Raw vs. JPEG: just a little experiment.. today I went and shot both JPEG and Raw. I let the camera set the w/b for my JPEG, and set my w/b for the raw images using LR3. then I moved...

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Raw vs. JPEG

Jun 12, 2012 21:45:28 #

MWAC Loc: Somewhere East Of Crazy

Jun 12, 2012 22:20:43 #

birdpix Loc: South East Pennsylvania

Very interesting MWAC. With the exception of the first tombstone the JPEGs appear more saturated. The full tombstone jpeg appears to be a little underexposed compared to the RAW.

This is a difficult test to do, first off, because the online display has been resized by the UHH server so you're not able to see the full resolution of the photos.

Secondly, the in camera jpeg has already been modified by the camera settings for saturation, vibrance, sharpening, noise reduction and contrast; that is unless you zeroed everything out. The modificatons done in Lightroom and CS5 to the JPEGs are additive. That means that if you add the exact same saturation to both jpeg and RAW the jpeg already has some saturation and you are adding more to it.

One way to do a comparison is to do your adjustments to each photo seperately so that you are doing the best job you can with each. That way you can see just how much detail you could retain in the overexposed top of the mushroom as an example or how much detail could you pull out of the shaded underside. I would then do fairly generous sized prints of each for comparison.

By the way, Phenominal job on the "Rockin' what you got series" i really like what you are doing for this community.

Jul 3, 2012 10:55:13 #

gdwsr Loc: Northern California

I agree with birdpix. I think if one is going to do this test it has to focus on what happens in jpeg to "degrade" the photo. And I have found that there is a great difference between cameras. In camera jpeg, irrecoverably combines pixels and also seems to compress the dynamic range of the scene. All the rest, sharpness, saturation, tint, etc. can be mimicked in post with the raw. So: the comparison should be: 1) detail, 2) dynamic range available 3) color detail and, 4) the amount of time it takes to get a finished product in post. (maybe some others but not the stuff that can be done in post). Also it should be done on a range of image situations. and compared at full resolution.

That said, I just go a Sony A65 and was putting it through its paces including a comparison of RAW and Jpeg (still in process). So far, I cannot (or barely) tell the differences between them. These new cameras and the processing algorithms are amazing. To put this in perspective: I have always shot manual mode (40+ years) and RAW but am seriously considering just going with Jpeg with this camera (only). It is THAT good!

I have just started testing out the Program Modes vs. Manual, A, S. ... we'll see.

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