Originally posted by Rainy Day Is image quality the only good reason to shoot in RAW? And since some people don't require RAW for the sort of photography they do, what are those reasons?
RAW is supposed to give more flexibility - it is the raw image captured by the camera supposedly without any manipulations/processing.
One of the major reasons is that RAW allows one to apply any color/white balance to one's tastes and not be dependent on the AWB (auto white balance) or any other white balance selected for/by the camera - this really allows fine tuning the color balance under difficult lighting situations.
It is also much more flexible on how noise reduction (which can destroy fine detail) is applied or not applied - again giving much more control than the camera's internal processing.
In these ways - optimal processing of RAW can result in better/superior images than the JPG out of the camera.
However the operative word is optimal -
everyone has their own tastes -
so there is a very good reason to use RAW to get exactly the picture one wants
- but most of us are not that exacting - different days can result in different processing/results.
An easy challenge is to shoot a paired RAW+JPG - then use any other RAW converter than the supplied Pentax DCU (Digital Camera Utility) and try to match the JPG exactly - it may sound simple since RAW gives us all that flexibility -
but until one tries it - we do not realize how difficult it is - we can get close relatively easily - but to get it just right to match?
Ah! but who wants to do that?
No one really - but surely if RAW were that powerful - why is it so difficult to match a humble JPG? Why can one not be that exacting?
Here in lies the problem - it is
NOT that
exacting -
because I am sure the processors can potentially do it
- but it is beyond most of our capabilities -
no insult intended - I consider myself experienced in pp -
and I could not do it - so I am in the same boat/bucket.
The only pp package that could do it with any consistency is (obviously) Pentax DCU (which is supplied with all Pentax dSLRs) - it stands to reason that the Pentax supplied software understands the Pentax image -
yet who uses Pentax DCU as their regular processor?
I shoot almost exclusively JPGs - but I can apply most of the RAW manipulations to JPGs as Pentax DCU can open Pentax dSLR images - as can ACR - so when I need to do more serious color/white balancing I do use those but on the JPGs.
Noise reduction - RAW will/does have the advantage -
but for me Pentax seems to have found the right balance between retaining detail and reducing noise - most of the time I do further NR using pp - there are few (to no) cases when I wished I did not have the built in camera NR - besides one can turn NR OFF in camera.