I guess you think I'm kicking you, cedymock. But it ain't so. What I'm doing is talking. You hear? I'm talking to all those villains down there in Kansas. I'm talking to all those villains in Missouri and all those villains down there in Cheyenne....

Stepping away from Unforgiven, I was responding to that wider world of JPEG villains, just using your post as the foil, as I've seen that edit effort comment before and had some fresh evidence this morning from the impact of shooting both.

When it comes to 'professional' editing, tools like Lightroom exist to automate and standardize repeatable processing, both for efficiency when dealing with large numbers of images and to enforce consistency of the photographer's vision. So, if every RAW edit is a unique re-invention of the wheel, the time and effort is a linear product of the number of images processed. But, when presets are applied to large batches of images and edit parameters are synced from 1 image across x-number of similar images, the work effort and time is greatly reduced, and the work effort is no longer a linear calculation of the total number of images. The experienced editor can kick-out edited images in a relatively short period of time, where 'edited' might be 85% of the final edit results allowing the client to determine which images deserve to be moved to 100% completion. Export presets can be used apply / automate consistent low-resolution 'proofs' with consistently scaled watermarks, etc.

The original question started with RAW vs JPEG or both? These two links provide exaggerated 'expose to the right' approaches, but they also show that a "RAW shooter" approaches their exposure in a way that makes the JPEG virtually worthless.

ETTR in Practice

ETTR in Practice II

Somewhere in this thread (or another) was something like: it's one word: insurance. I disagree. "Insurance" is for things you cannot control. I would say rather, the one word should be "control", best when you control the quality and quantity of data captured into your RAW file via ETTR techniques, and then the full control of the editing of the results.

One final thought to emphasize the wastefulness of RAW + JPEG comes from the analysis in this thread: https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-633231-1.html . The entire thread gives some context where multiple people are asking "why don't my JPEG images look any good?" Looking at the EXIF data reveals the camera configuration where the camera was allowed to select a drab unsaturated setting outside the control of the photographer. If you've accepted a common recommendation to use your camera's "Neutral" setting, you're creating crappy worthless JPEGs and forcing yourself to edit your RAW "insurance". The worst of the possible scenarios.

There's a lot of subtle stuff that goes on with cameras and camera settings. Photography is easy when you don’t know how, but very difficult when you do.

When it comes to 'professional' editing, tools like Lightroom exist to automate and standardize repeatable processing, both for efficiency when dealing with large numbers of images and to enforce consistency of the photographer's vision. So, if every RAW edit is a unique re-invention of the wheel, the time and effort is a linear product of the number of images processed. But, when presets are applied to large batches of images and edit parameters are synced from 1 image across x-number of similar images, the work effort and time is greatly reduced, and the work effort is no longer a linear calculation of the total number of images. The experienced editor can kick-out edited images in a relatively short period of time, where 'edited' might be 85% of the final edit results allowing the client to determine which images deserve to be moved to 100% completion. Export presets can be used apply / automate consistent low-resolution 'proofs' with consistently scaled watermarks, etc.

The original question started with RAW vs JPEG or both? These two links provide exaggerated 'expose to the right' approaches, but they also show that a "RAW shooter" approaches their exposure in a way that makes the JPEG virtually worthless.

ETTR in Practice

ETTR in Practice II

Somewhere in this thread (or another) was something like: it's one word: insurance. I disagree. "Insurance" is for things you cannot control. I would say rather, the one word should be "control", best when you control the quality and quantity of data captured into your RAW file via ETTR techniques, and then the full control of the editing of the results.

One final thought to emphasize the wastefulness of RAW + JPEG comes from the analysis in this thread: https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-633231-1.html . The entire thread gives some context where multiple people are asking "why don't my JPEG images look any good?" Looking at the EXIF data reveals the camera configuration where the camera was allowed to select a drab unsaturated setting outside the control of the photographer. If you've accepted a common recommendation to use your camera's "Neutral" setting, you're creating crappy worthless JPEGs and forcing yourself to edit your RAW "insurance". The worst of the possible scenarios.

There's a lot of subtle stuff that goes on with cameras and camera settings. Photography is easy when you don’t know how, but very difficult when you do.