Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

:thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup:

His stuff is really good - totally forgot about him -

Mark7829 Loc: Calfornia

The camera is not perfect and often fooled with images in high dynamic range. You can batch process 100's of raw images in a single click. Jpeg's have their place but it is just to get the image done and out. I doubt most if any hoggers in the forums do school photography or photojournalism. What is relevant to the community is that you will get better images from raw than jpegs.

I can't imagine shooting school images in only jpeg, especially those children with blemishes. I am sure they would appreciate a touch up from raw rather than jpeg. Wouldn't you agree?

ZingersMom Loc: Fort Wayne, IN

Wow. Looks like a terrific site! This has been one useful thread!

mrova Loc: Chesterfield, VA

It's been a great resource of info for me! Thanks all!

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

Mark, actually when you have total control over the lighting - things like blemish/wrinkle/patchy skin color mitigation is really as effective in jpeg as it is in tiff/psd, and something I know won't work very well in LR, with out having the ability to do non-destructive dodge and burn and frequency separation. The difference is that with portraits you are dealing with a very limited set of colors, and for the most part, even sRGB/8 bit color space will more than cover it. But I routinely do all retouching in Photoshop, where I can be quite specific about what I am working on and not working on, unlike LR.

But you are totally correct about time savings with raw compared to jpeg. and the image quality when you start with a raw capture. I am surprised when I hear pros talk about it taking longer with raw, or it being more complicated - my experience is exactly the opposite.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Not really. Note that JPEG and RAW are completely different workflows for completely different situations.

The first digital cameras captured ONLY in RAW. JPEG conversions in the camera were added at the request of working photographers who cut their eye teeth on slide film, and understood exposure, lighting, and contrast. They needed a more direct way to meet deadlines.

RAW is genuinely great if you are a working pro or advanced amateur photographing landscapes in sunlight, or a wedding, or a war scene. But RAW is just "great" when you don't have a clue about changing lighting conditions, or when you're a rookie without an understanding of how to read exposure, or if you are misguided into thinking that everything has to have ultimate potential for manipulation.

JPEG is fine when you can control the environment, including lighting, exposure, contrast, and brightness range. School portrait photographers do that! Most other working pros with a good understanding of their tools can and will do that in the studio, any time they choose to do so. There are times they can use JPEG without a care in the world, and times when they must use RAW, and they know the difference!

If, with lighting, you can fit the entire brightness range of a scene into an 8-bit tonal range, why not do it? Photo paper can't reproduce a brightness range greater than about 25:1, anyway.

The margins on school portraits are incredibly slim. The companies that make them make millions of packages in a short period each Fall, just barely to break even in many cases. Using highly controlled lighting setups, precisely controlled camera settings, exposure targets, and common sense, the bigger and better companies manage to get the job done without ever using RAW. Indeed, there is no non-proprietary RAW workflow software embraced by that industry!

When we converted the lab I worked in from film to digital capture, I was the guy who came up with the camera settings to match the look of Kodak Portra 160 film scanned on Kodak HR500 film scanners. It took less than a week of fooling around in the studio to get the Canon EOS 20D to do just that, and to create a lighting setup and camera settings formula to do it on a daily basis for hundreds of camera setups.

We batch processed thousands of JPEG images at a time with a single click. Labs use super-powerful, specialized Kodak software called DP2 (yes, it is still around, despite Kodak's changes). We could have used Photoshop, but DP2 is faster and better for lab work. It can retouch, re-size, and change all other image characteristics at the same time, IF you want to drive it that way. Kodak's slogan for it is "touch pixels once". DP2 is a database driving a rendering engine. You set your changes in the database, viewing monitor previews of the results, and then render them all at once, exporting the results. The original file remains intact, if you wish. You can drive DP2's rendering engine from external databases, too, and that's what we did.

We regularly retouched blemishes in Photoshop (and/or Kodak's Professional Auto Retouching Software) from JPEG files. Every one of those retouched images was opened and saved three times — once when fine adjusting color and brightness, once when retouching, and once when printing (rendering at different sizes). We were careful to save the images with minimal compression. At normal viewing distances (diagonal dimensions of the prints), you could not tell what we were doing.

I point to these things to help those with open minds understand that there is more than one way to reach a destination. There is a whole world of work beyond "cottage industry" photography where things are done with loving care, one image at a time. I'm not mocking that, mind you, I'm just pointing out that we can learn from it.

I have a T-shirt somewhere that says, "RAW is for Rookies." I mean that kindly! It is a great safety net when you need it. But there is a time to learn the disciplines of JPEG capture and use them to your advantage. They won't work in every situation, but when they can, JPEG will save you all kinds of time and money. And if you follow them while shooting RAW + JPEG, I guarantee you that you will have better RAW images when you need them.

Mark7829 Loc: Calfornia

[quote=burkphoto]

"RAW is genuinely great if you are a working pro or advanced amateur photographing landscapes in sunlight, or a wedding, or a war scene. But RAW is just "great" when you don't have a clue about changing lighting conditions, or when you're a rookie without an understanding of how to read exposure, or if you are misguided into thinking that everything has to have ultimate potential for manipulation".

I could not get by the statement that Raw is for when you don't have a clue. I have no idea what you wrote afterwards. That comment stopped me from reading any further. Excuse me sir, it is now you who haven't a clue. If you don't understand exposure, RAW is not going to save your image. There is no application out there that can rescue blown out highlights - no detail. There is no application that can rescue clipping from black shadows without some pretty dramatic noise. If you make these same errors as jpegs, the rescue possibilities is even more remote. JPEG is not not AUTO mode. You can still shoot aperture priority and manual in jpeg. But that does automatically create good image.

I am done.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

U[quote=Mark7829]

Well, if you can't read it all and analyze it without emotion, that's on you. I'm not picking a fight here. RAW has about +1.67, -1.3 stops of latitude. JPEG has +1/3, -2/3 stops latitude in a good situation; less most of the time in bright sun. That is worth a lot to folks who don't understand that their auto setting is being fooled by anomalous scene values. Hence the gentle poke, "RAW is for rookies." It is often taught and legitimately used as a safety net.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

[quote=Mark7829]

Mark and Bill - you guys are approaching the same end product - a well- produced, high quality image from different paths. Under most circumstances, you will both end up in the same place, sorta.

Bill, even if you don't need the RADR (yes, there is a name for it - raw accessible dynamic range), there is still a benefit to be gained from editing in a high bit depth/wide color gamut workflow, even if the final product is an 8 bit sRGB print or image file. It is unlikely that any scene has a color range that exceeds what is possible with jpeg.

However, the jpeg workflow is extremely destructive, and it was never intended for extensive image manipulation. By extensive I mean color and tonal shifts, layer blending, etc. Not saying it can't be done, but the results are better with less effort when working on uncompressed 16 bit files in ProPhoto.

The other big benefits that even a high volume senior portrait shooter can benefit from is the increased color and tonal "accuracy," better recording of fine detail and the smoother transitions that are possible when you have 16,384 tonal steps per channel in a 14 bit raw file compared to only 256 with a jpeg.

Now consider the client. Mom and Pop and the teenager is not ever going to be able to tell the difference, especially when all the get to see is the final jpg at 11x14 or maybe slightly larger. It doesn't matter. And Bill you have a point there.

But for fashion, commercial, and other clients - it does make a difference, and a creative director with a trained eye will easily see the difference.

Photojournalists are my heroes. Their discipline requires that NO post processing be done to their images - it is the only WYSIWSYG application of digital photography - and for obvious reasons. In there I include forensic photography as well.

So, to sum things up, hopefully - raw works for ALL situations, and jpeg represents a reasonable shortcut in certain situations were detail rendition, tonal smoothness and lighting/contrast are all established prior to shooting with the explicit purpose of limiting manipulation in post processing - and the client has a modest expectation of quality. Bill I know you are not going to argue that a SOOC jpeg is no different than a skillfully prepared jpeg that is the result of a raw workflow, nor will you argue that it takes more time to get it right using raw - because then your credibility will be at stake.

mrova Loc: Chesterfield, VA

So, from my perspective, let's sum things up, OK? I'm not interested in the banter because I don't have a dog is y'alls fight. You folks have more than answered my original question, I think. And in more of these later posts, it's definitely beyond me. You guys are brilliant with your knowledge, no doubt. And I have a great respect for that. But I'm not there, for sure!

But I'm learning and have learned a great deal here with this question and from this site. And, I'm willing to step up my game a bit, thus the original question.

I'm not a professional, and will not be, do not desire to be, will never sell my work (my woodturning is way better than my photography!). But I'm really enjoying taking photos - yes, I've told myself now that I no longer want to just snap pictures and have moved to wanting to take photos - and that's significant for me.

Reading all the posts have helped me have a bit more appreciation for photoshop, and I'm thinking because of all this discussion, that's what I'm gonna pursue. Gonna give it a shot, download the trial to play with a bit, and will likely end up doing the 10 bucks/month thing. At the worst, I'll play with it a few months, call it quits, and will still have save money over the costs of other software...and I can still fall back on my copy of LR.

Thanks everyone for the info!

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

Good choice, and sorry about the verbal gymnastics - but it does seem you have come to a good place - check it out and don't hesitate to PM me if you want to avoid the warfare and corresponding flack.

Brucej67 Loc: Cary, NC

All of this has been hashed out in many previous threads on this forum and each one of you make good points from your own point of view and I would not banter with you, however I compare this discussion in the same line as what shooting preference you use such as manual, aperture, shutter speed or automatic priority everyone has their own opinions.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

What he said.

Glad to stir the soup!

mrova Loc: Chesterfield, VA

Thanks!

mrova Loc: Chesterfield, VA

Thanks too, Bruce for your comment. There's likely no question out there that hasn't already been asked on this forum, for sure. And, not to go down that trail here, when I got my camera two years ago, I was determined not to shoot on auto cause I wanted to 'force' myself to learn. That's been a good and challenging learning experience for me, plus the info gathered here.