Now convert your JPEGs to RAW!

gcogger said:
If you know anything about audio, try this analogy. You can rip a track on a CD to, say, a. wav file (lossless) or a 128k mp3. Now you can convert the mp3 to a. wav file, but that's not remotely the same as ripping to. wav in the first place.
Or a more extreme example, but just as valid IMHO - you could rip a track in mono. Now there's software out there that can convert a mono track to stereo (using very clever algorithms) but, again, that's not the same as having the original stereo file.
Yes, in both cases, you end up with a stereo 'uncompressed' file, but I it's important to be clear about the difference. I think the problem people have with the JPEG to RAW software is that it doesn't seem like it's being clear about that difference.
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There's a tonne of analogies being flung around this thread, many of them more allied to chemistry - but that's another story, to be frank yours is no less worthless. Unless you sit with the company and completely get to grips about the algorithms they're using to fill the gaps, you're guessing and using that guess to debase the work. It may be that you're right, but until you garner that knowledge - you simply do not know. I don't think anyone in this thread has said "it is RAW as it is out of a camera," my take is it is a RAW format, you (colloquial) need to decide whether the format fits a purpose.
 
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Gogster said:
There's a tonne of analogies being flung around this thread, many of them more allied to chemistry - but that's another story, to be frank yours is no less worthless. Unless you sit with the company and completely get to grips about the algorithms they're using to fill the gaps, you're guessing and using that guess to debase the work. It may be that you're right, but until you garner that knowledge - you simply do not know. I don't think anyone in this thread has said "it is RAW as it is out of a camera," my take is it is a RAW format, you (colloquial) need to decide whether the format fits a purpose.
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Actually his analogy, especially the last of converting stereo to mono and back, is very apt indeed. Audio or image data is just data, to be reworked and extrapolated from. The extrapolation process CANNOT exactly reproduce the original RAW file or stereo audio track, but it may be able to produce a file that looks a bit like it. Pretending that it's the same type of file is simply deception, but the new file may well be a lot more useful than the data it was derived from.
 
ancient_mariner said:
Actually his analogy, especially the last of converting stereo to mono and back, is very apt indeed. Audio or image data is just data, to be reworked and extrapolated from. The extrapolation process CANNOT exactly reproduce the original RAW file or stereo audio track, but it may be able to produce a file that looks a bit like it. Pretending that it's the same type of file is simply deception, but the new file may well be a lot more useful than the data it was derived from.
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Note once, in several messages did I say exactly.
 
Still this 'rages' .... can I ask this question (based on a RAW file being a recording of the Camera sensor's native format)?

Just to what form of RAW are these JPGs being converted?

I use Nikon so RAW is NEF and/or NRW; Fuji is RAF; CANON has 3x variants - the list continues :)
 
It's a DNG, Adobe's 'universal raw' format. Some cameras use it as their native format. Other raw formats like NEF can be converted to DNG while remaining raw, so they are readable by (e.g.) ACR and Lightroom as raw files. This type of conversion (as done by the Adobe DNG Converter) is just a repackaging of the raw data into a different file format, not the sort of witchcraft that Topaz does. You won't be able to use a DNG in something like Nikon's Capture NX-D simply because it doesn't support the file format, even though normal DNGs still contain the raw data from the sensor.
 
Gogster said:
There's a tonne of analogies being flung around this thread, many of them more allied to chemistry - but that's another story, to be frank yours is no less worthless. Unless you sit with the company and completely get to grips about the algorithms they're using to fill the gaps, you're guessing and using that guess to debase the work. It may be that you're right, but until you garner that knowledge - you simply do not know. I don't think anyone in this thread has said "it is RAW as it is out of a camera," my take is it is a RAW format, you (colloquial) need to decide whether the format fits a purpose.
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I'm not sure where the hostility is coming from?
To address your specific point - yes, we do know that the process cannot precisely recover the original RAW data gathered from the camera (which was all my analogies were trying to demonstrate). I'm not guessing or trying to debase the work, simply making a technical point.
 
I always compare this when talking to people to Concentrate orange juice. You just don't end up with the same thing at the other end of the process.
 
ancient_mariner said:
Rage? :LOL: But I guess some are motivated enough to be rude about it. :hug:
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LoL - I did use little 'dog ears' to illustrate that rage may be somewhat of an overstatement - some are angry though!
 
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