Hi, welcome to the forum. Let me fill in some of blanks you may have with jpg and raw files along with dslrs and smartphones.
Originally posted by Vonner
I have a few questions regarding photos from my Pentax k-70. While in Mexico, I tried to photograph some beautiful sunsets on my K-70. The results (colors, etc) where not nearly as nice as the ones my wife got using her Apple I7 cell phone. Her blue skies and clouds where much truer color than what I got on my photos.
Smartphones and DSLRs - they both are cameras and that's where the similarities end. Smartphones makes extensive use of highly automated computer processing (within the smartphone device), while DSLRs emphasis manual controls to capture the image and allow the photographer to use post processing utilities to process the image in order to bring out their best features. Smartphones on the other hand, emphasis automated processing - where the camera may actually capture a dozen individual images using a range of apertures, shutter durations and ISOs, then automagically stack, slice and dice each of the individual images - extracting their best features and combining them together to form a single image.
Now, you - the photographer can accomplish exactly the same, however you at the time of capturing the image, would need to probably bracket (with 2 to 5 images the scene), possibly focus stack the scene with another 2 to 5 images, and then in post processing - process all of these together to form your perfect image.
Originally posted by Vonner
I was shooting in Jpeg mode and several different settings. So I switched to RAW. Now I am trying to view the raw files on photoshop elements 5. I can't get the RAW files to come up. I get an error message indicating they won't open. The Image indicates "IMGP0636.PEF" Is there another RAW settings that I can open in Elements. Any thoughts and or suggestions would be appreciated. Greg
Let's talk about JPG and RAW files for a minute. The camera (K70) captures an image, with each pixel containing 14 bits of information (2
14 = 16,384 color shades and tones). The camera then stores this information out as either RAW (DNG format or PEF format) or as a JPG format. Now the RAW formats store all the data - all 14 bits of information from the camera. The JPG format however only allows for 8 of these bits to be stored (2
8 = 256 colors shades and tones. So, essentially - the JPG file dumps 98% of the information that the camera captured. Once dumped, you can never recover this information - unless you use the option to save both the RAW and JPG images to the SD card.
This begs the question - why the smartphone JPG images looks so much better than the Pentax JPG images. Well all the automagical computer processing (based on AI and machine learning) combining all the individual images together in the smartphone occurs using the RAW, and then at the very last step - converts it to JPG for storage. In the DSLR (and every brand - Canon, Nikon, Fuji, Sony, Olympus, Leica, etc.) passes the RAW image through their brand respective JPG processing engine - and just the one image (not the several images combined as with the smartphone) is processed and stored out to the SD card in JPG format.
Can the JPG format be post processed - absolutely, but with some limitations. Let's say you down load your JPG images to your PC, go in with Lightroom or Photoshop and make some changes and then save them (which overwrites the original JPG file). Then tomorrow you want to make yet another set of changes - well you open up the file you saved yesterday, do some additional processing and then save the JPG file (which writes over the first post processing file with the second post processing JPG file). On every set of edits - you are degrading the JPG file. JPG file editing is destructive.
When you post process RAW files, the original RAW files are never touched. Your edited commands are saved to an associated file and every time you open your RAW file, the prior editing commands are reapplied. In this way RAW file (DNG and PEF) editing is non-destructive. You can even reset all of your prior edits and start over from scratch.
Now, you might compare JPG images across the camera brands. They are different, because each camera brand's internal JPG engine performs different levels of processing. Canon and Nikon are the most over processed - Why? Sales. Camera reviewers compare the JPGs from each camera and says this looks great, which translates into sales for that camera brand. Pentax, does the least amount of processing - Why? In order to preserve as much information - e.g., sharpness and details as possible. This lets you post process the JPGs and still retain as much information as possible. Now, as with all the brands - you the photographer can customize the internal JPG processing engines to get your desired output (brighter colors, etc.).