[zxaar]

You and your JPG shooting mates are also suggesting that every image you shoot ... every one, is just right with EXACTLY the same amount of sharpening, contrast and saturation, not to mention the exact same exposure for each colour channel.

i am at least not in that category.
I process from jpegs too.

[Rondec]

I guess I would say that if you do absolutely no postprocessing then you are saving time by shooting Jpeg, but I do a little bit of post processing on every image I take, even if it is just deleting the image. A little sharpening here, cropping there and I find it an awful lot easier to do all of this in ACR than to open jpegs and edit them separately.

There is certainly no problem shooting jpeg, but in particular for high iso situations or strange white balance ones, RAW is a life saver.

[eyou]

That being said, one of my best shots this year was done using the in-camera RAW conversion (essentially the same as shooting JPEG) with the image tone, sharpness and saturation bumped a notch or two.
Steve

what is in camera raw conversion? how does it differ from shooting JPEG? I love your shots btw.

[Alfisti]

what is in camera raw conversion? how does it differ from shooting JPEG? I love your shots btw.

I would assume it doe snot differ and it's there if you shoot RAW but say a friend asks for a picture and you need a jpg file asap.

[stevebrot]

what is in camera raw conversion? how does it differ from shooting JPEG? I love your shots btw.

These steps refer to my K10D. Other models may differ in the fine points...

1. While in playback mode, push the Fn button
2. RAW images will have the option "RAW --> JPEG". Select the down arrow to enter the develop RAW mode and push OK to continue.
3. If you are willing to accept the default settings, skip this step. You may edit quality level, image tone, sharpening, etc. by pushing the Fn button and stepping through each setting using the directional control.
4. Click OK to save the converted image. Select "Save as" to confirm. A new JPEG file will be added to the end of the image queue.

It is a bit confusing to do the first time around, but pretty cool once you get the hang of it.

Steve

(Thanks for the kind words regarding the photo )

[stevebrot]

In case anyone is interested, this article at Luminous Landscape is one of the best I have found for explaining RAW vs. JPEG and the advantages/disadvantages of each.

Understanding RAW Files Explained

Of particular interest to me are the sections discussing white balance and image bit depth in regards to highlight/shadow recovery. One might also want to note that resolution of detail is not a major differentiating factor assuming a full resolution JPEG with minimal compression.

Steve

[simico]

I tried to duplicate the results in Lightroom, but was unable. Go figure...

That's normal. The cam manufacturer has the best knowledge how to process the raw data. Third parties usually have to reverse engineer the raw files and this process, so it never will be the same as what the cam (or the bundled factory raw converter) does. Not to mention every third party app use a bit different processing (different curves, profiles, etc, to the liking of the authors).
Last weekend I checked some raw+jpeg files from an autumn hiking just for fun (and to compare raw developer apps) and in every raw developer app (Lightroom, Bibble, RawTherapee, Lightzone, etc) the purple/violet color of the flowers became pale blue!! After playing with all the settings none of them could give the same result as the out-of-cam jpeg or Pentax DCU. Some of them couldn't even come close.

By the way, I don't understand why someone cares what format others shoot. Shooting jpeg, tiff or raw is everybody's own business. Everybody should mind his own business imho.

[flockofbirds]

I usually shoot jpeg, as I am comfortable with post processing my shots with available adjustment layers/tools in photoshop. But I have been doing RAW more often lately.

[justinr]

The two major adjustments that can be done in RAW and not JPEG are White Balance and Exposure correction. If you have these two right then JPEG's should be fine although if enlarging for prints I still feel that the 'lossless' RAW or TIFF formats are the better bet, just don't ask me to prove that scientifically!

Justin.

[Lowell Goudge]

The two major adjustments that can be done in RAW and not JPEG are White Balance and Exposure correction. If you have these two right then JPEG's should be fine although if enlarging for prints I still feel that the 'lossless' RAW or TIFF formats are the better bet, just don't ask me to prove that scientifically!

Justin.

and here lies the myth of it all.

You can do both wight balance and exposure correction on JPEG, white balance is especially easy, where you are dealing with mostly mid tones and there is still good data in the image,

Exposure correction is a little harder, specifically when you blow the exposure by 2-3 stps, but then even a raw image is still garbage (in my opinion)

remember, the biggest difference between raw and JPEG is 8 bit vs 12 bit color.

You can still do the corrections, and get good images, just not quite as fine an adjustment as in raw.

But then both of these are not issues with fine adjustment but more often gross errors

[justinr]

Just as a matter of interest how would you go about alering these two variables in a JPEG? I must admit that this is the first reference I have seen to it being possible.

Justin.

[Lowell Goudge]

Just as a matter of interest how would you go about alering these two variables in a JPEG? I must admit that this is the first reference I have seen to it being possible.

Justin.

the same way you do with raw images.

Note my comments are based on using PSP X2 other programs may differ in command name but not function

to get instant fix of WB issues, you select ADJUST the Color Balance

this lets you pick a point that is any shade of grey from pure black to pure wight and it adjsuts the color levels to make that the color

you can then adjust color temperature to make it warmer or cooler to your liking

for exposure it is simply adjusting the histogram curve like in raw.

the only difference is that you are , as raw pruists will point out, working only on the origonal jpeg subset of the full 12 bit data, therefore if you have a big adjustment to make, you may not be able to do it as well, but as I said, in my opinion, of you are that far off, you really blew the shot.

[B Grace]

You folks must be careful throwing the name "Polaroid" around. If you mean the pro-grade stuff then it's cool but if you're thinking of the quality of images my mother always got with her One Step you're convincing a whole generation to never shoot JPG!

Speaking of film, most folks simply picked a film that was easy to find, shoot, and drop off at the drug store for prints. Some folks pulled or pushed their pro-grade film, processed it themselves, and printed it themselves to get exactly what they wanted. It's all been done before.

So, anyway, the JPG format is a compressed "lossy" format meaning data is lost in the efforts of producing reduced-size files. Some folks like listening to their 10,000 songs on their iPods whereas I'm considering one of the current Blu-Ray players that can up-convert CD's to high-res and "round off the corners". If you shoot snapshots, PJ work, or work under ideal conditions use JPG. If you are a pro or artist and have total image quality at the top of your list, and your printing workflow is extremely important here, shoot RAW.

I shoot JPG (easy) for my wife and family and RAW (powerful) when it's just for me.

[Alfisti]

Sure you can tweak a JPG file but why the hell would you when you could tweak the raw file instead? There is way less head room, particularly in greens and reds.

I just can't understand why you'd shoot jpg if you are going to touch the file??? It's MORE work than shooting RAW because the jpg has already been saved once and you now need to create a duplicate etc etc etc ..... it's way easier to just open LR, make the changes and press 'export'.

The argument is the storage space but really, a 1TB external HD is $75.

Regarding the colour issue someone mentioned above, ar eyou using ACR 4.4 or Camera Standard? I find Camera Standard gets pretty dang close.

[justinr]

the same way you do with raw images.

Note my comments are based on using PSP X2 other programs may differ in command name but not function

to get instant fix of WB issues, you select ADJUST the Color Balance

this lets you pick a point that is any shade of grey from pure black to pure wight and it adjsuts the color levels to make that the color

you can then adjust color temperature to make it warmer or cooler to your liking

for exposure it is simply adjusting the histogram curve like in raw.

the only difference is that you are , as raw pruists will point out, working only on the origonal jpeg subset of the full 12 bit data, therefore if you have a big adjustment to make, you may not be able to do it as well, but as I said, in my opinion, of you are that far off, you really blew the shot.

the same way you do with raw images.

Note my comments are based on using PSP X2 other programs may differ in command name but not function

to get instant fix of WB issues, you select ADJUST the Color Balance

this lets you pick a point that is any shade of grey from pure black to pure wight and it adjsuts the color levels to make that the color

you can then adjust color temperature to make it warmer or cooler to your liking

for exposure it is simply adjusting the histogram curve like in raw.

the only difference is that you are , as raw pruists will point out, working only on the origonal jpeg subset of the full 12 bit data, therefore if you have a big adjustment to make, you may not be able to do it as well, but as I said, in my opinion, of you are that far off, you really blew the shot.

I can't say that I'm totally convinced here. The trouble with a jpeg is that you are only recording a final interpretation of what the camera sees, not the actual information itself. This may be quite adequate for a lot of purposes but if we really want to obtain the best out of a file then it must be a bonus to have access to all the information recorded. With a JPEG we have 256 brightness levels with a 16bit RAW its 65,500 levels and because these are not spread evenly over the dynamic range it means that tones can get very jerky at the darker end of things in the compressed file. Having this depth of information also allows more detail to be pulled out of the highlights as well and I have an example here-



The highlights may look burnt out in this JPEG but it prints fine from the TIFF.

As for the white balance then the article on the LL site mentioned above has this to say-

— Raw files have not had while balance set. They are tagged with whatever the camera's setting was, (either that which was manually set or via auto-white-balance), but the actual data has not been changed. This allows one to set any colour temperature and white balance one wishes after the fact with no image degradation. It should be understood that once the file has been converted from the linear space and has had a gamma curve applied (such as in a JPG) white balance can no longer be properly done.

I run Photoshop CS and I can't seem to adjust the colour balance by the method you suggest, and messing about with various colour balances and levels has never bought me any joy in the past. However, a few simple adjustments in the cameras own editing software usually brings satisfactory results. I've also noticed that with in Pentax Photo Lab making a small change to exposure results in better skin tones before touching white balance.

RAW v JPEG. It's horses for courses at the end of the day.

Justin.