Why Raw

Hmm, does sound a bit iffy, doesn't it? Thank Christ I didn't mention kiddies in the same sentence.
 
:Dhow long did it take you to come up with that analogy or have you always had that one floating around in your head......and which answer is most worrying :lol:
 
AndyB1976 said:
:Dhow long did it take you to come up with that analogy or have you always had that one floating around in your head.
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Well I've always regarded JPEGs as like a baked cake, which you can't unbake, whereas raw is like having the ingredients and then being able to choose just how to bake them from scratch (over and over again).

As an independent thought, when people are scared of raw, being a Canon shooter I am reminded of my first experience with raw and the fact that if all else fails you can simply convert them in DPP, with all the same settings that the camera had when each shot was taken, and out come the JPEGs. It's like a "sausage machine". Raws in at the front, JPEGs out the back. You don't even need to turn a handle, it is almost a completely hands off exercise. Import the photos, select folder, press CTRL-A, Press CTRL-B, click Execute. Wait a few seconds or a few minutes and you have your JPEGs all done and dusted, just as though you'd shot them that way to begin with. Of course, if you do want or need to edit them then you can do that too. You just have a lot more editing options available.

I guess when you start combining these concepts, and choosing words unwisely, like "fiddling" instead of "adjusting" (is that actually any better?) it does run the risk of sounding just a little bit dirty.
 
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Well that should allow you to do what you need. Unfortunately I don't shoot Nikon and I don't use Elements so it's over to Google or someone else to guide you further. or you could simply try it. Shoot a raw image and open it in Elements. See what happens. Good luck. :)
 
thanks for that i will try it nowt to lose,ah ah, just took a couple of shots and had a go,i think i might be converted to raw its excellent,another couple of questions,what settings should i use in the camera calibrate,and when i have finished with processing can i print it,or do i have to save it as a jpeg
 
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reedwarbler said:
i have a`nikon d90 and elements 9
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Download Nikon View NX2 its free and will allow you to view & edit your NEFs.
It retains all the camera settings so if you are happy with the result you can just save and/or print. If things need changing, such as Exposure Comp. or WB etc then that is easy to do.
If you want to edit further in elements you can convert to a TIFF and set View NX2 to open it with elements.
 
The latest copy of Digital Photographer has a special on shooting raw, which looks quite interesting and takes you through the pro's & cons of shooting raw.

Personally I tend to shoot raw almost 100% of the time these days, mainly due to the added depth of dynamic range and the ability to adjust the white balance. It allows me to set the WB on auto in the camera and then adjust as necessary when I run it through Lightroom.

Steve

Sent from my iPad using TP Forums
 
I agree with most of what's been said as far as the pros for shooting raw.
I like to ppt images so for me shooting raw is just half the process, just like in the old film and darkroom days.
I do actually find it faster to process many files than I do jpgs and this was the reason I first started shooting raw 5 years ago. Back then it took ages to open each jpg one at a time to tweak them but with raw it was easy.
 
BruceHuang said:
If you are not good at computer, I don't think shooting RAW is a good idea.
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Computer skills shouldn't be too much of a problem as most (all?) camera manufacturers include software with their DSLR's that will take the raw file and apply the in camera settings to allow an almost 'one click' approach to producing JPG's.
By shooting raw OR both you still have ALL the information from the sensor, so that at a later time when you have aquired more skills in the PP department (and you don't really need much) you can go back to the raw's if you wish.

swanseamale47
Rhett Butler also said "I'm very drunk and I intend on getting still drunker before this evening's over". And I think he mentioned raw was better but I just might be wrong on that.

I must have missed that bit, but he definitely had the right idea....:wave:
 
Anyone know of a good resource that defines the amount if data 'thrown away' by JPEG in each part of tonal/dynamic range? Just curious to see where raw is going to bring home the bacon against the same shot done in JPEG, as I'm struggling to see some good examples of the argument, especially that of coming back to raw shots when you have gained the appropriate level of processing nous......
 
I can't put quantifiable figures on the losses, but I can show examples of where raw can succeed when JPEG fails.....

1. Highlight recovery of an overexposed scene.

This scene was shot by spot metering the brightest part of the snow at +4, which is basically 1 stop beyond the clipping threshold of a raw file processed using default settings. Note, while this is overexposed on purpose it illustrates the power of raw to capture and save a dynamic range that is beyond JPEG. While snow makes a good example it could equally well be a bride's dress.

Raw recovery :
20110207_183101_000.jpg


JPEG equivalent :
20110207_183141_000.jpg


As you can see, the JPEG file doesn't come even close to being salvageable. The colours are well off and highlight detail has been lost forever. The raw file, on the other hand, has maintained an even colour balance (it might need a tweak, but it is even) throughout all tones within the frame. Detail has also reappeared in what looked like blown out snow.

This means that you probably have about 1 stop of additional dynamic range to play with in the highlights, and that's without really putting in any effort to fine tune recovery, or even to do it properly at all. It's just an example.
 
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2. Shadow recovery in a properly exposed scene of high dynamic range.

The samples are from one raw file out of my 1D3 and are shown as 100% crops of a dark region. The B&G were in sunlight and properly exposed. I just wanted to give a lift to the guests and areas of the scene which were shaded. The JPEG version was created by running the raw file through DPP using standard picture style and quality = 10, which is the maximum.

Please click the resize bar to see each image displayed as intended.

Raw shadow recovery using Fill = 50 in Lightroom :
20110207_184317_000.jpg


JPEG shadow recovery using Fill = 50 in Lightroom :
20110207_184331_000.jpg


Observe that in the "before" version the JPEG has insipid blacks and lacks punch. It also looks a little soft. The raw file is more contrasty and vibrant. This carries through even more strongly to the adjusted file, where quite frankly the JPEG simply does not cut it.

So from these two examples it is clear to me that raw does better in both the highlights and the shadows when it comes to squeezing as much dynamic range from your camera as possible.
 
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tdodd - good examples, although going on from this, I wonder just how image capture (and therefore dynamic range, actual and not specified) has changed/improved as sensors have got better.

Playing devil's advocate here, but just thinking, say, how much you'll get back from raw files from old cameras (say, Canon 20D) compared to the quality of JPEGs and raw from the likes of today's mid-range like the 7D you're using? Probably a totally academic question because you need to have the same scene shot on both but for those people going back to shots taken five years ago (or on technology from several years ago such as my D2X) I'm wondering how much difference they're seeing? :)
 
I suspect the benefits will still be there to be uncovered. With old technology you had 12 bit raw data channels squeezed into 8 bit JPEGs. Nowadays it's 14 bit data channels squeezed into 8 bits. Then of course JPEG compression throws away a little too.

There is more to it than that though. The raw data is just that - exactly what the camera saw, not processed and massaged in any way. That means it hasn't be squeezed to fit into a colour space, has not had white balance adjustments applied (which might drive either the R or B channel into clipping, and has not had a tone curve applied which might drive blacks or whites into clipping. It's also not had non specific sharpening and NR applied either, or contrast and saturation either.

Basically you can go right back to the original data and start over, with the latest developments in demosaicing, camera pofiling and everything else.

I'll see if I can find an old raw from my 30D with high dynamic range and see how tweaking that compares with a JPEG pumped out of DPP.
 
http://www.dpreview.com/learn/?/key=AD_Converter

I've been trying to chew over the information in that link. I'm not sure if its entirely relevant, however I'll throw it into the ring.

Now I don't have the knowledge to argue these points either way, or if even the information is upto date, accurate or relevant to this specific thread.

It is claming that JPEGS are 8Bit (256 tonal levels) whereas RAWs are 10Bit/12Bit (1024/4096 tonal levels) so I guess when you view it at the tonal level the differences can seem rather significant.


Andy
 
Tim - I'm finding this interesting and yep, if you could see what an old shot throws up I'd be keen to hear what you think (you obviously know much more than me) :)

You might be able to tell that I'm a bit of a cynic. Thing for me is that especially on TP, whenever raw is mentioned, every man and his dog is quick to say "oh yeah, you can recover loads of info and save bad shots etc..." which is obviously true (to whatever extent obviously depends on initial exposure and camera capabilities) but there's rarely anything to back this up. I've learnt a lot over the years about processing to get a certain look but I am the first to realise that getting a lot out of an image through software isn't always that straightforward and more often than not, a correctly exposed JPEG with in-camera additions might have been a better alternative to a raw file that ends up not being worked on efficiently.

I suppose that it's all down to education and learning and more power to the people who crack raw processing to the point where they're nailing everything. But I do think people hear about the more obvious attributes of raw and because it sounds better, it's going to improve their photography in an instant. The truth is that it's just not that way.....

BTW, you've reminded me that there's a before & after function in LR - must make better use of it :D
 
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Right, here goes with a 30D file. Originally shot raw, here it is as a JPEG produced from DPP on what would be my standard camera settings for shooting straight to JPEG....

Please click the resize bars to see the files as intended.

20071020_130831_1024.JPG


Here it is with my best (quick) effort to create something presentable from the JPEG using Lightroom....

20071020_130831__LR-2.jpg


At first glance it may not look so bad, but it was impossible to bring back the sky and the image looks over sharpened or sort of "tizzy" due to the blown and unrecoverable highlights in the grass.

Compare this to the version created from the raw file (below) and note how much smoother and more subtle the raw file is. The sky has more detail and the blades of grass look more realistic. There seems to be more subtlety in this version. The JPEG version reminds me a bit of the output from my old camcorder - initially punchy and crisp, but on closer inspection a little bit coarse.

20071020_130831_0035_LR-2.jpg
 
One thing that hasn't been mentioned....

The jpg processors and RAW captures vary drastically from camera to camera, if you read the reviews, for instance DPreview says about the 500D that the RAW capture isn't the best in class, but the jpg processor is...therefore limiting the advantage of the raw file

Quote

"When shooting in RAW the picture changes slightly to the negative. The 'extra quality' you can usually get out of RAW files compared to shooting in JPEG is relatively limited on the 500D. One reason for that is the quality of the camera's JPEG engine. It is doing a pretty good job at 'optimizing' the JPEG output when converting the RAW data. However, the 500D's RAW images are also slightly lagging behind some of the competition and surprisingly even the 450D in terms of high ISO noise and to a smaller degree in terms of pixel level detail. It's not going to be an issue when checking images at screen size but it's certainly visible up-close."
 
I've been shooting in RAW ever since large-ish memory cards became affordable.

I can't think of a reason to change, it just seems like good practice. :shrug:
 
Jelster said:
Personally I tend to shoot raw almost 100% of the time these days, mainly due to the added depth of dynamic range and the ability to adjust the white balance.
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There seems to be a general belief that you can't adjust JPEGs shot in camera.

That's a complete nonsense - you can adjust the WB in DPP (Canon) and you can certainly adjust any other parameter you wish in PP just the same as you would a RAW.

tdodd said:
The JPEG version was created by running the raw file through DPP using standard picture style and quality = 10, which is the maximum.
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I don't believe (no matter what may be argued) that is the same as a JPEG produced in camera.

tdodd said:
Nowadays it's 14 bit data channels squeezed into 8 bits. Then of course JPEG compression throws away a little too.
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Unfortunately virtually all pictures viewed online are JPEGs - so whether they have been shot in camera on a 12 bit or 14 bit sensor is a bit academic.

AndyB1976 said:
It is claming that JPEGS are 8Bit (256 tonal levels) whereas RAWs are 10Bit/12Bit (1024/4096 tonal levels) so I guess when you view it at the tonal level the differences can seem rather significant.
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In fact since there are at least 3 sensors producing a single colour point the colour range in JPEGs is 256x256x256 = over 16 MILLION possible colour shades.

Finally I used to shoot in RAW untill I began experimenting in JPEGs and found that for the kind of pics I shoot I could produce just as good pictures in JPEG as RAW.

And, for me, shooting in JPEG does have some advantages not least the ability to get more shots on a card and more shts when using continuous shooting.

Finally here are a few shots (all in JPEG):

In all of these I made sure the highlights were correctly exposed by using both the histogram and "blinkies" to make sure they were.

I find, that for me at least, it's far more important to get a well exposed picture in camera than worrying about the differences between JPEG and RAW.

.
 
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If I am shooting wildlife, particularly birds I will go with raw.

My raw files are approx 13Mb, my largest fine jpeg files are 5.7Mb, with birds I am going to be cropping the image, I prefer to have the most info to work with in this case.

If I was shooting hundreds or thousands even, of images at say a sporting event, and had virtually no time to PP them I would go for jpeg.

When I go on holiday I use jpeg

If I was shooting a wedding I would use raw, I will have time for PP, and have a greater latitude to correct any stupid error on settings I may have made.

Either has it's place, and neither is right or wrong ... use what you are comfortable with using.
 
KIPAX said:
Nope.. RAW doesnt give a better picture than JPG so nothing like that at all.. Shot correctly there is no difference between a raw and a jpg picture
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Agree.

trencheel303 said:
One of the things I really like about shooting RAW is that you can alter the white balance in post, without worrying about it in camera. If you are shooting JPEG, you must get the white balance right from the outset, as it is almost impossible to change it afterwards without giving the image a milky look.

I also enjoy post processing my pictures, adding just that little bit of magic (perhaps warming the picture up) which finishes them just nicely.
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What you can do with a raw image you can do with a jpg image. Using CS5 and it's raw editor I can open a jpg and tinker in the same way. Fair enough the raw may have a bit more detail in the highlights and the shadows for you to pull back, but regarding things like white balance you can do it to a jpg as well.

The beneift to shooting raw is perhaps the increased detail (if not exposed 100% correctly) and having a original non camera processed file to work with.

I shoot raw when I need to, but generally default always to jpgs purely due to processing time and storage, and work REALLY hard to get the shot right in camera.
 
I shoot raw, its more work for me but I prefer it. My take on the whole jpg/raw issue is that in good daylight there's probably not a lot in it. Its when the lighting gets tricky that there are advantages to raw capture. If there's a danger of blowing highlights, use raw. Try not to deliberately underexpose to avoid that, use the full dynamic range of your camera. raw enables clipping to be recovered. You can't do that in jpg. However, and what I thought might be a 'gotcha' is that if you need to recover detail from shadows, jpg has more detail preserved. I imagine someone wiser will tell me otherwise. However, because I'm usually more concerned with preserving highlights, its raw for me.

Oh, and white balance. Conversation with press photographer - he showed me his lcd from a recent footie match, players wearing purple, his lcd showed them wearing blue. Aren't you bothered about that I asked. No, he said. I give the memory card to the office, I let them sort it out. Now that's what I call delegation. And they were jpg.
 
Photodiva said:
However, and what I thought might be a 'gotcha' is that if you need to recover detail from shadows, jpg has more detail preserved. I imagine someone wiser will tell me otherwise.
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I certainly wouldn't claim to be any wiser, but I'll have a go at telling you otherwise. :)

The camera initially shoots a raw image - there is not much else it can do - and then does loads of processing in camera to create the JPEG. I'm not sure how the in camera processing (which is constrained by the needs of limited processing power and very little time) is able to retrieve more shadow detail from the raw data than much more powerful software running on much more powerful machines and taking considerably longer to get the job done.

The example I posted earlier of shadow "recovery" from the shaded area of that wedding pic demonstrates that the raw file is more information rich in the shadows than the JPEG. That was from my 1D3.

Here's a shot taken with my 5D2 using raw+JPEG with standard picture style and NR disabled. It was exposed using evaluative metering and autoexposure. Here is the whole scene without edits....

20110208_152052_000.jpg


If we look closer we see a little highlight clipping in the JPEG version. In all honesty this is a pretty good attempt by the camera at a good exposure. Interestingly there are no clipped blacks/shadows at all. That must mean we've lost no shadow detail at all. Awesome stuff!...

20110208_153347_000.jpg


Here's a 100% crop of the shadow area with no edits....

20110208_152156_000.jpg


Even at this dim level I can see that the raw version has more detail. It looks sharper and better defined. There is more contrast in the shadows.

Here is the result of an aggressive push to the shadow region using Lightroom's fill slider. This adjustment is well over the top in terms of producing an aesthetically pleasing result, but the purpose is to show what detail is buried there in the shadows, not to make a finished image...

20110208_152241_000.jpg


Just to add further to the picture (Hah! Hah!) here is how the raw file looks when opened in DPP and pushed to a roughly equal amount, with no other adjustment to setting such as sharpening or NR. It's clear to me that DPP is also able to extract a far better image from the raw data than the JPEG pumped out by the camera.....

20110208_160327_000.jpg


There's no trickery here. Quite simply the JPEG SOOC looks dreadful. In this example I don't think anyone could make the claim that in camera JPEG processing has the edge over raw. This result has been repeated with my 30D, 1D3 and 5D2. It doesn't matter whether DPP is used as the JPEG engine or the camera itself. The JPEG files do not have the information content that the raw files do. Raw does better in the highlights, better in the shadows.

Whether anyone is troubled by the vanishing data is a completely different matter. For some it may not be a problem. For others it might.
 
Cheers, Tim. I think one of the reasons is that you can convert a raw into a 16bit where as .jpg are normally 8bit from a camera? Perhaps that helps explain it.

I also thought there was something about linear and gamma but I can't remember where I read that now.
 
JPEGs are always 8 bit. That's the nature of the format. Raw files are usually 12 or 14 bit, although I think some larger format backs produce 16 bit files. There is nothing to be gained by converting 14 bit files to 16 - you can't invent data that was never there - but nothing to be lost either, other than storage space. The same cannot be said when converting from 14 bit to 8 bit. If you want to push your files around, especially in the shadows, then it really helps to have extra useful bits of data to work with. They mean that tonal gradations can be more finely recorded, and that matters when you want to open them up by brightening dark areas.

BTW, I was so shocked by the results in post 72 that I tried taking another shot, but this time at f/8 (should be super sharp) rather than f/22, which will look soft at 100%. Here's the result after another large dose of fill light in the shadows - a convincing victory for colour, contrast and detail for raw, if you ask me....

20110208_163110_000.jpg


A test for another day would be to find a smooth surface with a gradual fading of tones such as the paintwork of a car, in mixed sunlight and shadow. Expose for the highlights and then try bringing up the shadows and see how the paintwork looks.
 
Now that IS interesting T.Dodd.

I will certainly have to look at that and try a few experiments.

However, since I don't normally go to those extremes I will probably continue to shoot in JPEG because it does virtually everything I need and, for me, has quite a few advantages over RAW.

.
 
Tim,

Been flicking through this thread & there are lots of arguments for both camps.

Q. If you shoot in RAW & then convert to JPEG using CS5 etc. does the software used on a pc for PP keep more of the RAW detail than the camera JPEG conversion?

Sorry if this has been explained above, just not jumping off the page for me.
I can definatley see the shadow detail in your test shots.

Mick
 
Mick, I haven't really paid attention to what goes on in the mid tones. I've been more interested in what happens at either end of the tonal scale. That's where things get most tricky and where it is (potentially) most important to have room to juggle a bit, maybe because the dynamic range of the scene is very large, maybe because you have an underexposed shot or maybe because you have an overexposed shot.

Unfortunately I do not have any examples where I have shot both raw+jpeg other than those two test shots today, and neither of them has the focus point on areas of good detail in properly exposed mid tones. I have to say that I really was alarmed at the shadow handling of the 5D2 JPEG from camera, not just when pushed, but even before then. It was dreadful. Whether that kind of mushy softness is a fault of the compressed tonal scale, or sharpening not working properly in the shadows or throughout the image I do not know, but I'm afraid that as a stalwart raw shooter I don't care enough to investigate further.

If anyone else wants to try some experiments to investigate other aspects of raw vs JPEG then I'll be interested in the results, but it won't change my ways. I love raw. I love the freedom it offers to shoot without continually worrying about picky things like WB prior to each and every shot, the simplicity of spot metering and manually exposing for the highlights, the absolute control over image processing (WB, sharpening, NR, black and white points etc.) and the safety net in the event of the occasional screw up. I try to get things right in camera, but it's not always the case that nature supplies the best lighting, and sometimes images could benefit from a helping hand. I'd rather start from scratch than try to redo somebody else's work (the camera's JPEG engine).
 
I've only used RAW once while using a Fuji finepix S7000 while in the Falklands. I did not really know what I was doing (still don't, some might say). As I now have a grown up DSLR & CS5 there is no excuse for me not trying at least.

I think it's more fear of the unknown in my case, It seems like a lot of extra work but I'm sure it will not be as bad as I imagine.

I always try to get the shot right in camera as far as possible, but as you say sometimes there simply is not time :bang:

I find myself thinking a lot more about my shots now, taking time to setup the camera. I'm like a toddler needing to know "how & why"

Stand by for lots more "how do I" questions.

Mick
 
tdodd said:
a convincing victory for colour, contrast and detail for raw, if you ask me....
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This is much the same as I get from my current camera, wibbly wobbly JPEGS looking, well naff and the colours all wrong. However, try it with an Olymus camera and you will struggle to see the difference. They may well be useless at making a decent sensor, but they sure do make the best in camera JPEG processor to deal with what comes out of it.
 
Agreed, a very useful thread this, especially because there's some 'put your money where your mouth is' and people (tdodd in particular) are giving clear illustrations.

There are so many directions this can go off on, not forgetting (as touched up on above) how each piece of software renders both JPEGs and raw files and in effect, which does the job best?

On that point, the more photo-oriented, one-screen software (LR and Aperture) give both JPEg and raw users the ability to alter WB, make extreme exposure adjustments (to name but two features) at the drop of a hat and in any case, in a more accessible way than the drop-down menu systems of PS. Whether the sheer power of PS makes it the best editor I'm not sure - when I get a chance I'll do a test on all three - but it seems that even at a base level of doing an exposure tweak, there's a darn sight more to it than just sliding adjustment sliders to a familiar position.
 
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