mgeyelin

How much can you fine tune a JPEG image vs RAW? I don’t really enjoy post processing RAW images, and don’t have an eye for it. How much control do you give up using JPEG.

Sidwalkastronomy Loc: New Jersey Shore

I shoot both just to have in case my PP skills improve at a later date

davyboy Loc: Anoka Mn.

You can do just fine with jpegs for most casual work. That’s all I use. I also use smart photo editor

BebuLamar

You don't need to post processing the RAW any more than JPEG if you don't want to.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Sometimes a friend will send me an image that could use some work, so I bring it into Lightroom. When I start processing, I'm often surprised by how little I can modify it. I suppose it depends on the camera (or phone) the person used and the resolution, but raw offers much more room for processing. There is virtually no such thing as underexposure when processing a raw image. Members have posted amazing results here.

I'm such a great photographer with such great equipment, that my raw images don't need much processing, but it's good to know that it's available.

lamiaceae Loc: San Luis Obispo County, CA

So tired a topic. Zzzzz.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

The RAW editors offer more control of the image. White Balance is much easier to edit in a RAW editor for one.
The RAW editor is no more cumbersome than a JPEG editor.
I always edit the RAW from one camera, but am stuck with editing the JPEG from another camera.
(I don't edit every image either, only the ones I want to use somewhere.)

imagemeister Loc: mid east Florida

JPEG You loose some dynamic range - this is most noticeable in very high contrast subjects, higher ISO;s and smaller sensors/pixels. IOW, you can loose some highlight and shadow details under these conditions ......but for current full frame sensors this is very minimal IMO - others will disagree
.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

Assuming you capture the maximum size JPEGs for your camera, you have the exact same number of pixels in your JPEG as your RAW file. Your camera is an image editing computer. You get noise processing, White Balance and sharpening done automatically to your JPEG. You can even adjust / fine tune these values in your camera set-up. Many people will get 'sharper' images by very simply increasing their contrast and sharpening settings by a simple and modest increase of +1 over the default settings in their camera.

What you lose in JPEG is the bit-depth of color data and the wider colorspace options of RAW. Your JPEG files, by definition of the format, are 8-bit files. This 2^8 (2 to the power of 8) or 256 shades of Red, Blue and Green. When you increase to 12-bits, that yields 4096 shades of red, blue and green. As you adjust your colors, this bit-depth comes into play allowing for smooth transitions of color shades, especially in the blues of the sky. See the color banding in the sky of the JPEG example below. This is a real-life example of where 8-bits can impact your ability to lighten / darken / adjust the WB of the 'colors' of your JPEG, edits that need those various shades of colors available from the larger bit depth of the colors shades that define the smooth transition from red into violet into blue into green into yellow into orange.

The color 'banding' (right side) is the absence of these color shades needed to accomplish the smooth transition:



You can accomplishment plenty of edits in JPEG. You just have to be more careful in your exposure and recognize that if you 'miss' in the image exposure, you may not be able to recover the JPEG image that would be trivial work in RAW. Work like computer-based HDR also doesn't work as well on the JPEG, where in RAW, you can take one file, push the exposure up and down to create a 3-image set and then let the HDR software run its magic.

The example above was linked from the discussion at: https://photographypro.com/raw-vs-jpeg/

ronpier Loc: Poland Ohio

I shoot JPEG Fine and am able to fine tune most images to my satisfaction and most are keepers. What is important is that you get very good SOOC images to start with. An image greatly screwed up is very difficult to save in JPEG. These should be the exception and not the rule. I also do not enjoy post processing, even JPEGs and make every effort to not need to do much PP.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

Some might ask: if capturing in RAW and editing in ProPhotoRGB, why are we told over and over to export our edited results to 8-bit JPEGs in the sRGB colorspace?

The answer is that your digital editor that runs the output conversion to JPEG understands how to sample and simplify that 12- or 14-/16-bit color data from the image file and define the smooth transition of colors without any banding in the sky in the resulting 8-bit JPEG, avoiding the right-side issues like the example above. Your camera knows how to do this too when processing the RAW sensor data into the camera-created JPEG.

The point about editing RAW and outputting JPEG is that the JPEG is nothing more than 'output'. It's not intended to be adjusted / edited further. If you want to make more changes, even to start over with a new WB, or a new edit software, or similar, the original RAW data is always unchanged. That is: the image data in a RAW file is a read-only format. Your digital editor, even the camera propriety software, cannot change the RAW 'payload' of the image data in the file. Rather, they just save the execution order of edit instructions that reads, modifies and creates a new output format against that read-only RAW data.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

Adjusting the in-camera JPEG settings?

Continuing this idea of the JPEG as an 'output' format with modest opportunities for post-capture editing, consider if you should have your camera do more in-camera processing using the computer inside that camera.

Do you add sharpening in your post software? Do you add saturation or brightening of the exposure? Do you adjust the white balance?

Consider if you should adjust your camera defaults. Canon, Nikon and Sony (and I assume all others) have a 'standard' picture style (Canon) or picture control (Nikon) or picture profile (Sony).

You'll have to find the details in your specific camera manual, but consider increasing the sharpening by +1 over the camera default. Consider +1 for contrast and saturation. If your camera dynamically selects the picture style, force it to use only your updated Standard. See what you think of the results. You can always change it back. The suggestion +1 is a subtle change, you can add more adjustment, if desired.

If you find you tend to 'brighten' your images, consider too using more Exposure Compensation in P / S / T modes, try +0.3 or +0.7. Again, you can always undo this change if you don't like the results.

For sharpening, if your camera is a new model that allows for refined adjustments to Strength, Fineness and Threshold, consider adjusting to a lower number (more fine). For a Canon, consider the adjustments below, similar settings will apply for other brands:

Sharp Strength, default = 3, update to 4
Sharp Fineness, default = 4, update to 2
Sharp Threshold, default = 4, update to 3

Contrast, default = 0, update to 1
Saturation, if default = 0, update to 1 (older Canons have a 0-7 scale and default at 3, update to 4)

Make your judgement / assessment of these changes on your computer monitor, not on your phone and not on the camera's rear LCD. If you have 'typical' things you do to your JPEGs, assess whether these in-camera changes simplify or remove (lessen) the even modest amount of processing you perform on your JPEGs today.

BebuLamar

If you don't want to post process why do you want to fine tune the JPEG image? JPEG is best to leave as is untouched.

larryepage Loc: North Texas area

I mostly agree with what Paul has said above, but will add a couple of thoughts. For years, I shot JPEGs only and either used them as they came or used the Windows photo editor to do a simple color correction, or later, adjusting to a known white area in the image. And I was quite happy with that. Depending on the functionality your camera offers (and some are a lot better than others), it is possible to generate quite serviceable images with a little bit of care. (Those adjustments need to be visited anyway. Nikon cameras are shipped from the factory with default picture control settings that are generally guaranteed to produce very mediocre JPEGs.)

It is even possible to produce serviceable raw images in this manner. Both LightRoom (and I presume PhotoShop) and Nikon's own editing software (and I presume other manufacturers' as well) can be set to apply in-camera picture control settings when they open a raw image. This is what I do, and I frequently have images that require almost no further adjustment if I took care in the camera setup at the time of exposure.

But there are times that there is no way to successfully use JPEG to capture an image...no matter how good you are. The first image in this post

https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-555526-1.html

was shot about 30 minutes after sunset, during blue hour. As displayed, the color temperature is 20,000K (look carefully at the "white" lights in the distant buildings). There's no way a JPEG version of this image could have been adjusted this far and retained any level of dynamic range. That's part of what Paul means when he talks about color depth. This image has also been edited in other ways, including lightening the foreground.

Similarly, a significant amount of the visual information in the first image in this post

https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-556060-1.html

is recovered from well beneath the 8 bits of depth which a JPEG can represent. It's simply not in the JPEG image which I also captured (my default camera setup).

Another area where JPEGs can fall short is in cases of wide dynamic range, which commonly includes backlit subjects. HDR techniques and software were designed to solve this problem when saving JPEGs, and they can work well in some conditions to extend the effective capture range. They can also produce completely bogus looking results.

Please note that there different folks feel differently about post processing. Some love to do it and to make extensive changes to their images. I do not. I prefer doing what is necessary to get a really good starting point that doesn't require a lot of additional work later. I absolutely do not agree that every shot taken by every photographer needs to be in raw and receive hours of processing. But some do. That's why I have my cameras all set up to save both file formats and why I really try to get the best initial capture possible. Then I treat the products appropriately.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Then stop watching the thread.
(don't open to begin with.)
Just go someplace else.
Simple solution.