(This is for Gene 51. It's pretty far off topic...)

Correct, the two sorts of JPEGs are different. When I have a challenging scene I do shoot RAW + JPEG and process the RAW to a perfect JPEG if I don't like the out-of-camera JPEG. And if I'm shooting for an "art print", yeah, I'll print from RAW or 16-bit TIFF. But for most every day commercial work, it's JPEG if I'm controlling the set.

As an old slide shooter, I couldn't manipulate Kodachrome, and Ektachrome looked like hell if I pulled or pushed it. I liken JPEG pre-processing to choosing precise exposure and filtration at the camera for a color slide... You learned damned quickly to get it right in the camera when every click cost $.39 or so for film, processing, and mounting!

Shooting RAW is much the same as shooting color negative film (although film had more usable latitude than RAW digital — We could scan usable images from 2 stops underexposure to 3 stops overexposure from Kodak Portra 160).

With film, our portrait photographers didn't even carry light meters! We gave them lighting diagrams and instructions that got them within a stop of correct, and that was good enough for the lab to "make perfect." Or good enough...

In the specific use case of contract school portraiture, there is practically no one who will argue for a RAW end-to-end workflow. It simply isn't cost effective. (Think storage considerations, network bandwidth, transmission times, rendering times, and the fact that there is no standard for RAW files, despite what Adobe thinks about DNG.) There may be some individual, small volume photographers who will use RAW prior to lab submission, but most of their LABS want JPEGs in sRGB. They charge extra to convert from RAW.

A few companies make their own cameras and store JPEG images in other color spaces, or with extended range curves applied, but that proprietary nastiness is mostly used to keep their employee photographers from using outside labs... and to guard against overexposed highlights with certain cameras.

When your lab processes in excess of three million portraits in less than 13 weeks (the bulk is done in 8 weeks), they want those images in a very specific format. In some cases, they even have you use cameras that modify the metadata in the EXIF portions of the JPEGs, to store information that relates the image to an order database.

What he said.

Glad to stir the soup!

U[quote=Mark7829]

Well, if you can't read it all and analyze it without emotion, that's on you. I'm not picking a fight here. RAW has about +1.67, -1.3 stops of latitude. JPEG has +1/3, -2/3 stops latitude in a good situation; less most of the time in bright sun. That is worth a lot to folks who don't understand that their auto setting is being fooled by anomalous scene values. Hence the gentle poke, "RAW is for rookies." It is often taught and legitimately used as a safety net.

Not really. Note that JPEG and RAW are completely different workflows for completely different situations.

The first digital cameras captured ONLY in RAW. JPEG conversions in the camera were added at the request of working photographers who cut their eye teeth on slide film, and understood exposure, lighting, and contrast. They needed a more direct way to meet deadlines.

RAW is genuinely great if you are a working pro or advanced amateur photographing landscapes in sunlight, or a wedding, or a war scene. But RAW is just "great" when you don't have a clue about changing lighting conditions, or when you're a rookie without an understanding of how to read exposure, or if you are misguided into thinking that everything has to have ultimate potential for manipulation.

JPEG is fine when you can control the environment, including lighting, exposure, contrast, and brightness range. School portrait photographers do that! Most other working pros with a good understanding of their tools can and will do that in the studio, any time they choose to do so. There are times they can use JPEG without a care in the world, and times when they must use RAW, and they know the difference!

If, with lighting, you can fit the entire brightness range of a scene into an 8-bit tonal range, why not do it? Photo paper can't reproduce a brightness range greater than about 25:1, anyway.

The margins on school portraits are incredibly slim. The companies that make them make millions of packages in a short period each Fall, just barely to break even in many cases. Using highly controlled lighting setups, precisely controlled camera settings, exposure targets, and common sense, the bigger and better companies manage to get the job done without ever using RAW. Indeed, there is no non-proprietary RAW workflow software embraced by that industry!

When we converted the lab I worked in from film to digital capture, I was the guy who came up with the camera settings to match the look of Kodak Portra 160 film scanned on Kodak HR500 film scanners. It took less than a week of fooling around in the studio to get the Canon EOS 20D to do just that, and to create a lighting setup and camera settings formula to do it on a daily basis for hundreds of camera setups.

We batch processed thousands of JPEG images at a time with a single click. Labs use super-powerful, specialized Kodak software called DP2 (yes, it is still around, despite Kodak's changes). We could have used Photoshop, but DP2 is faster and better for lab work. It can retouch, re-size, and change all other image characteristics at the same time, IF you want to drive it that way. Kodak's slogan for it is "touch pixels once". DP2 is a database driving a rendering engine. You set your changes in the database, viewing monitor previews of the results, and then render them all at once, exporting the results. The original file remains intact, if you wish. You can drive DP2's rendering engine from external databases, too, and that's what we did.

We regularly retouched blemishes in Photoshop (and/or Kodak's Professional Auto Retouching Software) from JPEG files. Every one of those retouched images was opened and saved three times — once when fine adjusting color and brightness, once when retouching, and once when printing (rendering at different sizes). We were careful to save the images with minimal compression. At normal viewing distances (diagonal dimensions of the prints), you could not tell what we were doing.

I point to these things to help those with open minds understand that there is more than one way to reach a destination. There is a whole world of work beyond "cottage industry" photography where things are done with loving care, one image at a time. I'm not mocking that, mind you, I'm just pointing out that we can learn from it.

I have a T-shirt somewhere that says, "RAW is for Rookies." I mean that kindly! It is a great safety net when you need it. But there is a time to learn the disciplines of JPEG capture and use them to your advantage. They won't work in every situation, but when they can, JPEG will save you all kinds of time and money. And if you follow them while shooting RAW + JPEG, I guarantee you that you will have better RAW images when you need them.

That's exactly where JPEG capture with pre-processing shines. When you have millions of images to process, store, move on a network, and print to portrait packages, RAW is over ten times more expensive and slower to use.



That it takes any time at all to post-process is the issue for some of us. If you pre-process properly, and set exposure and white balance using a target at the camera, the images are useful — on the Web or in print — right off the card or WiFi.

School photographers avoid RAW like the plague. What you describe works perfectly well for a wedding or photojournalistic job. But when you can control the environmental variables, it is wonderful to be able to just use the images. When you're making 400+ portraits a day, at each of a dozen cameras (typical), there is no time to post-process!

Yes, many pro photographers in all sorts of fields do little to no post-processing. They generate first-rate JPEG images, out of the camera, with full range tonality, perfectly acceptable color balance, and consistency from frame to frame. These are folks who understand the use of the ExpoDisc, the WhiBal, the One Shot Digital Calibration Target, the Delta-1 Gray Card, and similar tools. They have carefully tested ALL the settings deep in the menus of their cameras to find the combinations that meet their exacting needs for particular outcomes. They take the art of pre-processing to JPEGs just as seriously as the art of post-processing from RAW.

Google photo educator, Will Crockett, for a look at a pro photographer who thinks this way... He has been "Shooting Smarter" for years.

Very true. I'm a huge fan of Epson's best inkjets. I put the first 44" ones in the lab I worked for, back in 2003.

The high end is thriving, as it always has been and always will be. It's a niche market for pros, and remains a destination for serious and well-heeled amateurs.

Stores need POP posters, often printed on wide format inkjets. Wealthy folk still pay thousands for 30x40 canvas wall portraits printed on inkjets. The MOMA uses Epsons to print artists' reproductions for sale in their gift shop. And photo clubs still conduct print competitions (although some are using large, 4K monitors to review members' works). Most of those prints are made on inkjets.

For those with the means, there is nothing better than a 60x40 landscape printed on fine photo paper, using a high end inkjet, using a wide gamut color space workflow. from an image captured in RAW, converted to a 16-bit TIFF, and printed directly from Photoshop after editing.

Nice shot! My own personal work includes a lot of landscapes and travel work.

I cut my photographic teeth on Kodachrome and Ektachrome, back in the 1960s and 1970s. Perhaps that is where I learned the benefits of pre-processing... Slide film had no real latitude. The processing was tightly controlled. So, unless you made duplicates, what you captured in the camera was what you projected on the wall! Discipline at the camera (composition, lighting, exposure, and "white balance" with color compensation filters) controlled the results, period. As a multi-image audiovisual producer, I could create cool stuff on a slide duplicator and an image composition compound, but that was expensive!

I agree, most in this forum are not working pros, but advanced amateurs looking for techniques. I also agree that there is no one single tool that can do it all. Lightroom and Photoshop were designed to work together, as Adobe so strongly stressed to those of us who beta tested it for them in 2005–2006. They are complementary, not exclusive. The trick is to know where the tools fit into your workflow.

At the same time as I recommend we install both LR and PS (and the camera manufacturer's RAW processing converter), AND whatever plug-ins we want for sharpening, auto-retouching, and other special effects, I also recommend that we avoid over-reliance on the tools in our toolboxes.

There is something very organic about using pre-visualization AND the discipline of making the right pre-processing choices to get as far down the path with an image as you can... The paradox of it is that it gives you the maximum latitude in post processing to get what you really want.

I watched about 80% of the photographic printing market dry up and blow away over the period of 1998 to 2013. That was during the rise of the Internet, and the maturation of sharing sites, social media, and the smart phone/tablet mobile platforms.

Few people carry point-and-shoot cameras now. Most photography is done with smart phones, or with high end dSLR and mirrorless interchangeable lens cameras. The middle range of the camera market is evaporating. Few folks print, and photo lab consolidations and bankruptcies abound. Most images are destined for the Web.

So if you need LR and PS, chances are, you're photographing for yourself, or as a pro, you do weddings, environmental portraits, advanced (non-portrait) commercial work (buildings, products), sports action, or photojournalism. In all of those fields, consciously minimizing post-processing with a little planning and pre-processing will make you a better photographer.

Gene, we probably come from different worlds. In mine, RAW and JPEG workflows have completely different — and equally valid — purposes.

In the "portrait and social segment" of the photographic marketplace, we have a commercial need to minimize post processing labor, and to maximize photographic and sales opportunities, so we favor JPEG capture in most circumstances.

Controlling the variables at the point of capture allows portrait and social labs to use millions of JPEGs and only hundreds of RAW images in a year's time.

We see RAW capture as for the situations you describe, where the light is changing, or the brightness range and scene contrast exceed the ability of the camera to "fit" all the tones into an 8-bit file.

In such situations, we shoot *both* RAW and JPEG so we can use the JPEG if it is close to what we want, and we have the RAW image as insurance, to save the situation if the JPEG didn't work out.

In any case, the JPEG is a reference to the in-camera settings that we can use on our calibrated monitors to evaluate what went wrong, or to determine what we have to do with the RAW image.

In most situations in the studio, or on location with controlled sets, a photographer can control the brightness and contrast range with lighting. The camera can be pre-set with everything needed to get the "broad brush" color, contrast, saturation, white balance, highlights, shadows, and exposure "just right" in a JPEG. Minor adjustments from that point are all that are needed in post-processing, unless retouching or special effects are desired.

The point is that the marginal cost of using matter-of-course post-processing to "fix" or "improve" images sold commercially is usually higher than the marginal revenue obtained by relying on that fix. So we reserve Photoshop for retouching and other special manipulations that cannot be done in camera, or with lab workflow software such as Kodak's DP2.

The vast majority of casual photographers probably do not want to spend lots of time post-processing their images. They want to share them, as quickly as possible. The discipline of accurate pre-processing for JPEG capture, coupled with the insurance of RAW capture, can keep them shooting and sharing most often.

Having used various Canon and Nikon equipment since 1969, I have to say that both make some excellent gear. I've used one or the other for some very specific reasons over the years, which means that it depends on the use as to which is better for what purpose. And honestly, most of the time it boiled down to what I had in the lens collection.

That said, I'm now a fan of Panasonic Lumix and their GH4...

I believe Canon and Nikon are both late to the mirrorless party, and will have a tough time catching up, as RIM (BlackBerry now) did in the smart phone market. The mirror chamber will be dead in a few years, save for the very high end of the market.

I love small town parades. Although I'm in NC, I have family in Ashland, Oregon, and have witnessed half a dozen Fourth of July parades there. The parade content is much the same, but without the rednecks and confederate flags. In their place, you see the LGBT community, some vegans, and some stoners.

We ride through Moncks Corner, SC, on the way to the beaches now and then. These images capture the spirit of the place well.

Lightroom is workflow software. It is a JOB editor. Use LR to import, catalog, cull edit, adjust exposure and other image qualities, convert from RAW, send to the Web, print, and export. Send images to Photoshop for finer manipulations.

Photoshop is an IMAGE editor. Use PS for retouching, layering, compositing, titling and typography, montages, and other detailed image manipulation.

Also consider that BOTH packages can be black hole time suckers! Make every effort to set exposure and white balance correctly at the camera, by PRE-processing the image with the right camera settings! Even if you shoot RAW as a standard practice, learn to shoot near-perfect JPEGS, by using RAW + JPEG mode, so you don't spend any more time than necessary behind a computer.

One more note: Get a set of +0.5, +1, +2, and +4 diopter close-up lens attachments, and an adapter for the filter ring of your lens(es).

With a decent Apochromatically corrected lens, these can get you close enough to fill the frame with small objects. Optical performance isn't perfect, but will suffice until you buy a macro prime lens!

Thanks! I did a lot of macro work in a major pro photo lab from 1979 to 2012, photographing everything from coins and stamps and oil paintings to business forms and book covers with intricate metal embossed seals on them. The setup I described here is the last one I used.

[quote=craggycrossers]Rude? Lighten up, man ! You're in the US - a teacher, and new to this forum - I'm in a different country - we might talk the same language, but you please try to appreciate a touch of English humour - SS took even his fellow countrymen for a ride just recently - it's all a sense of "perception".[[/quote]

I *was* being light. Unfortunately, prose alone cannot convey inflection, or a tongue in cheek smile in the inflection. I agree with your previous comment, and I really like British humour, enough to spell it with a u.

There are limits to this medium...

I'm a trainer, not a teacher. Huge difference there.

I'm a huge fan of umbrellas, soft boxes, halos, reflectors, gobos, flags, scrims... plus diffusion sheeting from Rosco or Lee Filters. All have their uses in a studio setting.

There are lots of light modifier companies around. F.J. Westcott is one of my favorites, as they make heavy duty gear for daily use. Alzo is another... a more affordable source.

Tons of folks attempt to mount plastic doodads on camera-mounted strobes to diffuse light; I have a drawer full of them. Few of them work better than a sheet of white index card stock bent into a scoop and rubber-banded onto the strobe, set at a 75° bounce angle. This softens the light just a bit, supplying bounce fill from a low ceiling and some eye sparkle at about six or seven feet from a human subject.

Perhaps the best lighting accessory is a good education in lighting theory, followed by some instruction in techniques. If you can find any of Dean Collins' works online, they are an excellent start! He even wrote a book called Tinkertubes that shows you how to build your own light modifiers out of PVC and CPVC pipe, plus Rosco Soft Frost material.