Raw vs. JPEG

[kimh]

I am trying to decide the advantaged of shooting in RAW. Here is a picture I took In both RAW and JPEG. JPEG was auto white balance, iso 100 Aperture priority.
Not sure about all the adjustment options in RAW but the RAW photo seems to have a lot more detail. Skin tone seems clearer and sharper. Overall though the photo looks a bit washed out. The JPEG also seems to have a blue cast which I know is easy enough to fix but would really appreciate some advice and critique.
Kimh

http://www.pixentral.com/hosted/1586FgTRMwDA1C2YYLHVOKs9tVAQ0_thumb.jpg (http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1586FgTRMwDA1C2YYLHVOKs9tVAQ0)

[Chuck S.]

Kim, it's really hard to tell the differences between RAW and JPEG images at low resolution; large prints are more apt to highlight the differences. In my simple way of looking at things, shooting in RAW gives you an image on which you do all the post-processing, while JPEG leaves it up to the camera to do some of the initial post-processing. That JPEG processing can throw away or skew some of the picture information, and further post-processing won't bring back what's been destroyed in-camera. It's possible with many cameras to 'dial down' the amount of processing done by the camera (sharpness, contrast, saturation) but it's still going to do some processing and a bunch of compression. RAW images are purported to have a slightly wider exposure range, allowing the recovery of detail from highlights and shadows that may have been processed out by the in-camera conversion to JPEG.

With the improvements in Adobe Camera Raw and the availability of Lightroom as an option, the hassle factor associated with RAW has been tempered. I've gone from using RAW for special purposes and JPEG for snapshot shooting to 100% RAW. It does require more memory space on cards and hard drives, but for me that's a reasonable cost.

BUT....at the end of the day, it's a personal decision. It's still only the last ~5% of the image quality. There are millions of beautiful JPEG photos out there (including ones that you've taken!), and there are even more poorly composed, exposed, and processed RAW images.

My two cents...

[kimh]

Chuck, thanks for taking the time to look at my pictures.
I do appreciate your 2 cents:)
Kimh

[NickLewis]

Hi Kim,

Looking at the two photos you posted, the things that strike me are obviously the blue cast, which is the result of the operation of the AutoWB, and the detail in the shadowed area of dune at top right.

There's more detail in the image shot in RAW, and I'm having difficulty recovering it from the JPG version, even if I separate it out of the whole image, and then open it in ACR.

I suspect it's a consequence of the effect that Chuck refers to, where information is discarded during the in-camera processing of the JPG.

I suggest working with the various processing options in ACR and see whether you find them comfortable to work with and easy to use. In general, they are laid out on a logical order, and making adjustments from top to bottom is a good way to proceed. (That's not rigid - you'll need some iteration on occasion, but it's a good starting point.)

Nick

[Not4wood]

I also agree with everything thats been said. It has taken me a little bit to slowly gravitate to Raw, but at this point in time its Raw only all the way.

To simplify things that have been mentioned:
JPG - Is a compressed image and I would think the best way to define this is to think of the old music before CD's when we tried to get the Dolby to get out the hiss of our records. It is a compressed format that looses certain information but then you find out that you Do need this information a little later on. One problem with JPG and that one I really haven't seen yet. Is that everytime you open a file and alter edit the JPG image. The image is compressed again and if this image is opened and edited enough times the image is so distorted it gets to be unusable. Supposed to be.

Raw - More detail then JPG. Not compressed lossless and the best way to think of this is like a digital negative. Once exposed, all the detail is there to an extreme. The underexposed areas, the overexposed areas and its like letting the advanced computer sensor in your camera loose to capture everything thats out there to be captured. Once done you can process this information in CS or PE remembering to save this image in one of the Standard Photoshop formats to keep the details and then once complete this image can be saved in either a TIFF or JPG format to be shown.

At one point I was shooting in Raw - Fine JPG because I couldn't release the thought of letting go of the old JPG image since I've been using it so long. Once you can get passed this the whole world opens up for you.