[simico]

The idea that a "proper" exposure makes it possible to someone have complete detail in both shadows and highlights all the time is just ludicrous.

Proper exposure doesn't mean that. And you're always sacrificing something, it's not like raw magically allowed you to capture the infinite number of different tones - which isn't needed at all.

By the way, by pushing shadows or pulling highlights you lose just as much info, just from different tones. Letting the highlights clip or save the highlights by discarding lower tones - both means losing data. And it's not like you can recover huge amounts of detail... RAW isn't a magic tool, it just gives you a bit more possibility.

And those who just batch-convert all their raw files with exactly the same preset: lol, that ain't better than shooting jpg.

I dont care if people shoot their tourist snapshots all the time in raw, it's their decision. Everybody can do his ptohotgraphy as he wants. Just don't try to convert everyone with "you must shoot raw or else you're doomed" crap.

[kittykat46]

And those who just batch-convert all their raw files with exactly the same preset: lol, that ain't better than shooting jpg.

....... Just don't try to convert everyone with "you must shoot raw or else you're doomed" crap.

Not true. You batch process them, and you can stil review whether you like the photos as it came out.
With JPEG, any PP you make will likely cost you in Image Quality. With RAW, you can still go back to alter some of the images if you wish to.

Not trying to convert everyone. Just trying to spread a lesson I personally learnt - if the very best image quality is what you are looking for from your shots, RAW gives you more room to play with.

[Rondec]

I agree that it would be silly to batch all of your files with the same preset, but it really doesn't take very long to get your settings the way you want them. I would say twenty to twenty-five seconds a piece. I use Noiseware (add on for Adobe) for noise reduction after I develop Jpegs -- agree that Adobe's noise reduction is pretty worthless.

It's funny to me how rabid people on both sides of the fence are with regard to the RAW versus Jpeg arguments. Maybe it's just a slow time on the forum, but it really doesn't matter that much. I would just say that if I shot Jpeg, I would spend at least as much time with each photo, I just think that some things would be more difficult for me.

[jsherman999]

Workflow, workflow. You sound like a product photographer of amazon.com, Wondering how many photos are you taking and processing in a month buddy, Thousands ? Or are we dealing with mother of all lazyness here?

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As the father of a two-year old who has a pregnant wife in the third trimester (read: I do most household chores/cooking right now also) who also often works weekends, I'd answer: lazy? Not really. Just forcibly re-prioritized.

But even if I had all the time in the world, I like to be efficient - I'm a systems programmer, and have developed a raw workflow on linux with ufraw and some utilities that was as fast as anything, but it just didn't give me any advantages over the in-camera jpegs 90% of the time. Same with my Lightroom workflow.

And, yes, I can easily shoot 1000+ shots in a month. I think most people here can. A casual walkabout shoot? 250 images easily. A sporting event or family gathering? 500 shots, easy. A concert in dim lighting? Maybe 25 shots, and a good candidate for raw because of weird lighting.

Also, I think Marc asked what I meant by 'throughput' - and I mean everything. Card read/write, frame rate, download, backup, transfer between external storage, etc. It's all just slightly annoying to me, and it wouldn't be if the images were noticeably better.

It's as if I turned a knob on my camera down to "75% performance, with no real IQ advantage 90% of the time!". I think I'd disable such a button if it existed.

[jsherman999]

And those who just batch-convert all their raw files with exactly the same preset: lol, that ain't better than shooting jpg.

I dont care if people shoot their tourist snapshots all the time in raw, it's their decision. Everybody can do his ptohotgraphy as he wants. Just don't try to convert everyone with "you must shoot raw or else you're doomed" crap.

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In ACR's case, if you're shooting PEF, batch conversion actually produces worse results than if you just shot jpeg with preferred in-camera settings, because iirc ACR will not read the embedded profile in the PEF and will try to apply it's own guestimated presets, which can end up either dull or garish.

I think it will read the profile from a DNG, in which case a batch conversion will give you exactly the same quality as in-camera jpegs - but at least not worse.

That's why if you want to shoot raw only, spend a few weeks or months shooting raw+ with the jpeg settings tweaked nicely, do your batch conversions, and then compare the converted results to the jpegs. Keep tweaking your batch conversion until it matches the jpeg quality - then you're good to go. Most of the time. You should shoot raw+ every once in a while to make sure you are not missing quality, especially after a software upgrade.

If you insist on ignoring jpegs, at least use them as a comparison tool to make sure your conversion methods don't suck more than they need to.

There, that's my advice for the weekend. I'm sorry, but I have to insist that everyone take it and report back here with results.




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[Marc Sabatella]

Maybe you have a very good raw workflow that guarantees that in good lighting, your workflow provides output as good as in-camera jpegs on the K20D (or K-7.)

My workflow is such that whether I shoot RAW or JPEG, the results are pretty much the same. I actually rather prefer the default conversion from ACDSee over the in-camera JPEG from my K200D more often than not, but the differences are small and completely subjective. But more importantly, there is absolutely no difference whatsoever in the amount of work required. So in the cases where I don't wish to do PP, there is no difference at all between JPEG and RAW from my perspective - no advantage one way or the other. In the cases where I *do* wish to PP, there is again no difference whatsoever in amount of effort required, but "sometimes" RAW gives me an advantage in quality. So again, there is absolutely no respect whatsoever in which JPEG provides even the slightest advantage over RAW for me in either quality or effort, but there *is* a respect in which RAW wins on quality. If I ever found an advantage to shooting JPEG, maybe I'd find it worth the extra second it takes to press the RAW button to switch to JPEG in camera, but already, that's more work than it's worth to me.

I hope you'd agree that my results are not horrid

Understatement of the year! Again, I am not one claiming any sort of quality advantage to RAW except when doing major color or exposure / tone curve adjustments (which I have to do a lot fo in my concert photography). I'm just trying to get people to not think of RAW as being more work, because it need not be.

My main concern here is not to get raw-exclusive shooters to change, it's to stop them from giving this advice to people: unless you shoot raw all the time, you're not going to get very good results, or if you do, it's just by accident.

And I think you'll see I've never given any such advice. Indeed, I generally am jumping in taking issue with claims that merely shooting RAW gives you better quality when not doing PP, and on more than one occasion have pointed out flaws in workflows that end up nullifying the advantages that RAW *could* provide. BTW, my impression is that using Picasa is one of those "flaws" - it does not actually do true RAW processing, but instead applies all adjustments *post* conversion. So it would indeed be difficult if not to see any advantage from RAW with Picasa, if my understanding is correct.

Anyhow, my point with respect to RAW is that with the right software & workflow, it costs nothing extra to do so. But whether or not there is any *advantage* depends entirely on how often you find yourself doing the specific type of PP where it does matter.

PS: By the way - you know who has a sub-optimal raw workflow? Ned Bunnell. His blogged images almost always look drab, unsharp, unsatisfying.

I haven't really looked closely enough to say, but overall, I'd agree his images don't impress me as much as yours! On the other hand, I think he is lso trying to walk a fine line between wanting to present images in the best possible light, and wanting to present images that the general public will perceive as not being due to advantageous processing - by presenting default ACR conversions for the most part, he is establish a decent baseline for comparison. But given that he isn't really doing controlled testing, just showing off images, I'd agree they could stand some punching up...

[Marc Sabatella]

Proper exposure doesn't mean that. And you're always sacrificing something, it's not like raw magically allowed you to capture the infinite number of different tones - which isn't needed at all.

True. I said with RAW you sacrifice *less* in the cases where you want to control this aspect of dynamic range - I did not say you sacrifice nothing, nor did I say this is always an important consideration.

And those who just batch-convert all their raw files with exactly the same preset: lol, that ain't better than shooting jpg.

True! Which is why when someone shoots a batch of images RAW, does a batch conversion, then wonders why they didn't see any improvement, I'm usually one of the first to chime in point this out.

Just don't try to convert everyone with "you must shoot raw or else you're doomed" crap.

Here you must be referring to someone else; that's never been my claim.