Professionals (and the confident) shoot JPEG; amateurs shoot RAW ...

[weltweit]

I would never dream of doing a job to jpeg only.
My re toucher would never work with me again either.

I think it depends a lot on your application.

I am an amateur photographer, for me the maximum output is 10x15 inch prints, for that I find 6mp 2.5mb jpeg files are fine.

I have shot product images for money and they were in a controlled light environment so I did those in jpeg also..

I accept that were I shooting for money, and had a retoucher, then it would make sense to shoot the apparent maximum quality my camera could take which would be 12mp raw RAF files.

But for me, as an amateur, the file sizes etc are too large.

 

[Meltingpot]

GIMP's biggest problem is the menu layout. It can take ages trying to find any particular feature that you want.

 

[editor]

A jpg (even if saved at highest quality) has already lost some detail. Plus (as I already said), it has already been sharpened, tone curved etc. So you just don't have the same latitude as you do with RAW.

But if you got the exposure and WB right at the beginning, the difference would be negligible for most end uses.

I usually shoot in JPEG because, frankly, I can't be arsed to fuck about with RAW afterwards. I'll use RAW if I think the occasion demands it, but I've sold loads of JPG-only photos so it's not really a deal breaker for my needs (some pros shoot JPGs too).

Most people will never notice the difference for regular work, so it's a matter of personal preference.

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/readflat.asp?forum=1014&message=17701041&changemode=1

 

[Structaural]

My camera is too slow saving DNG to use muchly. It's more geared up for JPEG anyway being a bit of a novelty camera.

A good suggestion when modifying colour curves etc.. in Photoshop is to convert the 8-bit JPEG immediately to 16-bit colour (and save as PSD), then the compression of the 256 colour space doesn't happen (as it's increased to 65535 or so) - effectlvely giving you pseudo-RAW. Convert back to 8-bit and save out a JPEG when printing.. or if finished convert back to 8-bit saving a load of space.

 

[weltweit]

My Fuji Finepix S2 will produce

6mp jpeg at about 2.5mb
12mp jpeg at about 4.8mb
12mp tif at about 35.6mb

 

[teuchter]

RAW gives you a little more range than jpg.

How much more?

Surely the range of values a camera can capture depends on the sensor, not the file type?

As for the camera doing stuff to the image (sharpening etc) - can't you turn all that off but still save to jpg?

Sharpening, for example, isn't an intrinsic part of making something into a jpg.


(I post partly from a position of ignorance, as I've never owned a digital camera that does RAW. I've never quite got what it's all about. In any case I maintain that the no. 1 determining factor in the quality of a photo is the person who presses the button.)

 

[wolfism]

Cheers everyone for your thoughts - as you could tell from my original post, as I've tried both, starting to come down on the side of JPEG, but sometimes RAW *appears* to give a little more latitude.

 

[Blagsta]

How much more?

Surely the range of values a camera can capture depends on the sensor, not the file type?

As for the camera doing stuff to the image (sharpening etc) - can't you turn all that off but still save to jpg?

Sharpening, for example, isn't an intrinsic part of making something into a jpg.


(I post partly from a position of ignorance, as I've never owned a digital camera that does RAW. I've never quite got what it's all about. In any case I maintain that the no. 1 determining factor in the quality of a photo is the person who presses the button.)

Actually sharpening is an intrinsic part of what your camera does when it makes a jpg.

 

[paolo]

Actually sharpening is an intrinsic part of what your camera does when it makes a jpg.

It's not intrinsic. You can turn it off.

 

[spitfire]

Mine (D40) shoots RAW and JPEG at the same time, best of both worlds I would have thought?

 

[paolo]

Mine (D40) shoots RAW and JPEG at the same time, best of both worlds I would have thought?

Depends. For live action shooting, RAW can mean losing the killer shot due to much quicker buffer fill. A JPEG is of measurably superior quality to a RAW that doesn't exist

 

[spitfire]

Interesting, how much difference do you think it makes, or does it depend on the memory card?

 

[teuchter]

Actually sharpening is an intrinsic part of what your camera does when it makes a jpg.

Are you sure? Not according to this -

Regardless of camera setting, RAW files don't receive in-camera sharpening. The setting is however contained in EXIF data, and as somebody alluded to earlier in this string, some software automatically uses the EXIF data to apply sharpening upon import. Regarding your last question, yes you can turn camera sharpening off altogether for JPEG's to allow more accurate control in post-procesing.

http://photo.net/nikon-camera-forum/00OKxf

I imagine different cameras give you varying levels of control, but I don't think that any more sharpening needs to take place to turn the sensor data into a JPEG than into a RAW file.

Even my phone camera allows me to adjust the level of in-camera sharpening - if it can be adjusted then I don't see why it can't be turned off all together (assuming the camera manufacturer provides this option).

 

[paolo]

Interesting, how much difference do you think it makes, or does it depend on the memory card?

Will vary from camera to camera - the manufacturers publish figures for it.

Card speed could make a difference too, unless it's so fast that the bottleneck is the pipeline in the camera.

 

[spitfire]

OK mate, cheers. I'll look into it.

 

[paolo]

Here's the test figures for the 5D Mark II.

RAW stops at 17 images.
JPEG is unlimited.

They used a 300x speed card for the test.

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canoneos5Dmarkii/page14.asp

 

[spitfire]

Thanks for the info paolo, i had a look at the D40 results. Very informative.

 

[weltweit]

I have sharpenning turned off for my camera's jpeg output.


I prefer this also because I often only want to sharpen the key ingredient of the image, not all of it.

 

[boskysquelch]

if you use jpeg then it's in camera(sic) processed.

In computing, JPEG (pronounced /ˈdʒeɪpɛɡ/, JAY-peg) is a commonly used method of compression for photographic images. The degree of compression can be adjusted, allowing a selectable tradeoff between storage size and image quality. JPEG typically achieves 10:1 compression with little perceptible loss in image quality......The JPEG standard specifies both the codec, which defines how an image is compressed into a stream of bytes and decompressed back into an image, and the file format used to contain that stream......The JPEG compression algorithm ....As JPEG is a lossy compression method, which removes information from the image,

I said this a shortwhile ago... "most" people don't give a flying fig...haz camera, take pickees...most pickees don't even see the light of day agin after they've been taken anyways... but if you wish to make(to take advantage) of the most out of the data recorded by your device the greatest proportion of that data(image) will be in RAW...jpeg inherrently...by it very existence removes & dumps.

RAW + jpeg ftw...not withstanding be ruthless about dumping miss-shots/images you'll never use...ever...make every byte count innit.

 

[e19896]

PS & GIMP,...or the like of, are "image" editors..not "photographic" editors...I like using jpegs & RAWs in a photo-editor, then an image editor.

But of the two, PS & GIMP, PS is far superior across the board with finesse & output... GIMP still hasn't got it IMO...and I use the thing 365days a year atm....and it's killing me...meh.

I know what you do mean, a bugger if you come from another perspective ie P.S but it is where i began so have been there from the start so used to the GIMPS little ways, i looked at PS and i was lost to be frank..

 

[paolo]

RAW + jpeg ftw

Yes, except in live action shooting.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

Yes, except in live action shooting.

That test that you posted is fairly impressive though - wanting more than 14 images in a burst would be pretty specialist I would have thought.

I'd still use JPEG though because quite frankly the difference you're going to get in practice is absolutely minimal, unless you're planning to do some sort of immense enlargement.

 

[paolo]

That test that you posted is fairly impressive though - wanting more than 14 images in a burst would be pretty specialist I would have thought.

Sports is the main one. There you really want as many frames as possible (hence the existence of pro 'fast shooters' that have lower resolution, but gain in frame rate). Also maybe wildlife, maybe pap work.

I'd still use JPEG though because quite frankly the difference you're going to get in practice is absolutely minimal

Same.

 

[toggy]

I always shoot RAW and don't experience any bottlenecks in real world day to day use (sandisk III 30mb/s)

JPEG is lossy, RAW is keepy.

I use DPP to view RAW images and output a wireable newsprint quality JPEG in a couple of seconds.

My entire archive is RAW because I can't tell now how an image will be used in the future and I wish to preserve as much image info as possible.

Many picture desks are not set up (clueless) to handle RAW.

 

[cybertect]

I shoot RAW almost exclusively.

Storage is relatively cheap. I don't like throwing away data even if I end up doing barely anything to the photo in Lightroom.

Adjustments to White Balance ware waaay easier and more accurate with RAW and I often shoot under high-pressure sodium lights at night where being able to adjust the WB is a huge benefit if I don't want to be messing with a grey card test for every shot. Even then, being able to recalibrate the colour response of the RAW processor allows me to do things that would be nearly impossible with JPEG, even with ages spent in Photoshop.

 

[Pie 1]

Been processing stuff from Friday's shoot this morning & thought of this thread.
So I processed one of the images as my usual 8 bit tif & as an 8 bit Jpeg as well.
All I've done is process the Leaf MOS files in Leaf capture & both versions had exactly the same amount of basic levels correction in PS & were then saved & opened again.

It's quite noticable that [at 400%] the JPEG on the right has much more pink hue noise than the tif.

Dunno what this test is supossed to prove, if anything, but thought you might be interested

 

[teuchter]

Tiff's not a RAW format though - there is a conversion process from RAW to tiff just like there is to jpg.

So I'm not sure what your test proves either!

 

[cybertect]

Tiff's not a RAW format though - there is a conversion process from RAW to tiff just like there is to jpg.

but TIFF is a lossless storage format, so

a) it crystallises exactly what you get from the RAW conversion engine or after any further modifications.

b) processing the JPEG and saving it results in a different (lower) image quality without any other changes to the process, so it must be the file format that does this.

 

[paolo]

Been processing stuff from Friday's shoot this morning & thought of this thread.
So I processed one of the images as my usual 8 bit tif & as an 8 bit Jpeg as well.
All I've done is process the Leaf MOS files in Leaf capture & both versions had exactly the same amount of basic levels correction in PS & were then saved & opened again.

It's quite noticable that [at 400%] the JPEG on the right has much more pink hue noise than the tif.

Dunno what this test is supossed to prove, if anything, but thought you might be interested

Can't see the difference myself.

Tell you what, take a different bit of the image, then post up 3 samples, unlabelled. Make 2 of them actually the same. Then get people to say which they think is JPEG, and which isn't.

The answers should be fun.

 

[teuchter]

but TIFF is a lossless storage format, so

a) it crystallises exactly what you get from the RAW conversion engine or after any further modifications.

b) processing the JPEG and saving it results in a different (lower) image quality without any other changes to the process, so it must be the file format that does this.

Sure - but I think the main discussion on this thread (and the article in the OP) is whether opening a RAW file on your computer, then doing whatever you want to it, produces a noticeably better result than saving in-camera as jpg (with all sharpening etc turned off, and saving as a high quality jpg rather than a very compressed one) then opening that, and doing what you want to that on your computer.