JPEG, just keep in mind-You can ALWAYS convert a RAW into a JPEG and not the other way around.

01-31-2013, 01:43 AM	#70
Digitalis Site Supporter Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Melbourne, Victoria Photos: Gallery Posts: 11,695	Originally posted by normhead Even in film days guys bracketed. There were some guys shooting 8x10 who went through ridiculous lengths to make sure they didn't blow an exposure because it was so expensive to miss one As an 8X10 photographer I can confirm that, actually I still carry a top of the line digital exposure meter with a spotmeter attachment for this very purpose - because 8X10 film is becoming rarer and rarer, not to mention more expensive. I want to get the best image I can. Shooting Jpeg is almost like shooting polaroid - once the image is fixed there isn't much you can do with it.

01-31-2013, 02:34 AM	#71
Eulogy Veteran Member Join Date: Feb 2012 Location: Fredericton, New Brunswick Photos: Gallery Posts: 632	RAW is nice if you're going to obsess over details. If you're looking to just have some fun shooting photos though, I find JPEG to be the best, as if you mess up exposure, you can always shoot 6 more in that second(And not worry about eating your card space) That said, I still shoot mostly in RAW, as I'm a bit of a nut.

01-31-2013, 09:16 AM	#72
slip Veteran Member Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: 2 hours north of toronto ontario canada Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 3,535	This is an easy one for me. With my old k10 I have rescued up to 4 stops under exposed...and still had a great looking photo. Anyone who has edited .Jpg knows that even if it was possible, the end result would be terrible Thanks Randy

02-01-2013, 02:06 PM	#73
jatrax Site Supporter Join Date: May 2010 Location: Washington Cascades Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 12,992	Although I have only shot RAW the last few years I have been rather ambivalent on this thread's topic. Each to his own, so to speak. But this morning I needed a couple of pictures of Mt. Hood for a presentation and looking through my archive I found a number of jpg's and some DNG's. None were quite up to the standard I was looking for but I thought with some processing I could get what I needed. I found I could do nothing useful with the jpg's, the more I tried the worse they looked. The DNG's were quite easy to get into shape and I am well pleased with the results. I am not sure that this was an exact test as the jpg's were a bit older but with my processing skills I am glad I had the DNG files. Maybe someone else could have gotten something useful from my jpg's but it was beyond me.

02-01-2013, 05:33 PM	#74
Sagitta Veteran Member Join Date: Feb 2011 Location: Maine Photos: Gallery Posts: 3,081	My K-x broke in April, and I've been SLR-less ever since. I've been able to go back and tinker with some RAWs I shot of before the camera died when I'm especially jonesing to shoot with something beyond my point and shoot since then. JPGs don't have much wiggle room for post processing beyond a certain level.

02-01-2013, 05:48 PM	#75
arnold Site Supporter Join Date: Aug 2012 Location: Queensland Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 4,299	Originally posted by Sagitta My K-x broke in April, and I've been SLR-less ever since. I've been able to go back and tinker with some RAWs I shot of before the camera died when I'm especially jonesing to shoot with something beyond my point and shoot since then. JPGs don't have much wiggle room for post processing beyond a certain level. Don't you have a film camera? My K5 is just a backup for my 40 film cameras.