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Jpg And Raw Images

wilorichie

By wilorichie,
in Photography

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wilorichie Experienced

wilorichie

Posted
Posted

Right now, I'm enjoying my camera and I'm always learning, but I can't get my head around why and when RAW vs JPG is best.

I'm wondering - When do you guys use raw images and when do you use JPG?

The quality looks, literally, exactly the same for me.

I know there are preset 'modifiers' for raw, ie: exposure, brightness, contrast etc... but you can do all of this with any JPG as well...

Help me get my head around this guys - Please!

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ZENNON Grand Master

ZENNON

Posted
Posted (edited)

If the white balance is wrong for example - that's something you can completely fix if you have the RAW.

And the amount of information stored in a RAW is truly amazing (I always shoot RAW).

If you get the exposure and white balance right you can probably just shoot JPG...

What software do you use to adjust your preset modifiers (before you check the quality)?

Edited by ZENNON
wilorichie Experienced

wilorichie

Posted
  • Author
Posted (edited)

But if you over expose, raw or jpg - it is not fixable?

ie: a white t-shirt, if over exposed is just a big white thing in the shape of a t-shirt - if I make exposure darker digitally.. it just makes the whole shape of the t-shirt darker and the details within do not show..

or wrong?

Sorry didn't see your question before: I use photoshop

Edited by wilorichie
MaTBoY Grand Master

MaTBoY

Posted
Posted

If something is completely blown out. i.e. not showing on the histogram (do some reading if your not sure what i mean, it's very useful) you'll never recover it. but if it's inside the histogram but to far to either side you can bring it back to the right exposure level.

so if a shot is under or over exposed about 3 stops you should be able to get most it looking good with a raw. with a jpg though... the camera stores less information and you're a lot more restricted in what can be recovered and exposed correctly.

wilorichie Experienced

wilorichie

Posted
  • Author
Posted

So do you use RAW or JPG matt? When do you use these?

Do you always have the graph up?

I have a 4gig card... I think my card might not be big enough to always use RAW. I generally always like to use the highest quality setting because I can downgrade later, but with my 4gig, I thought I'd ask you guys what you think first.

RAW feels like it takes about 1 second longer to save/process... I feel this might get annoying.

GoldZilla Grand Master

GoldZilla

Posted
Posted

What camera are you using again, Richie? Even on a 4gb car, you should still be able to get a few hundred shots in at least.

I personally always shoot RAW, due to the better ability to manipulate photos better in PP.

wilorichie Experienced

wilorichie

Posted
  • Author
Posted

I was just playing around with the graph - very cool indeed! When you say '3 stops' what am I looking for here? That one I'm not sure on sorry.

My camera is one of the entry level canons called a 1000D - I do have a decent (Well what I would call decent) lense on there though so I do expect quality photos - But unfortunately the photographer is lacking a bit haha.

I do like the fact that RAW images could fix under or over exposure better than JPGs. Is there any other benefits that you guys know about?

I see each RAW file is 10 meg and a copy of the JPG also sits there at around 3 megs. So this 13 megs in total instead of 3 megs. Which roughly a 4gig card should hold approx 300 photos.

Nick, do you find RAW much easier to work with than the JPGs?

Thanks for your time and help guys, I really appreciate your knowledge.

GoldZilla Grand Master

GoldZilla

Posted
Posted

My camera is one of the entry level canons called a 1000D - I do have a decent (Well what I would call decent) lense on there though so I do expect quality photos - But unfortunately the photographer is lacking a bit haha.

I do like the fact that RAW images could fix under or over exposure better than JPGs. Is there any other benefits that you guys know about?

I see each RAW file is 10 meg and a copy of the JPG also sits there at around 3 megs. So this 13 megs in total instead of 3 megs. Which roughly a 4gig card should hold approx 300 photos.

Nick, do you find RAW much easier to work with than the JPGs?

Thanks for your time and help guys, I really appreciate your knowledge.

Ahh cool, I'm familiar with the 1000D, my cousin has one and I used to have (still own, but it's on loan to another cousin) a 450D, which is one step up.

Alright, the main benefit of using RAW images is that when you modify them in any way, the original file is NEVER damaged and/or written over - the changes you make are written to a small separate file. When you modify a Jpeg file, unless you've made a copy, you'll never be able to revert back to the original photo as shot by the camera.

GoldZilla Grand Master

GoldZilla

Posted
Posted

RAW feels like it takes about 1 second longer to save/process... I feel this might get annoying.

Oh, and with this, it helps to use faster cards (class 4 or higher) where possible if you're going to be shooting using the burst mode.

FST513 Mentor

FST513

Posted
Posted

How many MP is a 1000D? 10MP? You'll be able to get around 250 Raw shots on a 4GB card. I have a 7D and use 8GB cards and i can get 270-300 Raw shots but the file sizes are around 20-30MB.

I always shoot RAW. Much easier to manipulate the file. You can do it with a JPEG but it will not be as clean and it won't take much for the file to basically "crumble".

A stop is 1 stop. E.g. F5.6 to F8 is one f stop. 1/125th to 1/250th is 1 stop etc... Google it, if you want the full stop calculations, i don't want to type them all up, will take too long lol.

RAW's advantages over JPEG is easily the manipulation. You would be surprised how much you can recover in a RAW. Although blowing out a white shirt and pulling it back 3 stops might be an extreme as it will start to lose it's dynamic range. If that is the case, i suggest you work on your exposures.

If you shoot a JPEG it will already (In-camera) adjust the sharpness, saturation, contrast etc... to whatever you have set in the camera. Whereas the RAW PREVIEW will show exactly the same thing, but once loaded into camera raw in photoshop, these will be stripped and the image will be "flat" until you adjust it to how you want.

Shoot an image 2 stops over-exposed/under-exposed as a JPEG and shoot the same thing as a RAW and you will see the difference. Try recovering them both and you'll see the difference.

Most sport shooters shoot in JPG at events so that the "card runners" can collect their cards and upload straight away to the editors etc.. 95% of pro's/most photographers will shoot in RAW. Much less destructive than JPEG editing.

IF you google RAW vs JPEG i'm sure there are over a million answers why you should shoot RAW :)

wilorichie Experienced

wilorichie

Posted
  • Author
Posted

IF you google RAW vs JPEG i'm sure there are over a million answers why you should shoot RAW :)

I suppose that is funny, because before I posted this thread, of course I did a bit of Googling - And the first 3 articles I read, is why you should shoot JPG. I had decided just before that, I wanted to shoot RAW and I wanted to read an article telling me this was a good idea! Simply because it is easy to downgrade, but not possible to upgrade (Photo editing stage).

The first 3-4 posts (including yours, FST) have given me more than enough confidence that RAW is a much better decision than JPG - And I have happily made the switch :)

  • 3 weeks later...
MaTBoY Grand Master

MaTBoY

Posted
Posted

If you don't shoot raw.... your a f**king idiot.

Ir someone who is happy with snapshots. I only shoot raw. Ditch the jpg baby.

You can only manipulate about 20% (without spending ages making actions and splitting pics apart) in jpg. Raw gives you so much more control.

You've made your mind up so I will say no more.

Except get a class 10 card. Faster writing speed. I always have a 16gb stick and its been sufficient 98% of the time.

Stang Proficient

Stang

Posted
Posted (edited)

I've just downloaded a trial of Lightroom 3. When loading NEF files, the colours go off as soon as it loads.

Seems ridiculous that you can do eleven biliion different things with the photos in LR3 , but can't stop it from buggering up colour and contrast in the original RAW files. :domokun:

Edited by Stang
  • 2 weeks later...
Tommo224 Newbie

Tommo224

Posted
Posted

I discovered RAW a few months ago, and wish I knew about it earlier.

I use Lightroom for all my photo editing now, I haven't had any reasons to head back in to Photoshop to fix up or change anything.

So now, Photoshop is now a work tool, and Lightroom for fun :)

RAW saves all the information the camera captured, where as a JPG is a flat image.

Think of RAW like the raw ingredients going in to cooking, they're sitting there unprocessed and not quite ready to consume. You cook them (edit in Lightroom), and export them in to a JPG for consumption. You can still add things to the final product to make it how you like, but that's it.

If you over cook a JPG from the camera then that's it, you're stuck with that, and can't fix it up too much. (depending on how bad)

If you under cook a JPG you might be able to recover a bit more, but again that's a stretch.

But with RAW you can always go back and change it again, and again, and again!

I used to always shoot in JPG and edit in Photoshop, I made do just fine. But there was always something my fussy self would notice but I'd make do. Now that it comes to RAW, I'm so much happier with the final products!

89CAL Grand Master

89CAL

Posted
Posted

I have a 16gig card, And I just shoot dual JPEG + RAW, basically because I'm lazy :P

If I have a photo I want to keep that looks good enough without touching, I just grab the JPEG, but then I always have the option of playing around with it in RAW. Perks of having a 16gig card, not really necessary but I find it handy

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