Hip Coyote

When I first got into photography I was told to shoot in RAW. Big mistake. I was shooing in the raw, the cops were called and now I have to report to them my whereabouts every year on my birthday as a condition of my parole. I guess I mistook the notion of raw.

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

Not every time it is used (viewed). Only when it is re-compressed (which happens when the jpg has been re-written, but does not happen when the jpg is copied or just viewed).

According to my study ( executive summary, full text {14 pages}) it does not even happen every time the jpg has been re-written. Depending on the compression, changes occur in the file for the first few re-writes but eventually reach a point where the changes saturate, i.e. no further changes occur after that point. High quality jpgs (low compression) take a lot of re-writes to reach saturation while low-quality (high compression) image can saturate as soon as 10 re-writes.

bkwaters

Give me an example of a camera brand that still produces poor quality jpg's.

srt101fan

You have wandered away from the OP’s question and into the morass “which is better, JPEG or RAW”. I hope no one follows you there. 🙄

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

The OP's question was answered on the first page. The answer is 'no'.

But the premise is artificial. Although there may not be an intent to postprocess, there may be a need to postprocess or accept mediocrity.

yorkiebyte Loc: Scottsdale, AZ/Bandon by the Sea, OR

OK, now I can't follow the story - I can't get past this point. No sense reading any more posts on this subject as this one has me stopped for the day!!

What the ...H?

srt101fan

Agree that question was answered (and answered well) by Silvers on p. 1.

Agree that the question is not a good one…

Now we just sit back and see if User ID’s 20-page prediction is right. I hope he has enough popcorn….🙂

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

Shooting RAW is a pathway to photography success that some consider to be unnatural.

Desert Gecko Loc: desert southwest, USA

Are you grating cheese or cutting it? Because something about the pompous nature of your reply really stinks. Something, that is, besides the naïveté.

larryepage Loc: North Texas area

A lot of what you get with JPEGs depends on how you set your camera up to make and save JPEGs. I shoot a lot of JPEGs that get no further processing. But they are all done at full resolution and minimum compression. That's called "Fine/Large*" on my cameras.

And picture controls need to be set intentionally, as well. That means White Balance (never uae Auto...it can be fooled), saturation, and other parameters. And obviously, exposure and focus need to be correct.

Many of my JPEG images are used directly in our school yearbook, online materials, and other publications without further adjustments.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

The unprocessed image is not worth sharing ...

R.G. Loc: Scotland

Presumably the "no intention of altering an image" would be due to you being happy with the SOOC jpg. If that's the case, why give yourself extra work for no benefit?

But the simple fact remains that in most cases a well edited raw file will be better than a SOOC jpg. That will be especially true if the photo was taken in difficult circumstances and in need of significant correction or improvement.

In any case the choice is yours. Settle for the lesser IQ of the SOOC jpg or put in the extra effort to achieve better results by editing the raw file.

All of the above comments are based on the assumption that you are capable of making an enlightened choice by being in possession of the right information, which is that well edited raw files give better results than SOOC jpgs (in most cases). If you're happy with SOOC jpgs, the issue doesn't arise in the first place.

Don't forget the fact that if you lack the skills to edit raw files effectively it's within your power to do something about it. If you do lack the skills and you can't be bothered to do anything about it, the issue is your lack of willingness to make an effort to learn. The benefits of shooting raw are well known, as is the fact that raw files come with a basic need for post processing.

So the issue of raw v jpg is not one of IQ, it's whether you have the willingness or the motivation to put in the extra effort to work with raw.

Ysarex Loc: St. Louis

All of them if you need to work in limited conditions where you're forced to raise the ISO into the 6400 range and above. Noise filtering is very processor intensive and none of our modern cameras can afford the processing muscle to do decent noise filtering while under the pressure of the camera's max frame rate.

Here's another example at low ISO. This is a Canon 850D -- the image is a sample from DPReview's test site. Here's the camera JPEG: https://www.dpreview.com/sample-galleries/4631840432/canon-eos-rebel-t8i-850d-sample-gallery/8184267001

I downloaded the raw file and processed it using better lens profile corrections (PL-7). Below is a comparison of the detail in the potted sage lower right corner. I'd say the JPEG is poor quality.

Desert Gecko Loc: desert southwest, USA

Remember that a camera's jpeg is a processed image, so if you're going for purity, it's no more pure than a RAW file that you process.

Cameras use whatever processing they're programmed to use. Most of the time they get it right, but when they fail, it's nice to have a RAW file to work with. This is especially true when we get it wrong as photographers. Examples where I've gotten a shot wrong are rainbows and unintended silhouettes. In either of these, I could have made in-camera adjustments to compensate -- thereby overriding the generic camera settings -- but I didn't. I was able to make up for my shooting mistakes by tweaking the RAW files in post and producing images of what I tried to get in the first place. A jpeg usually won't have enough data to work with to get a good result.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

To achieve freedom and happiness, the photographer must grasp this basic truth: the RAW file gives you control over your image, the JPEG gives control to the camera. RAW lets you decide this most basic question of photography: are you the finger or the button?