alemorkam Loc: Central Florida

Have a Nikon D-500. Is there a big difference between Jpeg, Raw and Tiff? I don't do photography professionally, but do like to enlarge photos for personal use. How about the difference in Post processing? Thanks.

PixelStan77 Loc: Vermont/Chicago

Stick with RAW for best quality.

Ysarex Loc: St. Louis

Yes, there are major differences between those file formats and yes there are huge differences in terms of post processing.

Here's a fair reference.

https://photographylife.com/raw-vs-jpeg

It's a topic fraught with considerable disagreement and huge amounts of misinformation.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

and edit ability.

SuperflyTNT Loc: Manassas VA

Here we go again. Raw will give you the most dynamic range to work with in post. Consider that a JPEG is 8 bits for each RBG channel. A 14 bit raw file is 14 bits for each channel. Every bit you add essentially doubles the color depth.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Yup.
Choose to ignore or answer.
You chose wisely.

CPR Loc: Nature Coast of Florida

What do you plan on doing with the photos? Snapshots or anything to just show on pc or phone then .jpg is more than adequate. Quality photos or one where you need to fix it later then consider raw. If you make changes or think you may want to make changes later then save as .tiff after you run it through any post-processing.
Raw is great for some folks, me included, but if you rarely or never do post-processing then let the camera convert the raw to jpg and give it to you that way so you don't have to do post because raw must be post-processed.

MDI Mainer

In some cameras (notably Sony with which I'm familiar) you do have a greater in-camera zoom function when shooting in JPEG, which can be convenient and result in better image quality than simply cropping in post-processing, but as stated the trade off is that you loose the details captured in the raw format.

User ID

For Pp raw is absolutely best.

If for whatever reason one chooses to avoid raw, tiffs are discernibly more “edit friendly” than jpgs. Don’t think of them as lesser raw files. Think of them as much better jpgs. All you need is a reeeeeeally big card and an up to date computer. Back when my tiffs were only about 8MP, even an ancient PC was adequate, as were my 8gb cards.

Tiffs slow your camera down a bit. It’s not noticeable for “general” photography but you’ll have to pray a little harder with action that calls for “spray and pray” :-)

Tiffs can be useful. My ancient low MP Nikon made tiffs and I was not happy when that ability was dropped. I’m glad to see them returned in my Z. I have a 128 card and for 24MP it’s adequate for tiffs. FYI tiffs are bigger than raw files.

When there was no tiff option, I switched to “jpg fine + raw”. My jpgs are usually ready to rock with minor Pp and I had the raw available for the exceptions.

Raw is the ultimate, but if you want direct image files do check out tiffs.

BebuLamar

TIFF is at least 3 times bigger than RAW.

R.G. Loc: Scotland

Raw refers to the sensor data. To work on a raw file requires a photo editor that can read the raw files. Each camera company has their own raw format (sometimes more than one) and not all photo editors are capable of reading all raw formats, so there can be a compatibility issue. All photo editors can read jpeg and most photo editors can read tiff, so there are less compatibility issues with those formats.

However, converting to jpeg is not a lossless process and it's not the best format for editing, but the file sizes are much smaller. Converting to tiff is a lossless process (unless a lossy option is chosen) which makes it a better format for editing in, but the resulting file sizes are much larger. So it depends on what the priorities are - quality or file size.

A small file size may be required for the internet, in which case jpeg is the best option (and may be the only viable option). Storage is much cheaper these days so file size may not be an issue for you, but if it was for any reason (using USB sticks or whatever), you would want to avoid tiff. However, if you want to save your edits at maximum quality you'll need a lossless format like tiff. Other lossless options include DNG and PNG, but there are more compatibility issues with those formats.

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

Jpg is fine for casual shots and instant use. It's editable, but not as editable as raw.
Raw is (IMHO) the best format. It's easy to convert to jpg (there is one embedded in the raw file, equivalent to SOOC jpg) and has the most editing capability.
Tif is a mixed bag. It's probably better than jpg as far as editing is concerned, but tif comes in both 8 bit and 16 bit. I don't see any real advantage to 8 bit tif. 16 bit tif is probably better. The question is: are you getting the tif from the camera or some other way? Check to see what the level of tif you are getting from your camera. If it's 8 bit, shoot raw instead.

Tif is a baked* format. Raw is an unbaked format. You have a lot more latitude in parameter adjustment with raw than you do with tif.

Some people edit raw files and think tif gives them a better way to store the image. I think they're wrong (again, my opinion). I think it's better to use a parametric editor on a raw file to get the image you want, and for permanent storage you save the raw file and the parameters. You can reproduce the image later whenever you need a jpg. The tif is not as editable (if you want to re-edit it later) and takes up more space (assuming you keep the raw file [highly recommended]).

As you can see, I'm not a fan of tif. I believe the best forrmats are raw and jpg. I save the raw file and the edit parameters (in the LR catalog and xmp files) and I also save the edited files as jpg. The jpgs are useful for my successors who don't know how to convert the raw files to jpg using the saved parameters.

* A baked image is one that has been converted to a usable image from a raw file. Assumptions are made as to the parameters used to do the conversion (the baking ingredients).

Ysarex Loc: St. Louis

Converting to TIFF from a raw file is not lossless regardless of any settings used. The TIFF conversion is permanent and data is altered in the process. You can throw the TIFF away and start over if you have the raw file but you can't move forward with the TIFF and expect to be able to get the same results you would get from the raw original.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

Page 389 of the D500 user manual gives the expected / max file sizes for each format. Here, larger files do not equate to higher quality. The highest quality start-point from the D500 is the 14-bit RAW (NEF), either uncompressed at 43MB or lossless compressed at 25MB. I don't know why Nikon would bother with an 8-bit TIFF only in RGB as the files slow the processing of the camera and then deliver 37MB files.

The large-JPEG-fine setting is more than enough data for large printing from the 21MP sensor (5568x3712). Whether you want to process from RAW or JPEG is the OP's decision. I don't see how / why TIFF adds any benefit to the camera's abilities.

Although the color data differences between 8-bit, 12-bit and 14-bit is exponential, in reality, it will be hard for the everyday user to 'see' or demonstrate any benefit between 12-bit and 14-bit. The file size differences can add up over large quantities of images, but if your storage capacity is an issue for images 20MB vs 25MB compressed (or 33MB vs 43MB uncompressed), the idea of using RAW or TIFF is probably not a camera setting that should be under consideration.

To our OP: just remember you can't do anything with your RAW files until you process them. The file sizes of the TIFF are much the same. You can print / process from the TIFF, but you really can't share / email them to anyone else until you process them into a smaller JPEG.

larryepage Loc: North Texas area

I also shoot a D500 and was initially intrigued by the possibility of directly saving TIFF files. Unfortunately, the TIFFs saved by the camera are only 8 bits, which offer no real advantage over Fine/Large JPEGs, and as has been mentioned are significantly larger. You can gain all the same benefit by saving Fine (full resolution) JPEGs as Large (minimally compressed) files. Most people are hopelessly confused by the two parameters, file quality, which provides the option to throw away as many as 75% or more of the original pixels, and file size, which provides the choice of subjecting the file to progressively more aggressive compression, accompanied by increasing data loss.

Neither 8 bit TIFF nor any JPEG contain all of the information captured by most sensors, but they do contain about as much information as most printers can print. Your D500 offers a tremendous array of controls that you can choose to apply to your images, meaning that with some learning and practice, it is possible to capture print-ready images in a good number of situations.

That is not a popular thing to say on this forum, but very few here have bothered to learn what their cameras can do for them. Of course, there are also a number of situations where processing is mandatory, and raw files are much better to work with for that.

So...I have abandoned plans to use in-camera TIFFs (partly because the D500 doesn't allow saving Raw+TIFF).