Photographer
FullMetalPhotographer
Posts: 2797
Fresno, California, US
Camerosity wrote:
William Kious wrote:
Buying a fancy-pants DSLR and shooting only in jpeg is like driving a Veryon on a go-cart track. MnPhoto wrote:
I could never understand that logic either. Why get a such a sophisticated piece of equipment like a modern day Digital SLR, and shoot in JPEG??? Unless your computer needs are embarassing, handling raw image files will not affect your workflow by much. Mark Laubenheimer wrote:
if you were a musician, would you go into the recording studio and record your album straight to mp3?
i think not. so why record your photographs straight to JPEG? Yeah, I did newspaper photography for years (with film).
For one thing, they tend to use cameras with high FPS rates. They get them for sports, but that's what they use for everything else. When you're shooting several frames per second, having to save both RAW and JPEG slows things down.
Also, newspaper reproduction isn't the greatest - although it's a lot better than it used to be.
Newspapers have never been big on retouching anyway - although all big newspapers used to have airbrush artists.
The emphasis is on speed - partly because of frequent deadlines throughout the cycle, but also because photographers tend to handle several assignments per day. One newspaper I worked on had a page deadline every four minutes starting about 6pm and contining (with breaks between editions) until after midnight. When I was shooting for Pulitzer, then later Lee Enterprises I shoot shot everything in RAW and stop shooting JPEG, including sports. With D3 it was not an issue to shoot sports and news in RAW. My turn around time was faster than the other shooters that I worked with who shot JPEG. The biggest issues was my file sizes were larger than fellow employees and that AP wanted JPEGS From the camera, which I could set the camera to convert images or shoot both if needed.
Photographer
ArtisticGlamour
Posts: 3846
Phoenix, Arizona, US
C and J Photography wrote:
Shooting RAW + Jpeg is an excellent plan for most of us when we are shooting something important and expect only occasional operator error the RAW will mitigate. Wedding dresses play havoc with auto exposure. I would not consider shooting a wedding without RAW capture. I would expect to deliver only images manipulated a bit from the in camera jpegs. Memory is too cheap to risk important work to jpeg if you are not managing the capture process meticulously. +1. RAW+JPEG.
But I EXPOSE for (and usually edit) the Jpegs.
I don't ETTR for the RAWs.
In camera, I DRO (also called "Active-D" feature on the Nikon) and custom WB the Jpegs.
http://www.dpreview.com/news/2009/3/18/apical
After the shoot, I process the JPEG (and crop to 9x12@300) and save the JPEG only once. I create a reduced 800wide "internet" copy at that time (also a single save).
I like to have that "insurance" of those archived RAW files though...even if I never use them.
Photographer
o k u t a k e
Posts: 4660
New York, New York, US
If your jpeg images come out exactly the way you want them, then there's no reason to shoot RAW. It's simple as that. If you find your jpegs to be lacking in some way, could use some improvement, need more detail... then shoot RAW. I agree that RAW is better, but for most people taking photos out there, better is not necessary.
Photographer
ArtisticGlamour
Posts: 3846
Phoenix, Arizona, US
I shoot for the JPEGS (and archive the RAWs)...but this is the best explanation of RAW-vs-JPEG that I've seen...if you NEED that extra tone depth you only get them with RAW. ![https://i1103.photobucket.com/albums/g461/TyPortfolio/crayola.jpg]() .....JPEG .......................................................RAW
Photographer
Kaouthia
Posts: 3153
Wishaw, Scotland, United Kingdom
o k u t a k e wrote:
but for most people taking photos out there, better is not necessary. I'd say better is definitely necessary for most people taking photos out there, although it's often not something that post processing or shooting RAW will fix. 
Photographer
KMP
Posts: 4834
Houston, Texas, US
I have found for decades that opinions have been based on antiquated info. Back in the film days, it was E6 is too cool to give a good image... Now it's JPGs are not of sufficient quality to give professional results. That was probably true a number of years ago. But for today's amazing printing technology, what use to take 300MB to give a good 8x10 image is now just over a MB at best. I've sent high-es JPGs around the country, for annual reports, magazine features and covers. Sometimes they are have been processed from RAW but not necessarily. I contend that the huge MP chips give more data than most of today's magazines and end users actually need. Granted there is some loss with JPGs, but if it's properly shot and processed with care, it's well within the tolerance levels of 90% of the clients' out there needs. I think the only people who really need the color depth and control of RAW files are possibly art photographers who may go to great lengths to hold that detail and info. Even then, if they print CMYK, they'll lose a significant degree of that color control. That said.. I will likely always shoot RAW and JPG. But that's my comfort zone. 
Photographer
Andrew Thomas Evans
Posts: 24079
Minneapolis, Minnesota, US
Extrosy wrote:
Assuming that the shot has the proper white balance and is properly exposed and no detail has been lost or clipped, is there any advantage to editing raw? Not really, no.
Extrosy wrote:
Presently I shoot Raw + Jpeg, and primarily edit the jpeg files for convenience. I have the raw available in case there is a problem that cannot be corrected with the jpeg / camera setting. Well this is really two things. The first is what you can and can't do with a file like a jpeg or non-raw tiff. These files need color tweaks done differently, sharpening may be different, which may or may not be easier than working with a raw up front. It's also going to be 8bit and in whatever native color space it's written in, which may or may not be a big deal.
The second is file quality. I get a kick out of reading all these yahoos talk about file degradation - yes that does happen - but who in their right mind is going to save a working file as a jpeg over and over again? A person is going to open it, then save the working file in whatever native format is for their retouching program. So really the only hits on quality would be from the camera and from the retouching program, I'm not sure that's going to amount to a lot and not sure someone may spot it.
Extrosy wrote:
So I work with jpegs and have the raws as a safety net.
Any reason to do otherwise? back in 2006-9ish I would agree with you. However now space is totally cheap, cards are cheap, and computers are cheap. There is no real reason now (in most serious cases) to not shoot raw and work with raw files.
Speaking of this whole deal, I have a mix of printing papers, file types, and camera types in my book. I should bring that around and see if people can tell what I used or what the file is. Most of my shots are 14x22 or 11x14 and I can't really tell anymore, so hopefully someone is smarter than me out there!
Andrew Thomas Evans
www.andrewthomasevans.com
Photographer
Andrew Thomas Evans
Posts: 24079
Minneapolis, Minnesota, US
KevinMcGowanPhotography wrote:
I've sent high-es JPGs around the country, for annual reports, magazine features and covers. Sometimes they are have been processed from RAW but not necessarily. By accident once I started to retouch a basic jpeg straight out of my camera for a billboard project in town. I couldn't really tell a difference when retouching it, and the client couldn't tell a difference when they got the file, not to mention no one cared when it was up on a billboard.
Another client took the full res proofs I sent them (not going to do full res again), gave them to their agency, and all of a sudden a mural was made out of them. Granted they don't look great due to the severe lack of retouching, however none of the quality issues really have anything to do with them being from basic jpegs.
It's like a friend telling me a story about him shooting a job on slide film, but the meter was set for iso400(or something) and not 100, so the images were overexposed. They had to get that one roll push processed and it worked, not the best, but it got the job done. Same deal with jpegs really, they will work, just not the best, but they will get the job done.
Andrew Thomas Evans
www.andrewthomasevans.com
Photographer
Studio Chiaroscuro
Posts: 85
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Extrosy wrote:
Haha...
I went to a photography workshop put on by these guys (fortunately for free)
http://www.digitaldaysphoto.com/
Who instructed the class to never shoot in M. M stands for "mangle" That is brilliant. I am very glad that was free.
Photographer
JGC Photography
Posts: 301
Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
I used to subscribe the the Jpeg thing and changed to Raw about 3 years ago.
Not too long ago I went into my family archives pics and found some meaningful images that I passed over as second best (funny how your viewpoint changes with time). I pulled a bunch of neat images and made them into a coffee table book. What surprised me was how little latitude the jpegs had in the way of exposure latitude! Shockingly so.
I am now a full on Raw dude.
Photographer
KA Style
Posts: 1583
Syracuse, New York, US
I personally shoot everything RAW. To me its a night and day difference in post. I do 95% of post in Lightroom. Some of the LR presets Ive made look like crap on a Jpeg..
Bottom line do what works for you.
Photographer
photoimager
Posts: 5164
Stoke-on-Trent, England, United Kingdom
Andrew Thomas Evans wrote:
It's like a friend telling me a story about him shooting a job on slide film, but the meter was set for iso400(or something) and not 100, so the images were overexposed. They had to get that one roll pull processed and it worked, not the best, but it got the job done. Surely ISO 100 film exposed at 400 is undrexposed by 2 stops, not overexposed, and the development would be a push as opposed to a pull
Photographer
KMP
Posts: 4834
Houston, Texas, US
Andrew Thomas Evans wrote:
It's like a friend telling me a story about him shooting a job on slide film, but the meter was set for iso400(or something) and not 100, so the images were overexposed. They had to get that one roll push processed and it worked, not the best, but it got the job done. Same deal with jpegs really, they will work, just not the best, but they will get the job done.
Andrew Thomas Evans
www.andrewthomasevans.com Andrew, that is VERY True.. In reality, most people can't tell the difference if that final file was worked from a RAW or JPG...
Photographer
Looknsee Photography
Posts: 26342
Portland, Oregon, US
My 2¢:
Getting the exposure & white balance perfect is challenging. If your exposure isn't perfect, the RAW exposure is 'way more forgiving. Further, if you want to do some radical editing (e.g. color shifting, toning, post-exposure filtering, etc.)., RAW is the way to go.
But bottom line: do whatever produces results that satisfy you.
Photographer
Laubenheimer
Posts: 9317
New York, New York, US
KevinMcGowanPhotography wrote:
Andrew, that is VERY True.. In reality, most people can't tell the difference if that final file was worked from a RAW or JPG... but for those that can tell the difference, RAW is the way to go.
Photographer
Andrew Thomas Evans
Posts: 24079
Minneapolis, Minnesota, US
Mark Laubenheimer wrote:
but for those that can tell the difference, RAW is the way to go. I'll agree with that, but the client is the one to tell the difference - not photographers on MM. So to some on here the world would end if something was shot in jpeg, but clients could very well be happy. Pixel peeping isn't the end all be all that the online photography community thinks it is.
In fact, I feel the online community (maybe due to the lack of real crits) doesn't understand or simply throw out the artistic strength (not talking about booties in the air or t/a) of the image as an image. Rather, they skip to looking for all the technical data, etc... On dpreview years ago an amazing image was anything shot on a Nikon 28 1.4, no matter what the subject was. Not the case in the real world at all, clients don't really care about that stuff beyond if you have what it takes to do the job.
A really fun activity sometime would be taking this thread, and picking an image or two from each photographer to put on a slideshow. Then go though with friends and see who can pick which photographers seem to care about quality and which ones don't. It would be interesting. I'm too lazy, and my friends and I already poke fun at MM enough, so don't worry, I'm not gonna do it - or am I?
Andrew Thomas Evans
www.andrewthomasevans.com
Photographer
Andrew Thomas Evans
Posts: 24079
Minneapolis, Minnesota, US
KevinMcGowanPhotography wrote:
Andrew, that is VERY True.. In reality, most people can't tell the difference if that final file was worked from a RAW or JPG... Shit, when I was retouching that one image I couldn't tell if it was raw or jpeg. In fact, it was easier to work on since it was a smaller file size and only 8 bit.
I was happy, client was happy, billboard looked great, and I got paid.
Andrew Thomas Evans
www.andrewthomasevans.com
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