do you use raw or jpeg?

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GSDlover4ever

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just wondered if you all shoot in raw, raw and jpeg or just jpeg?

personally i have never shot in raw before, i have always shot in jpeg with all of my images.

i always thought that it was best to try and capture what you want in jpeg and enhance it to make it look better in photoshop, rather than edit the image as much as possible in raw to make it look the best it can even if the image it's self isn't up to scratch!

hmmm maybe i should shoot it raw :)


:bonk:
 
Always RAW. Much eaiser to make changes to the WB or exposure than it is with JPG files. And you can always give HDR a shot with RAW files.
 
RAW unless I am shooting a timelapse or something like that.
 
shoot both, raw for dealing with exposure tweaks and having a backup of the full uncompressed data and jpegs for straight out of camera usable goodness :)

there are a number of threads about this though if you want more opinions, just use the search function at the top of the page :)
 
RAW all the way, I want to keep every bit of information in the file and not have the camera doing processing that I don't want :)
 
Both RAW and JPEG at the same time. However usually only process the RAW images as they are much larger files with far more detail. Once processed, save as TIFF file so that I always have the RAW file to go back to if required.
 
Personally I use JPEG most of the time (I know, I'm bad, I'm evil etc :D ), because I still haven't really got my head around processing the raw images yet. If I shot everything in raw, I'd never get around to sorting out all my shots.

I do use it however use it when doing long night exposures, as it makes it incredibly easy to get rid of the orange colour cast from streetlights etc.

Chris
 
Raw only here, once you put a little effort into sorting a work-flow you will never go back to jpg ;)
 
I shoot both (at the same time), then I have the RAW's if there is something I want to change in the JPG's. Uses more memory and slows my camera down a little, but gives me lots of options should I need them.
 
I've just started shooting in RAW, but must admit not sure what to do with them in PP, currently use, for simple quick ‘twicks’ use the windows media thing in XP, or Coral Paint Pro2, also downloaded Firestone. Haven’t tried to load RAW files into the last two (know that the windows thing will not loaded RAW files (I think it seems to copy them into a JPEG - but not sure)

Any advice welcome.

Having said that I think I did load a couple of quick shots of my son against a painted wall, when I viewed it the background wall colour had the appearance of ‘graduated’ layers - starting in the centre and moving out to the side of the image?? (should have said that it was not on the JPEG file that was shot at the same time) I was wonder if this could be the laptop I’m viewing them in - quite old, Pentium 4 processor, think it may have less then a GB of RAM GeForce4 420 Graphics Card - I’ve put it now to the laptop spec? Think I need to upgrade my technology - any advice on what I should maybe replace it with would be grateful - also ways used windows PC - but been advised and been looking a Apple?
 
At the moment I shoot RAW+JPEG.

This gives me the ability to use the RAW file if I need to make any changes or just use the JPEG if it looks OK from the off!
 
KevD3x said:
I've just started shooting in RAW, but must admit not sure what to do with them in PP, currently use, for simple quick ‘twicks’ use the windows media thing in XP, or Coral Paint Pro2, also downloaded Firestone. Haven’t tried to load RAW files into the last two (know that the windows thing will not loaded RAW files (I think it seems to copy them into a JPEG - but not sure)

Any advice welcome.
Click to expand...


I shoot RAW all the time. I also ensure that I 'zero' all of the settings on import, which gives me a very bland and lifeless image which can be processed as required. Using the OnOne WoW workflow plug-in in Lightroom this can be done in a very short space of time.

This article by Michael Reichmann at the Luminous Landscape might be of use to someone needing to understand the main differences between JPG and RAW, although I should point out that the article is several years old (pre-Lightroom):

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/understanding-series/u-raw-files.shtml

;)
 
Raw, but only because lightroom offers so much ease in converting to jpeg. White balance is the key for me, I just leave the camera on auto and it takes about 5 seconds to fix it in lightroom, saves me taking a grey card.
 
:plusone:Always RAW, just sort out your workflow and your laughing. Why let the camera compress your picture and remove file info in the process?
 
Raw + small jpg
but I just use the small jpg to help decide if I want to delete pics when I've taken loads. I tend to delete the small jpg afterwards too.
 
Either, depending on the job I'm doing. There's no right or wrong here.
 
dod said:
Either, depending on the job I'm doing. There's no right or wrong here.
Click to expand...

Ditto, but if in doubt its usually have camera set on RAW. ( the 7d has a single button to add jpeg if you want to right before the shot...) :D
 
both. The reason I do it in both, is I like to flick through the images as soon as I upload them, so need JPEG for that and raw is so much easier to edit, so that's why I like raw.

However,...I'm about to find out if I had that opinion 6 months ago when I first got my DSLR...there's some images that I want to tweak - I save them all so that later I can go back if I want/need to. I'm a bit better at PP now so, time to tweak!
 
Raw just being able to correct the white balance is so handy
 
GSDlover4ever said:
just wondered if you all shoot in raw, raw and jpeg or just jpeg?

personally i have never shot in raw before, i have always shot in jpeg with all of my images.

i always thought that it was best to try and capture what you want in jpeg and enhance it to make it look better in photoshop, rather than edit the image as much as possible in raw to make it look the best it can even if the image it's self isn't up to scratch!

bonk:
Click to expand...

No, not really. If you set the camera up correctly, and get everything right when you take the shot, there shouldn't be any need for post processing at all. Unfortunately most of us can't guarantee to do this consistently, and post processing gives us another bite at the cherry, within limits.

Raw gives you all the data to work with, and more flexibility in post processing (amongst other things); but the goal is still to get it right at the shooting stage, so that the images require minimum post processing, not to edit them as much as possible afterwards to rectify the shortcomings.

I normally shoot raw, post process in DPP, and convert to JPEG for printing and/or further adjustments in CS2 if absolutely necessary. I do shoot raw + JPEG occasionally, for "snaps", but I don't take enormous numbers of photographs at a time and its easy enough to just scan the raw previews and pick the ones I want.
 
After once forgetting to change the WB from 'Tungsten' from the day before, RAW!!!
 
If you use lightroom raw is almost as easy to shoot as jpeg, so the pros outweigh the cons for me. You can just load all the raws into lightroom and batch process a lot of the photos together (for white balancing and maybe exposure etc). I used to shoot both raw and jpeg, but recently I've started to shoot just raw. Jpeg is just taking up extra room on my memory card recently. If I know I'll be taking a LOT of photos then I'll switch to jpeg only and take a bit more care with ettr.

If you don't have lightroom (or a good workflow for processing) then jpeg can be prove a lot more valuable, especially timewise in the PP area.
 
I shoot in RAW + jpeg, as I always have a quick look through the photos I take, and if I find any keepers, or if any need serious post processing done, I work on the RAW image. For images I know I won't be able to get much out of, I just keep the high quality jpeg to save space and delete the RAW, treating them more like snapshots.
 
Always Raw.As i was told when i did my first photography course "Raw rules"...;)
 
Always RAW - then use DPP to convert to TIFFs - then "denoise" once or twice using Neat Image - then make small jpegs from the denoised images - then from the jpegs assess the ones to process further.
 
MagicMynx said:
both. The reason I do it in both, is I like to flick through the images as soon as I upload them, so need JPEG for that
Click to expand...

Did you know that the raw file contains an embedded jpeg that is readable by most file viewers? So you can easily flick through the raw images without the hassle of having to save a separate jpeg?

I'll carry on using raw only until the day I know I'll get every shot right in the camera. On that day I'll switch over to jpeg, go outside and take photos of the squadrons of pigs flying past.
 
Mods, could you make one of these 'raw or jpeg' threads a sticky one?
They keep occurring fairly frequently and people just keep writing the same things over and over again.

hollis_f is right, use e. g. Preview Extractor or RAWDrop to extract the embedded jpegs.
Without a good tool to process raw shots, you won't see much improvement.

Not all cameras leave much headroom in raw compared to their jpeg output. It's usually small sensor or high resolution cameras (or both) that suffer from this. Look for samples if you want to try it out (http://raw.fotosite.pl/ is often a good start).
 
I always shoot in RAW now but my workflow is all over the place. Sometimes importing into Lightroom and tweaking there and then completing sharpening and levels etc. in Photoshop or other times open straight into Faststone to delete all the bad files as Faststone will view the NEF RAW files then the couple I save I open Photoshop to tweak.

I'm sure I read somewhere that the camera manufacturers set their own slant on the jpeg conversions regarding sharpening to make the photos look good for certain situations how they see it so you will be losing some of the control over the final image. please don't ask me for a link for this :)
 
In my menu i set my shoot Custom C for sunsets sunrises (jpeg & raw)and in shoot Custom A for General picture taking (jpeg) within the 4 settings of A B C D, i have 2x 2 GB CF cards so it wouldn't take long to fill them up on dual exposures unfortunately.
 
I used to shoot jpeg but now only use RAW. I hadn't realised how much data I was throwing away by only shooting jpeg and I can't guarantee that I'm not going to fluff the shot in some way that would annoy the hell out of me at a later stage.

I've tried to adopt the stance that I'm capturing data at the same time as capturing an image and RAW provides me with more data and more room for adjustment.
On top of that as jpeg is not a lossless compression format and if you repeatedly open and save the same jpeg it will degrade over time as you're throwing little bits of it away each time. RAW is lossless. I could be talking complete nonsense but that was my understanding.
 
Slapo said:
Mods, could you make one of these 'raw or jpeg' threads a sticky one?
They keep occurring fairly frequently and people just keep writing the same things over and over again.
).
Click to expand...

And in nearly every one I've asked the person giving the best answer if they feel like writing it up for a tutorial. Not happened yet. Might have to give up on it one day and start writing one myself :)

We need a 'raw/jpeg why?' one

and a 'I've shot in raw now what?' one on basic processing at the very least.
 
ozanan said:
I used to shoot jpeg but now only use RAW. I hadn't realised how much data I was throwing away by only shooting jpeg and I can't guarantee that I'm not going to fluff the shot in some way that would annoy the hell out of me at a later stage.

I've tried to adopt the stance that I'm capturing data at the same time as capturing an image and RAW provides me with more data and more room for adjustment.
On top of that as jpeg is not a lossless compression format and if you repeatedly open and save the same jpeg it will degrade over time as you're throwing little bits of it away each time. RAW is lossless. I could be talking complete nonsense but that was my understanding.
Click to expand...

You're right, the image will gradually deteriorate if you repeatedly open and resave it. Raw is lossless, as you said. You can work in JPEG without worrying about degradation though. Just treat the original images as electronic negatives, or master images, and always work off a copy. That preserves the integrity of the originals.
 
Raw+Jpeg for me, stills getting my head around raw so its a good backup.
 
Always RAW so I can obtain the full spread stored within the image, jpeg is just a 'snapshot' of erm.. a snapshot :D
 
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