jackpinoh Loc: Kettering, OH 45419

JPEG is 8 bits. Raw is 12 - 14 bits. Raw provides 16-64 times as much information. If you process a JPEG file, it is further compressed when you save it and likely to show artifacts that degrade the image. Raw files are much better for post processing.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

It all depends on your knowledge, needs, and circumstances.

Raw files (they're NOT images) are simply digitized data from the sensor. They're like exposed, UN-processed film. You have to process them, and the WAYS you process them into finished images are what set them apart.

JPEG files are processed in the camera, based on exposure, the menu settings YOU CHOOSE (or ignore!), and gradations of those settings established by the manufacturer. You can achieve quite nice results, if you know what you are doing, or you can make unrecoverable mistakes, if you don't.

Yes, for optimal quality, record raw images and post-process them in software. Then bake JPEGs that look their best, using the custom settings in the software.

To do this properly requires a computer, a quality monitor that is calibrated and ICC profiled ONLY by use of a hardware device and its associated software, and some sort of software that can read your raw files.

You can, of course, make all sorts of compromises and do it half-way...

kymarto Loc: Portland OR and Milan Italy

Processing raw images is not rocket science. Generally speaking, you get as good or better a standard jpg than SOOC by simply using default settings in Lightroom. If you learn just a tiny bit about nothing but the sliders on the basic settings tab you can highly improve almost all images in a matter of seconds. Why people who call themselves photographers are resistant to learning the basics of the art after clicking the shutter is beyond me.

chuck A7R3

No editing s/w with cam but it can shoot and save RAW and jpeg simultaneously.

davyboy Loc: Anoka Mn.

You don’t think he can ever and ever be happy with the jpegs out of one of the worlds best cameras? You will say but they could be so much better, but the jpegs blow his mind friends and family think they are breathtaking! Still not enough?

chuck A7R3

That’s been my conclusion as well.

chuck A7R3

What editing s/w do you use?

maxiu9

Do you already get satisfying pictures out of your camera in JPEG? Are your pictures just for you and your family and friends? If "yes" to both of these questions, then keep shooting JPEG. Why not?

Lots of people split the difference and shoot different formats to different cards.

olemikey Loc: 6 mile creek, Spacecoast Florida

We've all danced to this subject in other posts. It is a personal choice (not right or wrong), and if the shooter is happy, and the viewers are happy, then happy rules the day! I imagine that the JPEG's produced by that 42 MP camera are stunning (SOOC shot correctly), but would love to play with it for a couple days and see what it can do with all of that data. The processed files would probably be pretty large though, I know my 16, 20 and 24 MP files can grow quite large during processing, especially if I'm not throwing away any pixels.

Those who don't want to PP; it is just like sending your exposed film to the drugstore (lab of your choice) to get your pics, only this time you are just looking at them on a big TV or a monitor, and if it makes you happy, then it works! Granted, you have as much processing power built in to some current cameras as they had processing power onboard our early space vehicles, and that JPEG is the result of many algorithm's doing their thing. To each their own!

As the young folks say "it's all good"!!

olemikey Loc: 6 mile creek, Spacecoast Florida

Quick tip - Use "Quote reply" so we know who you are directing the question to (unless to all).

Editing software, several great choices, many really good ones. If you want to "get your feet wet, with little pain" try one of the free downloads and play around with it for a while. There is a section of the forum devoted to PP, and those folks like to share and help too. Sony proprietary PP should be available on a download from Sony, and there are others. I'll defer to the PP experts as to which to start out.

Good luck with PP if you try it, I enjoy it, but not all do.

Joexx

Fyi, not needed. RAW has an embedded jpg image for viewing. Also, you can view RAW files in windows. You may not even need to separately download ACR. Windows has thu built in capability. I use Nikon. I can view all my RAW files on my laptop. I have not added any additional software. Of course, the image I see is just the default translation of the RAW data, but useful for preliminary viewing.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Davy, whether or not JPEG is enough depends on dozens and dozens of situation-dependent factors.

As a long time, sometime pro (photography is part of what I do), I have used raw and JPEG 'workflows' for 17 years. Each has an appropriate application. There are times when raw capture is just not an option. There are times when JPEG capture would be a huge mistake.

Top professionals don't care... they use the right tools for the job. If that tool is a JPEG workflow, or a raw workflow, so be it. We have strategies for using both.

In the amateur world, I would argue, along with photo-educator, Will Crockett, that 'raw is for rookies.' By that I mean simply that if you have the tools and time, it is easier and safer to use a raw workflow to make good images while you are learning. There is far more latitude for exposure and white balance errors, so if you fail to get those right at the camera, you can often correct them in post-processing.

Getting PROFESSIONAL results with a JPEG workflow requires a lot of knowledge, experience, testing, and discipline. You have to know each menu feature of your camera, and its effect on the out-of-camera JPEG file. You have to understand metering, exposure, light and lighting, color balance, and white balance. Of course, knowing all those things when working with raw files helps a lot, too! But it isn't quite as critical.

Those of us who learn photography as an 'end to end' discipline become highly proficient very quickly. In the film era, if you did all your own darkroom work, you learned quickly what to do at the camera to minimize your work in the dark! That led to discipline that many photographers who always relied upon commercial labs never had.

I know that, because I managed many departments in a commercial lab and trained portrait photographers who worked for that company. Since we used a color negative film which had +3, -2 stops of exposure latitude, our photographers got VERY sloppy with exposure. In fact, most of them had no idea how to achieve proper exposure! On the other hand, as a former multi-image producer who had spent a decade working almost exclusively with slide film, I had learned proper exposure strategies as necessary evils. Slide films had about +1/3, -2/3 of a stop of latitude. Miss exposure, and the slide goes in the trash can!

Coincidentally, JPEG capture offers a similar latitude of about +1/3, -2/3 of a stop of latitude. Outside that range of exposure, quality falls off rapidly, as highlights blow out, or shadows plug up and posterization occurs from over-compensation in post-processing.

So... In that context, learning the discipline required to make excellent JPEGs in a variety of situations can IMPROVE the quality of your raw files, as well. That's why I encourage new photographers to record JPEG Fine plus Large raw files, at least some of the time, for post-processing comparison. You learn a LOT about your behavior at the camera from that strategy.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

It depends on the editor that you use to print the RAW image. It will be converted to a printable form. Don't know what that may be as the editor may create a printable file, possibly unlike a JPEG, possibly a JPEG.
It depends on the vehicle you use to do the printing and how it handles the print request. How it creates the datanecessary for the printer to understand.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

True, but I can view the JPEG in Windows Explorer without opening an editor.
Which is what I do. The fact that there is an embedded JPEG in the RAW file makes no difference to me.
I do not have added software that will allow viewing a Canon RAW file in Windows, don't need it.
I just use Windows for preliminary viewing, then if I want to work on it I double-click the .CR2 file and it opens in DPP.

saxman71 Loc: Wenatchee, WA

Chuck - you wrote this: "I’m not a pro and do not have high end editing software. On trips to Antarctica and the Greek Isles the jpeg format using highest res settings seems great but do I get much more shooting RAW?" My question: Can I come with you? I'll teach you how to edit a RAW file in Photoshop. Clearly, it's not the $10/mo. that's preventing you from learning how. It's just that you don't have enough time as you travel the globe.