Raw v Jpeg - Blurring the lines ?

Andrew Davies Photography

Andrew Davies Photography

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Recently signed up to the new Adobe Cloud package and started using Photoshop CC.

Having always been a big fan of Adobe Camera Raw and its place in workflow i was amazed to find it is now also supplied as a standalone filter and all of the settings used for RAWs ie white balance / noise reduction / sharpening can be applied to any file in photoshop ie a jpeg and not just on the CR2s from the camera.

So now i can adjust old jpegs without the raw files just as if i had them.

Whats everyone elses view on this and for those who have used CC for a while have you found the ACR Filter to be useful ?

Do we see a time in the very near future when the need for RAW files is going to be negated as often my final image result in jpegs ( for weddings and landscapes mainly ) ?
 
Yes, ACR and LR can process jpeg images. But there isn't as much scope for fiddling as there is with raw images, because the vast majority of the information held in the raw file gets thrown away when converted to a jpeg.

I took an image shooting raw+jpeg - with the WB and exposure totally screwed. This is the best I could get from a jpeg -

Grass.jpg



And this is what I could get from LR using the raw data.

Grass%20Proc%20Raw%20LR4.jpg
 
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I've seen it covered in one of my courses from creative live - Adobe Camera Raw Optimizing, Enhancing & Retouching with Jack Davis (highly recommended btw folks)


Not for me but many do the jpeg only thing, I like as much latitude as is possible as I never know what I'll want to do with an image both in the now and in the future.
 
I was always taught imagine a raw file as the digital equivalent of a negative. It's not an image itself but you can use it to produce a viewable image like raw is just the data of the image. For sample what u see on the back of your camera is just a JPEG conversion of the RAW file so you can use it. You only have to compare the file size of a JPEG 3-4MB compared to a RAW 40-50MB to think how much more data is contained with in it.
 
You always (well, as long as I can remember) do this. Open As -> Raw and then select JPEG. Just you have way less wiggle room from JPEGs - especially in the shadow areas...
 
It all depends... I used to shoot RAW only but a) it made my computer slow, b) not all photos I take are going to be processed heavily (family photos, events, parties etc.) and c) Fuji JPEGs are stupid good.

So now I use RAW whenever I shoot "seriously" which is becoming increasingly rare these days and use JPEG for fun shots I'm not going to do much with after. It has to be said: You can do a fair amount of PP with proper JPEGs these days if you don't completely mess up exposure...
 
I've avoided using ACR with jpg files after trying and giving up very early on. It just doesn't produce anything decent. RAW will never be replaced for me, despite the fact that I do work with jpg often. I guess what you intend to do with the images dictates what format you end up or work with.
 
hollis_f said:
Yes, ACR and LR can process jpeg images. But there isn't as much scope for fiddling as there is with raw images, because the vast majority of the information held in the raw file gets thrown away when converted to a jpeg.

I took an image shooting raw+jpeg - with the WB and exposure totally screwed. This is the best I could get from a jpeg -

Grass.jpg



And this is what I could get from LR using the raw data.

Grass%20Proc%20Raw%20LR4.jpg
Click to expand...

Superb result and also shows I have sooooo much still to learn about PP.
 
No - a jpg is essentially an acceptably compromised and compressed version of the original image, designed to make the resultant file portable for storage and communication bandwidth limited reasons and to ease the processing burden on legacy computing resource. As time moves on, the needs for these compromises reduces, not increases. I never use JPGs until the output stage - RAW offers so much more flexibility beforehand and we pay so much for our equipment to get the highest quality possible, shooting in jpg at source seems daft. Plus if you use Lightroom on a decent computer, you don't really have any performance differences either, so there aren't that many real benefits to shooting in JPG at all (there will always be exceptions - e.g. machine gunning shots into an infinite buffer, but most cameras have pretty decent buffer depths in RAW anyway these days).
 
Simes123 said:
No - a jpg is essentially an acceptably compromised and compressed version of the original image, designed to make the resultant file portable for storage and communication bandwidth limited reasons and to ease the processing burden on legacy computing resource. As time moves on, the needs for these compromises reduces, not increases. I never use JPGs until the output stage - RAW offers so much more flexibility beforehand and we pay so much for our equipment to get the highest quality possible, shooting in jpg at source seems daft. Plus if you use Lightroom on a decent computer, you don't really have any performance differences either, so there aren't that many real benefits to shooting in JPG at all (there will always be exceptions - e.g. machine gunning shots into an infinite buffer, but most cameras have pretty decent buffer depths in RAW anyway these days).
Click to expand...

To be fair increasing resolutions are keeping file sizes high enough that there are pretty significant differences in storage space required, and unless you want to PP each photo JPG can massively speed up the workflow of taking an image and posting/printing it.

I'm the same as you in that I never shoot JPG, but I can see why some people do if they don't want to mess around with storage and PP etc. sometimes the IQ difference just isn't that important
 
I'd agree - though storage is massively cheap these days and getting cheaper. Concur re point about high volume workflows, if you are delivering images SOC, warts and all. If you've taken into lightroom though to sort, make selections, Export is only 1 click away (and if you'd done that in RAW, you'd have a better quality higher latitude master were there any problems). I'm guessing those that would really benefit from a purely jpg workflow would be the likes of the graduation event photographers who are doing volume work and taking thousands of images, where even today, storage requirements would start to get unmanageable.
 
Andrew, I think I’m right in saying you could always edit JPEGs and TIFFS in ACR it was an option in PS pre CC, it was under, edit, preferences, file handling.

If you get the exposure as good as is possible and as near to the way you want it in the camera, then the JPEG the camera outputs will be as good as if it was a standard processed RAW file that is saved as a JPEG.

For me a processed RAW file should be saved as a TIFF file, I rarely save a converted RAW as a JPEG. The TIFFS then get converted as and when needed for whatever reason.

My first digital camera had the option of shooting in TIFF, this I thought was akin to film, you have to get it right in the camera. Bracketing being the order of the day.

Rhodese.
 
Not sure if this is relevant to the OP but if you want/need to edit jpegs the best editor I have used for jpegs is DXO Optics pro.
 
Simes123 said:
I'd agree - though storage is massively cheap these days and getting cheaper. Concur re point about high volume workflows, if you are delivering images SOC, warts and all. If you've taken into lightroom though to sort, make selections, Export is only 1 click away (and if you'd done that in RAW, you'd have a better quality higher latitude master were there any problems). I'm guessing those that would really benefit from a purely jpg workflow would be the likes of the graduation event photographers who are doing volume work and taking thousands of images, where even today, storage requirements would start to get unmanageable.
Click to expand...


Storage is indeed cheap these days and huge capacity cards are now cheaper than a 512 MB card used to be (and 1 GB cards were yet to hit the shelves...) Time spent processing raw files is less cheap (and more precious!) which is where JPEGs come into their own. I know the sundial shot above was shot to show how much more you can polish a raw t#rd than a JPEG one but it's also easy enough to produce something that doesn't need polishing. BOTH formats have a place and both have benefits and drawbacks.
 
Also, the trend towards cloud storage (Dropbox Carousel, Apple Photos, Eye-Fi Cloud etc.) somewhat counteracts the "disk space is getting cheap" argument.
 
dergit said:
Also, the trend towards cloud storage (Dropbox Carousel, Apple Photos, Eye-Fi Cloud etc.) somewhat counteracts the "disk space is getting cheap" argument.
Click to expand...

Not really. It supports it, though cloud is not a usable photography Storage medium for those on ADSL still...
 
Simes123 said:
Not really. It supports it, though cloud is not a usable photography Storage medium for those on ADSL still...
Click to expand...

I think no matter what the speeds available I'd only ever use a cloud service as a backup/remote access solution. I'd always want a 'hard' copy of some sort as well that was totally in my control
 
No one seems to have mentioned JPEG compression and while there are limits on how much information you gather compared to a raw file the image degrades every time you open it
 
Simes123 said:
Not really. It supports it, though cloud is not a usable photography Storage medium for those on ADSL still...
Click to expand...
Which is not an argument against cloud storage at all. Apple Photos has a local library that is backed up to iCloud. All your work is done on the local files and synced to iCloud in the background. Other devices tap into the same library from iCloud and store versions optimised for that device. But you *can* access the original source file at any point from any device if you want to. It really works rather well, I must say.
 
dergit said:
Which is not an argument against cloud storage at all. Apple Photos has a local library that is backed up to iCloud. All your work is done on the local files and synced to iCloud in the background. Other devices tap into the same library from iCloud and store versions optimised for that device. But you *can* access the original source file at any point from any device if you want to. It really works rather well, I must say.
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Must admit I'm not really clear on which point you are trying to make though you seem to have a disagreement with something I've said :). You first said that cloud counteracts the argument that disk space is getting cheap. It doesn't. Disk space is getting cheap. Cloud also is getting cheap - free even. I have many Gb of free cloud. One does not counteract the other. Storage is getting cheap period. And then you are telling me about cloud and sync. I have Apple kit and I have ADSL. I use iCloud and other cloud storage. I'm an IT specialist in my day job. Cloud is fine for small volumes of data. Rubbish for large volume storage. If you have ADSL. That's all I'm saying.
 
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