RAW or JPEG by Dominic Lee, AMPA. Priory Studios.
Monday, Mar 13th, 2006 in The IPWS Blog by Dominic Lee | 11 Comments
RAW is RAW; JPEG is “JAYSUS Please Excuse Grain”
It surprises me to hear photographers shooting JPEG’s on a pro camera. It’s a bit like using your hand to wipe the mist off the inside car windscreen instead using the AIRCON, which added HUNDREDS to the price of your car. The fact that you can get 40 images in RAW mode and 400 in JPEG mode on the same card is a clear indication that you are sacrificing quality.
More of what’s bad is not good; it’s just more bad. So are you saving the cost of buying more memory cards? Hardly a good excuse when a 4-gig CF card costs about the same, as the average photographer would spend on film in a single shoot.
RAW file conversion in PhotoshopCS is a piece of cake. It’s at this point that you can make corrections to exposure latitude and colour balance without affecting the quality of the image. These changes can be made to one image and the same ingredients then applied to all of your images en mass or by selection.
JPEG (JimCracky Pictures Everyone Ghastly)
Adjust your JPEG by half a stop either way and you simply enter the “overcooked moment”. Lord help you if you have more changes to make (like cropping). From then on any change you make to a JPEG will create trouble elsewhere with your file.
However, if you work on the required changes in RAW file, you have up to 4 f stops either way in exposure adjustment at your disposal. That means you may adjust it by up to 8 times lighter or darker and still have a printable, saleable image, (I’m quoting from the PhotoshopCS sales lit. and not from personal experience). All the information is still there so there is also scope to crop and change colour without affecting the quality of the image.
Unless you are 101% sure that your capture is a perfect exposure and with perfect colour balance (UNLIKELY SCENARIO), there is no excuse for shooting JPEG’s on a camera which cost hundreds more than its amateur kid brother which has no RAW file option.
WHY OTHERWISE WOULD HIGH-END DIGITAL BACKS ONLY COME WITH CAMERA RAW FORMAT THAN TO ENSURE ONLY THE HIGHEST QUALITY IMAGE?
So are you a Professional or are you Jake-the-PEG with an extra leg?
Dominic Lee, AMPA
www.priorystudios.ie
11 Comments:
For the studio I only use RAW but for weddings I use only JPEG’s and yes believe it or not I can get it right first time with a thing called a light meter, remember them? This saves me lots of time and if I had a shot which was 4 stops out I wouldnt call myself a Professional photographer.
For the purest who has all day to play with differnt settings, RAW is the way to play. I am living in the real world where time is money and I dont like sitting infront of a box that is not making money but causing me to go blind!
Jesus bring back film when things were o so simple!
With the cost of cards coming down and the ease of use of raw processing there really is no excuse for not using it. The raw format and software like Apple’s Aperture etc has given us a depth of control over our pictures we’ve never had before. I shoot most of my work in available light, raw format gives a flexibility and quality you can’t get with jpegs.
Nice one Domster!
I’ve been telling them this for years. Even in Madeira there were still “Pro’s” and I mean other speakers who are still shooting Jpeg.
If you don’t mind, I will hand this out at my MPA talks later this year, with a full credit of course.
Cheers M
wow, four stops under or over, i don’t remember ever doing that with film, and certainly never since going digital! if you use a half decent digital camera like i do, the Canon EOS 1DS, you will have no problem getting superb results using the JPEG format, both in the studio and outside, slight under or over exposed images can be very quickly adjusted using Levels and superb consistent results using only the “claudy” white balance setting.and no grain “now known as noise by the way” even with the ISO set at 1200
Since we’re in an age of travelling everywhere with a laptop or ipod or some storage device, coupled with the massive increase in space on memory cards, I don’t know why people avoid RAW. Personally, I’ll shoot both, at the same time. If the JPG lacks, go back and have some fun with the RAW file, at least you’re not losing out on quality.
It can be appreciated to go for the finest quality JPG your camera can offer if you’re in a situation where you’re likely to shoot a few hundred images, but if you’re that serious about your job, why not knock onto eBay or somewhere, nab 2 or 3 4GB cards and keep them handy, doesn’t take an age to swap out a card…
Ladies and gentlemen
lets not forget it is the camera manufacturers who have left us in a spurious dicotmy. With raw files, the write time is very slow. Raw file format differ from camera to camera. this can cause problems. You will probably have to store images as j pegs eventually. You would have to ask the question. Why do we need to write raw and jpegs simultaneously? Are the manufacturers not confident enough to just use raw? or is it that the raw image files don’t work well with older yet perfectly competent photo editing sofware. Guys & Galls is their a conspiracy to make you buy all the latest toys? They could just have used a tiff format instead of raw, couldn’t they?
I’m intrigued by the phrase workflow when used in relation to Photoshop CS2 and the processing of RAW files. I felt like I had a decent practice going with JPEGS but I’m a bit at sea now with the RAW material. All I really need to know is if I really have to get involved immediately in the temperature, exposure, brightness details on the Camera Raw defaults window immediately, or can I hit Open instead and work on the RAW file just as I would have with a JPEF- adjusting levels, selective colour etc. Am I missing out on the whole RAW thing by doing this or is it perfectly ok? Lastly, can I save the worked on files as CMYK TIFFS and maintain the superior quality of the RAW files??
Fionan, Yes do make all the changes required to the RAW file. Temp, exp. brightness, sharpness, vignette, colour and any other changes required. If you have set up your Photoshop to work with CMYK TIFFS thats where your files will go and thats where they will open automatically. Hope that answers your question.
Regards, Dominic
Thanks, Dominic, but you don’t quite answer my questions. If I had a mixed lighting interior, I can see that I might need to work on temperature etc, but for more basic work, an I go stright to Open and work like I used to on the RAW file? And I’ve no idea about how my Photoshop is set up- just that I need to finally save as a CMYK TIFF! Thanks for your patience- I know your not a Technical Advice Bureau! Thanks, F
Fionan,
I once went to buy tyres for my car and the guy offered me two prices.
I asked him the make of the expensive tyre, he replied “Pirelli” and I asked the make of the cheap one, he replied, “SHITE”.
The point of my article is that you don’t have to think about your choice because you already paid for the RAW feature in your camera.
In Photoshop, click on Image then tick CMYK (mine is RGB and 8 bit). Also see Edit then Colour Settings and select CMYK.
Then go to the Peter Atherton Seminar on Tues 13th June at the Great Southern Hotel. Dublin Airport. He will teach you how to organise a RAW work flow. See http://www.thempa.com
Regards,
Dominic
I like a certain amount of grain in photos.