greenwork Loc: Southwest Florida

Right on!

Sunrisepano Loc: West Sub of Chicago

Let's look at raw vs. jpeg another way. You shoot a jpeg image, look at it on your camera back, make some color corrections and shoot again. Then you download it onto the computer with a color managed screen and that image does not look the same. You do some color tweeking and the color looks better, but, not what you remember because much of the color data has been thrown out by the camera.
A raw image loaded onto the computer with color managed monitor can be tweeked to perfection.

Certain cameras that I use, we shoot jpeg due to time constraints. Purples in images look blue on the camera monitor and without any adjustments, the same images have purple purples on the computer. Since we have already corrected the camera color based on color corrected monitors, we have no problems. We are shooting in a studio with consistent lighting and we immediately download onto the computer and make adjustments before shooting a job.

On location, I would NEVER TRUST the color I see on the back of a camera monitor. You can come close, but, I would never trust it. Also, in the studio, we have consistent lighting by the computer monitors. The color and brightness in your viewing area will affect how it looks on the monitor. So, in the field, is it a bright sunny day outside, or are you in a dimly lit church? The same image will look different on the camera in these situations.

Conclusions... In a controlled situation, jpegs that are fine and get out the door fast. On location, there are too many variables to trust to a non-color corrected camera monitor.

f8lee Loc: New Mexico

[quote=SusanFromVermont]This is not true. When I upload RAW images from the camera into LightRoom, and they are also automatically placed in a file on my hard drive, those RAW images are completely viewable without LR. Many people will transfer images directly from the camera to their hard drive, sort through them, before ever sending them to LR [or any other pp program}.
[/quote]

You are incorrect, Susan. What you are seeing is, in fact, a JPG that was automatically generated from the raw file (again, no need to capitalize raw). Raw files are not images until the individual photo site readouts are interpreted by a demosaic process done by a computer - either the one in your camera or the one in your lap. Mac OSX has the demosaic capability built into the OS itself (shck their updates and often you will see amongst the details the new raw formats it can handle).

Read my explanation (earlier in this thread) of what a raw file is (and how it is not an actual image, unlike JPG or TIFF or other image formats) so you have a better understanding of the sometimes befuddling technology behind all this magic.

traderjohn Loc: New York City

Back when there was film??? Who gives a rats A$$ about film and what it was or in some cases still being used. That wasn't his question. Really....1999.

rook2c4 Loc: Philadelphia, PA USA

Why not give it a try and find out.

There are many on this forum who have strong opinions on what is better and what is not, but lack first hand experience as they have never conducted their own tests to verify the validity of that which they so staunchly believe in.

Kuzano

Biggest mistake in your understanding. JPEG images are NOT heavily compressed. Most JPEG algorythms based can be adjusted by the settings in the camera. A 99% quality setting on the save routine is almost NO compression. In addition, the save setting for quality takes place at the end of processing and is set by YOU anywhere from save a 10% to 100% content of data. Each pp program offers it's own quality of retained data from program to program, depending on the publisher. I usually set my quality setting to retain 90% of the data.

And no.... A 100% retention does not make the file the same as a RAW file.

There's much more to consider and trying to understand those differences is a Fool's Errand that cuts into you time photographing. I post processed RAW with Adobe Photoshop for 5 years quite well. Then, I figured out what a waste of time shooting RAW was and have not used it for about 8 years.

I shoot only JPEG. It has almost as much post processing capability as RAW. Compression is adjustable to start the process, and it's faster than RAW conversion. I do not miss RAW at all and it's complex and hugely time consuming, unless you just use additional add ins to perform specific additional functions.

I get great results and fully adjustable files with JPEG, contrary to the sheep (follow the crowd) theory used in RAW conversion and post processing.

NOTE... read well the next post by Booker. My findings are close to his, having shot film and digital from the 60's and my first digital camera in 1992.

Jpeg can do the job well in most cases. It's your job to determine what works best for you, as he and I have both done......

Booker

I shoot most everything in jpeg. I enlarge with no problem. My photos have been praised by professionals & have won awards and competitions against many shot in raw. In Photoshop you can post process a jpeg with almost all of the adjustments available for raw images. These have been both in studio and out of doors. With professional models and candid street shots. Do whatever you like.

sbohne

And herein is the very problem I am addressing. You are wrong. You are 100% wrong. Like in absolutely wrong. To wit:
https://www.lifewire.com/jpeg-myths-and-facts-1701548

sbohne

AMEN!

lamiaceae Loc: San Luis Obispo County, CA

Google is your friend! Also you may SEARCH topics at the top of your UHH Page. This question is asked DAILY!

sbohne

Here is truth. Seek no more.

sbohne

Gee...I guess all of the HUNDREDS of annual report images I did for St. Gobain, Dow Chemical, Eaton Corporation, Pellrin-Milnor, and dozens of others must of been of poor quality, because I trusted that "non-color corrected camera monitor."

Poppycock.

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

I mostly agree with what you said, but after shooting my first wedding as raw in 2006 I could no longer justify the time required to produce a consistent looking set of proofs, especially when using multiple camera bodies and multiple shooters.

Before I adopted a raw workflow it would take almost a day to go through nearly 1000 of my own images. The last wedding I did in 2017 I used a second shooter and had almost 2000 images. The culled, color and tone-balanced, proof set of approximately 1400 images was up on my website before I turned in for the night. It took me about 90 minutes to do everything I needed to do to get a set of high quality proofs for client review.

If you found yourself waiting 90 sec for each image to come up you may have been using inadequate software, possibly on a very slow computer. I use Capture One which is quite fast with raw files but I still use Photoshop for finish work.

I don't shoot jpeg simply because I can get to a better result in less time shooting raw.

I

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

The Creative Director probably had his crew do the corrective work. They always do. . .

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

Photoshop has the Camera Raw Filter, so every adjustment in the raw converter is available in Photoshop. And prior to this you could always use "open as raw" when opening a bitmap image (jpeg, tiff, png) and it would bring you to the ACR screen.

The difference is the range of adjustment possible, and the quality of the result, particularly if you have more than modest adjustments. Changing a white balance would qualify - not a problem in raw, really problematic if adjusting a jpeg.