[MetteHHH]

No, listen to yourself! ☺

A better test is to compare RAW images in the two modes.

Your jpegs *are* post processed.

That would be the best test - but green mode autoselects jpg as the output format, and the only way to change that is to leave green mode.

My guess is (as you also suggested) that the processing settings for green mode are "fool proofed" for post processing the same way the file format is: That your settings for jpg-processing in other programs do not affect how the processing is done in green mode. This would explain why the two jpgs differ, even if the exposure settings are the same.

Like the example I tried to give with my butterfly photo above, it can be hard to recreate a "black box" post processing like what lies behind the jpg produced by green mode. Post processing is an art - it is a whole new hobby on top of photography. I like to dabble with it, so I shoot RAW, but djam: If you are happy with the green mode files and post processing isn't your thing, you might want to just go with jpg as your file format? You could play around with the in-camera jpg settings - try turning up saturation and sharpness - and see if you find something that ressembles what you get out of green mode now. That would allow you the photographic creativity of the other program modes and still get an output that ressembles what you get from green mode now.

Please upload those samples. It would be great to see if we are guessing right at all!

---

Last edited by MetteHHH; 01-11-2016 at 01:59 PM. Reason: repetition

[doroth2]

How would one go about changing in camera jpeg settings? Not trying to hijack the thread here, but it's never even occurred to me that was possible. (I shoot with a K20, if that makes a difference)

[MetteHHH]

How would one go about changing in camera jpeg settings? Not trying to hijack the thread here, but it's never even occurred to me that was possible. (I shoot with a K20, if that makes a difference)

I never had a K20, but on my K7, K5 and K3 at least, the procedure is the same:
1) turn your camera on
2) press the right button on the four-way controller on the back (the dial to the right of the "ok" button with a hexagonal-and-square icon on it)
3) now you can edit the four-way controller to scroll horizontally through a lot of jpg processing presets (bright, natural, portrait, landscape, vibrant, muted, bleach bypass, reversal film, monochrome), or vertical to customise them (saturation, toning, exposure, contrast, sharpness)

This will affect how your jpgs turn out - and also the thumbnails/previews of your raw files. The actual raw file is not affected though, which was why my orange butterflies in my example above looked sooo dull compared to the preview, after I had accidently randomised the setting on my camera while carrying it... And I never managed to recreate it in Lightroom. But I still shoot RAW because I won't admit that "extremely colourful" sums up my artistic vision...

[Oldbayrunner]

Thanks everyone. When I get home from work tonight I will upload some pictures to show you what I mean. Many of you understood what I was saying which is that the green mode created JPEG is much sharper and less noisy than the manual mode raw and jpeg at the EXACT same exposure settings, focal distance, etc, and no amount of post process work would ever be able to get the RAW file as sharp and noiseless. It is almost as if the pixel sensors were much better calibrated and responsive in green mode.

You may have the exact same exposure settings but not the same, sharpness, noise reduction etc using auto mode vs manual mode. Use the info mode or look at your exif for both and I think you will see what is different

[Wingincamera]

I want to follow this thread too. I shoot RAW, so if needed I can change the white balance and have a little leeway for adjusting the whites & dark areas if needed. Probably for most outdoor shots a jpeg out of the camera would be fine. It's the indoor shots with different light sources that I really need the adjustment available in a RAW file. I will do my own experiments concerning this.

[MetteHHH]

Oooooh! A VERY simple solution just occurred to me - and it worked!

I just tried setting my camera on green mode, and then tried adjusting the jpg processing (as above). The screen tells me "This function is not available in the current mode"!

So there you have it, djam! I am pretty sure your processing settings outside of green mode are different.

Just a blind attempt at a fix, it might work: Try leaving green mode, then follow the three steps in my post above, and set your processing setting to "vibrant". Do you like the JPGs in RAW+ better now?

[TheOneAndOnlyJH]

How would one go about changing in camera jpeg settings? Not trying to hijack the thread here, but it's never even occurred to me that was possible. (I shoot with a K20, if that makes a difference)

Changing color profiles (hexagon/square icon on 4-way buttons) is one way to change jpeg settings. I prefer Neutral since it seems the most balanced and closes to what my eyes see most times. (Not ALL times, MOST times, and that's my opinion. You may find another color profile works better in different situations.)

You can also go into your camera settings (via the MENU button) and adjust sharpening and contrast settings, as well as lens corrections (distortion, vignetting, etc.) for supported lenses (Pentax DA / DA* and a few others).

You could always sit and read the manual, but I find it works better when I read through the menus in camera and look up ones I'm not sure of in the manual since most of them are self explanatory.

[krsto]

One more thing to keep in mind is that you can download some codecs and software that "views" the raw, but it actually makes a mistake. I don't know why, but it happens surprisingly often. The problem with these things is that they only show you the "preview jpeg thumbnail" which is embedded in the raw file. This jpeg is usually smaller and of lower quality and the software will enlarge it and display it.

The problem might be in the DNG file layout Pentax produces. Take a look on it (taken from K-3):

Code:

@0x0025860=153696  :  Start of TIFF RGB uncompressed reduced-resolution image [160x120] length 57600 (IFD 0)
-0x003395f=211295  :    End of TIFF reduced-resolution image data
@0x0033960=211296  :  Start of JPEG CFA lossless seq Huffman primary image [6080x4032] length 28360459 (IFD 0 SubIFD 0)
-0x1b3f86a=28571754:    End of JPEG primary image data
@0x1b3f880=28571776:  Start of JPEG YCBCR baseline DCT compressed reduced-resolution image [6016x4000] length 2977518 (IFD 0 SubIFD 1)
-0x1e1676d=31549293:    End of JPEG reduced-resolution image data

There are two thumbnails there and the second one looks to me the same as the JPG file camera writes but it seems to be much more compressed. And my image browser happens to choose the second one. I guess both are there for the purpose of in-camera preview.

Only at ISO below some 1250. Noise reduction, which can't be turned off, cuts in above that even in RAW.

I remember some slight offsets beginning at ISO 1600 on dynamic range charts of K3 in some online camera test. I thought it was the threshold at which an analogue gain is applied. If it is just a tricky noise reduction, as you say, then I am a bit disappointed.

[djam]

https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/attachments/6-pentax-dslr-discussion/294535d1452568037-jpeg-less-noise-sharper-than-raw-imgp1071.jpg

---------- Post added 01-11-16 at 09:21 PM ----------

I redid my test this evening and used a tripod instead of hand holding and result seemed not to be as bad this time, however having applied the same adjustments in lightroom I would still expect the RAW file to be much better, but to my eye it isn't. The top photo is the auto mode JPEG. The middle pic is the "RAW" file from manual, and the bottom pic is the jpeg from manual mode. Again I must say that these aren't nearly as troubling as the pics I took last night hand held.So, what do others think? Shouldn't the pic from the RAW file be much cleaner and sharper than the JPEG with identical post processing adjustments?

[clackers]

[ Shouldn't the pic from the RAW file be much cleaner and sharper than the JPEG with identical post processing adjustments?

You seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding.

The JPEG has *already* been cleaned and sharpened.

It waa made *from* the RAW by your camera.

[MetteHHH]

You seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding.

The JPEG has *already* been cleaned and sharpened.

It waa made *from* the RAW by your camera.

True. djam, RAW is not a "superior" format. It simply allows you to process according to your own taste.

Think of it this way: Your top image is a pizza from Domino's. The unprocessed RAW file is a basket of durum flour, tomato sauce, oregano, cheese and a cookbook preview of a pizza. The JPG you export from Lightroom after processing your RAW is the pizza you chose to bake by yourself.

You might compare your homemade pizza with the ready-made one, but you can't look at the ingredients and cookbook preview and blame it for not tasting like pizza. If you compare picture 1 and picture 3 above, you can discuss if they used the same recipe for processing (seems we have learned that they don't, usually)

RAW files give you the opportunity to cook yourself - nothing more. All pictures from a camera begin with a RAW file, and they all need processing to become finished images.

[T Evergreen]

As others have said, it's likely that there are differences in the JPG settings the camera is making in Green mode vs. your settings in manual mode. You could check if this is indeed the case by loading those JPGs into PDCU and comparing the EXIF settings for each JPG.

I did notice that when I tried opening a folder in PDCU that contained RAW+ photos, only the DNG versions were available for viewing/editing. If you want to view/edit the JPG versions, you need to move the JPGs to a new folder and then the JPGs will open in PDCU.

[osv]

True. djam, RAW is not a "superior" format. It simply allows you to process according to your own taste.

that is not true, raw is definitely a superior format over jpeg:

"However, raw has numerous advantages over JPEG such as:
Many more shades of colors compared to JPEG files - raw files have 12 or 14 bits of intensity information per channel (4096-16384 shades), compared to JPEG's gamma-compressed 8 bits (256 shades).
Higher image quality. Because all the calculations (such as applying gamma correction, demosaicing, white balance, brightness, contrast, etc...) used to generate pixel values (in RGB format for most images) are performed in one step on the base data, the resultant pixel values will be more accurate and exhibit less posterization.
Bypassing of undesired steps in the camera's processing, including sharpening and noise reduction
JPEG images are typically saved using a lossy compression format (though a lossless JPEG compression is now available). Raw formats typically use lossless compression or high-quality lossy compression.
Finer control. Raw conversion software allows users to manipulate more parameters (such as lightness, white balance, hue, saturation, etc...) and do so with greater variability. For example, the white point can be set to any value, not just discrete preset values like "daylight" or "incandescent". Furthermore, the user can typically see a preview while adjusting these parameters.
The colour space can be set to whatever is desired.
Different demosaicing algorithms can be used, not just the one coded into the camera.
The contents of raw files include more information, and potentially higher quality, than the converted results, in which the rendering parameters are fixed, the colour gamut is clipped, and there may be quantization and compression artifacts.
Large transformations of the data, such as increasing the exposure of a dramatically under-exposed photo, result in fewer visible artifacts when done from raw data than when done from already rendered image files. Raw data leave more scope for both corrections and artistic manipulations, without resulting in images with visible flaws such as posterization.
All the changes made on a raw image file are non-destructive; that is, only the metadata that controls the rendering is changed to make different output versions, leaving the original data unchanged.
To some extent, raw-format photography eliminates the need to use the HDRI technique, allowing a much better control over the mapping of the scene intensity range into the output tonal range, compared to the process of automatically mapping to JPEG or other 8-bit representation."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raw_image_format

point being, you can't take an in-camera jpeg and edit it, and expect to get the same pq as you would if you started off with the raw file.

[Adam]

Thanks everyone. When I get home from work tonight I will upload some pictures to show you what I mean. Many of you understood what I was saying which is that the green mode created JPEG is much sharper and less noisy than the manual mode raw and jpeg at the EXACT same exposure settings, focal distance, etc, and no amount of post process work would ever be able to get the RAW file as sharp and noiseless. It is almost as if the pixel sensors were much better calibrated and responsive in green mode.

Could be a combination of custom image settings, noise reduction, and possibly shadow/highlight corrections. Let's see the photos and we'll know!

[MetteHHH]

that is not true, raw is definitely a superior format over jpeg:
.

That would depend entirely what you mean by "superior".

I think my pizza-analogy above makes a great lot of sense: A nice bag of quality ingredients makes a horrible pizza in the wrong hands. RAW has potential that JPG does not, but what you get out will depend on how you handle that potential.

If you read the thread, the OP was surprised that his RAW-file image was not inherently superior to the JPG image: This confusion stems from people praising the RAW format indiscriminately. I shoot RAW because I like to post process: If you don't like post processing, then JPG is the superior format in terms of "which format will give me the best looking picture?".