PHRubin Loc: Nashville TN USA

I'm sorry to disagree. I take many of my photos in "high" jpg (minimum compression) and can easily modify white balance, saturation, contrast, sharpness, tint, saturation, as well as tone curve, level linearity and so on. I do so most of the time.

Ysarex Loc: St. Louis

You can edit a JPEG and change it but there are real limits to what's possible. His statement in an absolute sense is too forceful but it contains some real truth. For example once WB has been set and baked into an RGB file you'll have hell to pay and more and will ultimately fail to edit the JPEG and change the WB just as it could still be easily changed in a raw original. Once the tone curve is applied to the data and the JPEG is converted to 8 bit you'll be able to edit the JPEG but not able to make the kind of changes that remain possible if you have the raw file.

So there's an element of truth to what he said in that you can't get the same result editing a JPEG that you could otherwise get returning to the point before the JPEG was created and making a change there.

edrobinsonjr Loc: Boise, Idaho

Ysarex,
I change the JPEG white balance all the time.

I adjust the tone curves as needed in my JPEGs.

Try it some time with what ever editor you are using.

Ed

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

Something seems to have happened recently that set him off. Looking at his profile he has been here since 2013 and has around 800 posts as of 3pm EST Jan 3rd (54 pages listing them). His posts on Jan 3 take up 7 of those pages (I did not count the posts but using 7/54 I estimate he has produced almost 13% of his total posts in one day. Maybe he's just frustrated by the jpg/raw repetition. Maybe he's locked down and bored. Maybe he has run out of things to photograph.

One quarter of his posts (based on page count) have been since early December, 2020. The halfway point in those 54 pages was in September 2019. I'd say the rate is accelerating.

w00dy4012 Loc: Thalia, East Virginia

Any images?

Xpatch Loc: New York, Antigua, GT.

I don’t think it’s a binary choice as Most cameras can shoot RAW and jpeg simultaneously. So you can do both .
That leaves your three choices or the exposure triangle iso, ss, fstops, for what you shoot.

Xpatch Loc: New York, Antigua, GT.

Interesting

Ysarex Loc: St. Louis

You can edit a JPEG, I've acknowledged that but you can't change baked-in values like WB easily.

Here's a simple example. The light fixture in the hall still has an old CF bulb installed. I set my camera WB to fluorescent thinking that should be about right and took a photo but the colors are a little funky. I put a colorchecker in the scene to make it easy.

The first photo below is the SOOC JPEG.

I also saved a raw file and in the raw file I made one change and set the WB by clicking once with my mouse on the grey square in the colorchecker 3rd from the right. That set the WB correctly and the colorchecker looks correct. I saved that photo and it's the 2nd photo below.

Why don't you show us how easy it is to change the WB in the SOOC JPEG to match the photo with the WB set in raw file? I agree you can change the color of a JPEG. But the OP was also correct that once a WB is baked into the JPEG you're trying to set a different WB on top of that already baked in WB can't recover to the original condition before the JPEG was created and go from there. Good luck.

SOOC JPEG

(Download)

WB set in raw file

(Download)

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

If that's how the camera saw the WB, end of discussion, the camera is right.

On a more serious note, edit and post the WB corrected JPEG where the difference to the RAW may / may not be evident or relevant.

Ysarex Loc: St. Louis

I don't understand what you're asking.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

We agree WB is not fixed in a JPEG and is editable. The scale is different as is the bit-depth of the color data. The issue is whether the results are materially different in just a random investigation / demonstration.

Ysarex Loc: St. Louis

WB is not set in a raw file.
WB is set and baked into a JPEG.

It's simple to set and change the WB in a raw file.
Trying to change the WB in a JPEG that already has the WB set and baked in will not work the same way that it does with changing WB in a raw file. And it will not produce comparable results to changing WB in a raw file. There's a difference between starting from zero and setting WB as opposed to starting from an already baked in value and setting WB.

In that photo one click of the WB sampler on a grey square in the color checker working with the raw file produced accurate colors in the colorchecker -- WB set to neutral. That won't work with an already WB baked-in JPEG.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

Unfortunately, when you go off the rails on the other side of the road, it really doesn't help either ... You can edit the WB of the JPEG to be acceptable. It may not match 1 to 1 to a RAW edit of the same image, but your RAW in this example seems to be more different than just the WB between the two files. There's certainly more work effort than clicking a color swatch to fix the JPEG WB in this example, but certainly not anything impossible nor particularly difficult.

The photographer / digital editor has to judge how / if the WB of their JPEGs reaches their desired look for their finished result. In a larger sense, they have to decide if their efforts in setting the camera for WB is efficient and effective, and whether editing the results is both efficient and effective to their needs in relation to other options, including capturing and editing in RAW.

Ysarex Loc: St. Louis

I used Adobe ACR, opened the raw file clicked with the WB sampler and saved the JPEG. The only difference would be in Adobe's default open of the raw file matching the JPEG.

I don't agree. Assume the goal is just a reasonably close colorchecker -- it will be very difficult.

The OP made a point and I think it has some validity. Before the JPEG is created you have a state in the raw file that will allow you to produce X, Y, Z in the final image. If the JPEG is created and deviates from X, Y, Z you can't return to the state before X, Y, Z using the JPEG and you can't necessarily or easily get to X, Y, Z from the JPEG.

You can still edit the JPEG but if you try and edit the first of those photos I posted you'll only succeed in getting that colorchecker close to correct if you start selecting each individual color swatch and editing each one separately and I would call that difficult as well as a real PIA.

JBRIII

These discussions always seem to draw blood at some point by someone who seems offended or an ego problem over someone else doing it differently.

That said, it seems to me that:
1. Many of the arguments come down to different types/uses for photography. For example, for solar photography, other than maybe eclipses, the rule is monochrome as the use of filters makes for false colors or limited color ranges. For deep sky photography, many, many use monochrome and filter wheels, with processing taking longer (much longer) than the data collection. For many (most) good astro photos, a one shot set of settings is simply impossible, collecting enough photons to see the galaxy arms can easily blow out the center. I

2. All cameras are only trying to capture what the human eye does completely different to start with. Even with the big mirror, cameras are more red and infrared and some UV. Also humans have mostly black and white cameras with added color sensors which work poorly in dim light. Our eye works more like some of the thermal cameras which have 2 sensors and then fuse the thermal IR image with color one to produce higher resolution (false?) thermal images. No camera I know of produces exactly as the eye does and neither the eye not all the sensors in the work truly image what is there in a single photo.

3. If processing after the fact is to errors, than does that include focus stacking?

Finally, the arguments, not discussion about all this, make it seem like some believe there is only one way, theirs, to do photography. Heck, there is or was, a camera available that allowed the point of focus to be changed after the fact. If you like your photo, and aren't falsifying data for money who cares. No body says the Sistane chapel ceiling should be removed as it does not represent reality.