Raw pictures

Robbo

Robbo

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this has probably been asked many time but I still cant figure it out, what benefits will I see or get shooting in raw? better picture quality? :thinking:
 
ohhh I see!

would you recommend RAW if only a small amount of PP was being done, or is it mainly if there are a lot?#

also how much more memory does this use? e.g. how many would fit onto 4gb card?

thanks
 
Robbo said:
this has probably been asked many time but I still cant figure it out, what benefits will I see or get shooting in raw? better picture quality? :thinking:
Click to expand...

Nope, no better quality... in fact because the raw file doesn't have the in-camera processing applied to it it's actually, less sharp and duller than the same shot taken in jpeg :bonk:

But... it does give you more flexibility when you get that shot onto your computer and this is where raw files really have the edge. Custom white balance, exposure adjustments, your choice of sharpening and noise reduction rather than relying on the tiny processor in the camera.

The difference is most apparent when you use something like Lightroom since it displays the embedded jpeg first before switching to the raw image. As discussed in this and this thread.


Have a read through this thread for more info on your question - at some point I'll get around to writing up something for the tutorial section.

Sorry for not going into more detail here but like you say, it's been gone over quite a bit before. Read the last thread I linked to and if you have more questions then I'll go into the detail where you need it.


EDIT: yes, the raw file is a lot bigger but it contains a lot more info and gives you a lot more choice. One thing to remember is that you will ALWAYS need to post process raw files but that this is a good thing since it gives you the ability to do it in your own way. jpegs just happen to have had all of it done for you in-camera.
 
incapete said:
Nope, no better quality... in fact because the raw file doesn't have the in-camera processing applied to it it's actually, less sharp and duller than the same shot taken in jpeg :bonk:

But... it does give you more flexibility when you get that shot onto your computer and this is where raw files really have the edge. Custom white balance, exposure adjustments, your choice of sharpening and noise reduction rather than relying on the tiny processor in the camera.

The difference is most apparent when you use something like Lightroom since it displays the embedded jpeg first before switching to the raw image. As discussed in this and this thread.


Have a read through this thread for more info on your question - at some point I'll get around to writing up something for the tutorial section.

Sorry for not going into more detail here but like you say, it's been gone over quite a bit before. Read the last thread I linked to and if you have more questions then I'll go into the detail where you need it.
Click to expand...

thanks for the info :-) much appreciated, im not a huge PP as i dont know all the ins and outs yet so maybe im not quite ready for RAW...yet lol still going to mess about with in see what happens though.
 
Robbo said:
can you give me a rough eg?

say a normal pic is 3mb, is a RAW file a lot more?
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I'd say the raw files from my 400D are about 8.5mb but that still gives hundreds of shots on a 4gb card. Any more than that and you want a second card to protect against CF failure anyway so there's no real problem with the increased file size.
 
Robbo said:
thanks for the info :-) much appreciated, im not a huge PP as i dont know all the ins and outs yet so maybe im not quite ready for RAW...yet lol still going to mess about with in see what happens though.
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sorry, see my last edit.. raw will always need PP just to take it to the same level as jpeg so factor that in to your decision making but Lightroom does make it very easy!
 
incapete you have a few things wrong
It is better as it has all the info and nothing has been removed.
Lightroom ACR or any other Raw coverter do not show a embeded JPG it applyes teh camera settings you might have set.
Hope you get the facts right before you write up anything
 
incapete said:
I'd say the raw files from my 400D are about 8.5mb but that still gives hundreds of shots on a 4gb card. Any more than that and you want a second card to protect against CF failure anyway so there's no real problem with the increased file size.
Click to expand...

CF failure lol

I feel i have opened up a can of worms on my self lol
 
Robbo said:
CF failure lol

I feel i have opened up a can of worms on my self lol
Click to expand...

DOnt worry its a very rear thing but just to be safe have two small card in place of one bigger one I have only ever had one card where one or two photos was bad and it was replaces with out any problum
 
Chaz Photos said:
DOnt worry its a very rear thing but just to be safe have two small card in place of one bigger one I have only ever had one card where one or two photos was bad and it was replaces with out any problum
Click to expand...

Sorry i meant what is CF?
 
Chaz Photos said:
incapete you have a few things wrong
It is better as it has all the info and nothing has been removed.
Click to expand...
As I read it that is not what he said - he was referring to the initial unedited view.

Lightroom ACR or any other Raw coverter do not show a embeded JPG it applyes teh camera settings you might have set.
Click to expand...

You see the jpg briefly while it renders a picture from the raw data. Did you follow any of the links he posted?

Hope you get the facts right before you write up anything
Click to expand...

hmmm
 
The analogy I learnt the other day is that a JPEG is a ready meal that you bung in the oven, whereas a RAW file you are the chef..... Can you take ingredients out of a ready meal? No.

Essentially, on my Pentax Km on high res, 10Mpix, a jpeg is anbbout 3.5Mb, and a Raw is nudging on 10Mb.

RAW is, well raw, no processing, but if you **** up and leave the WB on tungsten whilst shooting outdoors in the sun, you can recover it easily. With JPEG you are stuffed.

I use 4Gb SDHC cards and shoot dual. (JPeg & RAW) - approx 180 shots per card. JPEG only is about 900-1000 shot per card, but as have 10 cards and not shot 1800 a day, not a problem...........

I only became a RAW convert last month , and now will always shoot dual.
 
RobertP said:
As I read it that is not what he said - he was referring to the initial unedited view.



You see the jpg briefly while it renders a picture from the raw data. Did you follow any of the links he posted?



hmmm
Click to expand...
If you shoot in RAW only, it has not got a jpg embedded in it. This only happens if you shoot in RAW and JPG the JPG you view is processed on the fly with the camera settings, it does not exist apart from being processed at the time
 
Chaz Photos said:
incapete you have a few things wrong
It is better as it has all the info and nothing has been removed.
Click to expand...


I know it's better because it has nothing removed, the thread I linked to went into all of that - it's also got nothing applied to it.


Chaz Photos said:
Lightroom ACR or any other Raw coverter do not show a embeded JPG it applyes teh camera settings you might have set.
Hope you get the facts right before you write up anything
Click to expand...


Really? Raw files definitely embed a jpeg - you can even get tools to extract it.
It's been discussed here before and most people have agreed it was an initial view of the embedded jpeg. Respected Lightroom experts refer to it as an embedded jpeg and the Mods on lightroomforums.net posted the following:
By far the most common question asked on this Forum is:

"I took a beautiful picture! It was perfectly saturated and color balanced, and I loved it. When I imported the RAW file into Lightroom, I saw my beautiful picture for 5 seconds, and then Lightroom ruined it, and turned it into a bland muddy mess. Why?"

The picture you see in LR is exactly the picture your camera sensor recorded. It's likely that you are used to seeing the preview on the camera display. That preview is not your RAW file, but a JPG which has been processed by the electronics inside your camera. Or, you may be using your camera manufacturer's proprietary RAW conversion software. That software has a post-processing advantage in that it can utilize proprietary 'secret' information embedded in RAW files, which is undocumented and unavailable to third party programs such as LR and ACR.

Additionally, most third party viewer/browser applications show you the embedded JPG preview rather than the actual RAW file contents. In fact, LR itself shows you that preview for a few seconds at first, until it has time to render a preview in accordance with your current develop settings.

When you import your RAW file, none of that proprietary in-camera processing is applied by Lightroom. To a certain extent, you have to do it yourself. That is the purpose of Develop Presets. It takes some getting used to, and some practice, and some homework to achieve consistently good results. The amazing flexibility of Lightroom comes with some costs in terms of effort.
Click to expand...
 
In Bridge you do not see a jpg you see the flat image and after a little time it will apply the camera settings.
The problem with the internet is you can prove anything you want.
I will not say any more on this, having worked in electronics, I know what I know and I am happy with what I know
 
Robbo said:
this has probably been asked many time but I still cant figure it out, what benefits will I see or get shooting in raw? better picture quality? :thinking:
Click to expand...

great question, and some really helpful and informative replies :)

(I had to put a reply onto it, just so I could find it and refer to the answers again :lol:)
 
Chaz Photos said:
In Bridge you do not see a jpg you see the flat image and after a little time it will apply the camera settings.
The problem with the internet is you can prove anything you want.
I will not say any more on this, having worked in electronics, I know what I know and I am happy with what I know
Click to expand...

But obviously Chaz you are not happy with what other people know.
 
Well, I just extracted a bunch of jpegs from RAW files using breezebrowser, I didn't know it was possible, you live and learn:)
 
Chaz Photos said:
In Bridge you do not see a jpg you see the flat image and after a little time it will apply the camera settings.
The problem with the internet is you can prove anything you want.
I will not say any more on this, having worked in electronics, I know what I know and I am happy with what I know
Click to expand...

Chaz - i think you may find your wrong - this tool will extract the embedded jpg from a raw file.

OP - Your image files will vary in size depending on what you shoot, to try raw set your camera to shoot raw and .jpg then you will see the difference between the two formats strait from camera, but remember to get the best from raw you need to process it.


And this tool will give you info about a raw file including whats embedded in it - download and extract to your desktop then drag a raw file into the icon.
 
Chaz the camera manafacturer decides if and what size jeg is automaticly embeded in the raw file. Even Adobe give you the choice of what size jpeg to embed when converting to DNG Raw. Sorry but you are wrong about this.
 
Neither of those links work for me DF. :)

--

Personally I don't understand the use of the word embedded, a raw file is simply a recording of the sensors actual collection data. This file has the necessary coding tags attached so that a jpg can be demosaiced with an algorithm from the raw ...same for a tiff or any file type supported.

I don't use LR but I'd guess as has been pointed out that the initial show is the cameras demosaiced jpeg, quickly replaced with LR version of the demoscaced jpg.

Neither of those jpegs was actually formed and stored within the raw....as far as I can tell, it certainly makes little sence any other way but I'll happily eat my hat if im wrong.

Demosaicing and also white balance involve interpreting and converting the bayer array (the raw data) into an image with all three colours at each pixel. The bayer array is what I spot loading before my first jpeg appears, its far more pixelated than the others, and gives the image a greenish tint and shows blow areas all purple, before quicly being converted into a smooth viewable jpeg suitable for me to edit the raws final output as a jpeg or tiff.
 
Forbiddenbiker said:
Neither of those links work for me DF. :)

--

Personally I don't understand the use of the word embedded, a raw file is simply a recording of the sensors actual collection data. This file has the necessary coding tags attached so that a jpg can be demosaiced with an algorithm from the raw ...same for a tiff or any file type supported.

I don't use LR but I'd guess as has been pointed out that the initial show is the cameras demosaiced jpeg, quickly replaced with LR version of the demoscaced jpg.

Neither of those jpegs was actually formed and stored within the raw....as far as I can tell, it certainly makes little sence any other way but I'll happily eat my hat if im wrong.

Demosaicing and also white balance involve interpreting and converting the bayer array (the raw data) into an image with all three colours at each pixel. The bayer array is what I spot loading before my first jpeg appears, its far more pixelated than the others, and gives the image a greenish tint and shows blow areas all purple, before quicly being converted into a smooth viewable jpeg suitable for me to edit the raws final output as a jpeg or tiff.
Click to expand...

Links working fine for me ?

http://www.rawworkflow.com/instant-jpeg-from-raw-utility/

http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/

http://lclevy.free.fr/cr2/#parsing - Canon's Cr2 suspected spec.

The raw file also contains 'embedded' with the raw data , data that has been encoded using a jpg algorithm using the in-camera settings and one of the exif values stores the info that is used to access this data from the file.
 
Chaz Photos said:
incapete you have a few things wrong
It is better as it has all the info and nothing has been removed.

Hope you get the facts right before you write up anything
Click to expand...

Define better ....

If you do not want to spend hours on PP then .jpeg is better.

If you need to get a large number of images to a client within minutes of shooting them .jpeg is better.

It is a case of horses for courses, .jpeg and raw are tools at your disposal, use whichever one best suits the job in hand.

I thought incapete was pretty much spot on.
 
Dogfish_magnet said:
Links working fine for me ?

http://lclevy.free.fr/cr2/#lossless - Canon's Cr2 suspected spec.

The raw file also contains 'embedded' with the raw data , data that has been encoded using a jpg algorithm using the in-camera settings and one of the exif values stores the info that is used to access this data from the file.
Click to expand...

Ah my fault soz, just tested, bad browser cookie.

-

I shall go back and read that whole page and references later, very interesting.

I obviously can't be expected to understand the details of that link you put up DF, not only is it of context for me initailly, but I think it is referring more to what I meant, rather that the actual full jpeg being embedded.

The section you linked to refers to a International standards, specifically digital compression standards, of grey tone, etc. In those standards, through the pdf link offered, it clearly states that, and I quote. "This specification does not specify a complete coded image representation"

I believe what Im reading is details of how cannons raw file stores the coding information for quick access/algorithm routes for building a full jpeg from the raw.

??
 
Chaz Photos said:
In Bridge you do not see a jpg you see the flat image and after a little time it will apply the camera settings.
The problem with the internet is you can prove anything you want.
I will not say any more on this, having worked in electronics, I know what I know and I am happy with what I know
Click to expand...

My understanding is that a jpeg is indeeed embedded in with the raw file when shooting raw only. For one thing, its how the camera allows me to chimp the images on the camera screen once they have been taken (albeit a rather small jpeg)!
 
Forbiddenbiker said:
Ah my fault soz, just tested, bad browser cookie.

-

I shall go back and read that whole page and references later, very interesting.

I obviously can't be expected to understand the details of that link you put up DF, not only is it of context for me initailly, but I think it is referring more to what I meant, rather that the actual full jpeg being embedded.

The section you linked to refers to a International standards, specifically digital compression standards, of grey tone, etc. In those standards, through the pdf link offered, it clearly states that, and I quote. "This specification does not specify a complete coded image representation"

I believe what Im reading is details of how cannons raw file stores the coding information for quick access/algorithm routes for building a full jpeg from the raw.

??
Click to expand...


Sorry linked to wrong section - small version of the picture (one fourth the size of the original), compressed in Jpeg
 
Dogfish_magnet said:
Sorry linked to wrong section - small version of the picture (one fourth the size of the original), compressed in Jpeg
Click to expand...


Yeah I read that earlier, but that just lists the contents of a tiff file type...

Its a break down of a tiff file showing some of the possible attachments that the cr2 file uses. The quarter size jpeg mentioned, firstly it isn’t full size and secondly it is as subsidiary of a complete tiff file and its not explained that its also part of a raw.

The only thing stated is that the cr2 raw is based on a tiff file structure.

Speed reading through earlier i can find no direct mention of a complete jpeg or/and tiff embedded in a raw file.


Perhaps Im miss reading, its pretty heavy stuff.
 
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