Question - jpeg vs RAW... what's your opinion...

[Maniac]

It's not shit for simply viewing an image from or even printing it at low res, but it is shit if you start editing it. JPEG is a compressed format and is not lossless, so you are leaving some of your image data behind when you export that image. JPEG has a lower dynamic range than a RAW image from the off anyway.

Technical stuff here if you're interested. [http://digital-photography-school.com/raw-vs-jpeg/]

When you shoot in JPEG the camera’s internal software (often called “firmware” since it’s part of the hardware inside your camera) will take the information off the sensor and quickly process it before saving it. Some color is lost as is some of the resolution (and on some cameras there is slightly more noise in a JPEG than its Raw version).

The major actor in this case is the Discrete Cosine Transformation (or DCT) which divides the image into blocks (usually 8×8 pixels) and determines what can be “safely” thrown away because it is less perceivable (the higher the compression ration/lower quality JPEG, the more is thrown away during this step). And when the image is put back together a row of 24 pixels that had 24 different tones might now only have 4 or 5. That information is forever lost without the raw data from the sensor recorded in a Raw file.

 

[kingrat]

Raw.
Into Camera Raw, tweak.
Open in PS, clean up, frame, resize, save as JPEG.

 

[Bunk3r]

In the words of Ol' Dirty B, 'Yeah Baby I like it RAW'

-white balance can get it spot on without fiddling when out and about
-more leeway in adjusting exposure, especially hand in shots from dark places that are likely to have light/ dark / both areas.

 

[The Franconian]

Jpeg image before any editing looks best

 

[SuperNiki]

Rock on for the Ubuntu usage @Oxygen Thief !!

What do you use to convert your RAW photos? I'm sure I'm doing things the long way round but gimp doesn't seem to open DNG files (I know, I can fix it but can't actually be bothered...) Google Photos seems to hate them too. I convert to PNG and upload the GPhotos and use the G+ Editor... (probably get a lot of sharp breath intakes for that last sentance..).

I've only had a decent camera since April and am 100% Linux & Android user (and, confirmed nerd apparently), interested in seeing what others are doing

 

[Oxygen Thief]

Rock on for the Ubuntu usage @Oxygen Thief !!

What do you use to convert your RAW photos? I'm sure I'm doing things the long way round but gimp doesn't seem to open DNG files (I know, I can fix it but can't actually be bothered...) Google Photos seems to hate them too. I convert to PNG and upload the GPhotos and use the G+ Editor... (probably get a lot of sharp breath intakes for that last sentance..).

I've only had a decent camera since April and am 100% Linux & Android user (and, confirmed nerd apparently), interested in seeing what others are doing

I use RawTherapee - it works very well and has ten times the options that the Nikon software does. The only downside is that it does an automatic 'first pass' that is really a 'first bad guess', which you then have to undo. I haven't found a way to turn that off yet.

 

[Maniac]

Jpeg image before any editing looks best

It will, but that's because the camera has taken the RAW image, applied some sharpening, increased the saturation and contrast slightly, all things to make the photo look better to the human eye. The RAW image will always look a little bit flatter straight off the camera as there is no post image processing applied, to get the same result as the JPEG straight off the camera you do have to run the photo through some sort of software. Don't get me wrong for some people, maybe even most people, taking your photos in JPEG is just fine as long as you never intend to edit them beyond a few basic adjustments. However if you own a DSLR and want to get the most out of it, it's well worth investing some time in learning how to handle RAW photos correctly and then start taking your pictures in the format. The ability to take and save RAW image data is one of the things that distinguishes a DSLR from a cheaper camera, if you're not going to take advantage of that fact you're almost missing one of the points of having a professional camera in the first place (in my opinion)

 

[The Franconian]

reply to Maniac: "Jpeg image before any editing looks best" was just dedicated to the photo post above my one, not generally.
I do not see that thread here as a Raw vs JPG struggle to have a winner at the end.

 

[Maniac]

reply to Maniac: "Jpeg image before any editing looks best" was just dedicated to the photo post above my one, not generally.
I do not see that thread here as a Raw vs JPG struggle to have a winner at the end.

I know, I was just explaining why that is. This is what lures people into thinking that JPEG is better, because to the human eye straight off the camera the JPEG will always look better than the RAW image because it's had this processing done to it by the cameras electronics.

 

[The Franconian]

as I said before, I think camera presettings might be more important than any editing afterwards (especially for me)
I got a micro 4/3rds

 

[ViralEye]

You'll also notice that when you take a photo and the preview pops up on your camera, this is an edited photo with a preset already applied too. So when you look at the raw image on your pc you may think to yourself that it doesn't look like anything you saw on your camera.

 

[Oxygen Thief]

Here's an update on RawTherapee for Ubuntu.




Consider the following...

Picture on the left is RAW in RawTherapee, picture on the right is jpeg from processed RAW (from Windows 8, Nikon software to jpeg).

 

[The Franconian]

...when ....the preview pops up on your camera, this is an edited photo with a preset already applied too. ....

the preview of my photos pops up in my brain: I use the camera screen to get the camera in the right direction, do a shoot and hope it is good.
camera screen preview may be better or worse by different reasons, look better focussed or less quality.
Also depends on the camera screen

 

[norfolkexplorer]

All 4 cameras in raw for me.. 5dmk3 shoots raw and back up raw, 6d shoots raw, 450d shoots raw and the fuji x30 shoots raw too.

RAw is not everybody cup of t, but it works for me

 

[Alley]

I'm sure you have asked this question before and got the same answer RAW every time.

I use RawTherapee - it works very well and has ten times the options that the Nikon software does. The only downside is that it does an automatic 'first pass' that is really a 'first bad guess', which you then have to undo. I haven't found a way to turn that off yet.

At the top right, next to processing profiles, you can save your own default values.

.jpg for me, because I really don't understand how to use the raw software (I'm on Linux too so not many choices). With a jpg if its needed it goes into GIMP for a quick straighten, crop, sharpen, level adjust, job done.

UFRAW is slightly easier to use than Rawtherapee. and opens straight to GIMP. The NatGeo plugin for GIMP is pretty good if you like the look - muted colours, high contrast in one go. Install gimp plugin registry.
There's also http://www.darktable.org/about/ Haven't tried darktable myself.

Phatch is great for batch processing - I use it to resize, border and watermark.