shoot in raw ?

[Marc]

But if you've got a decent JPEG, there's no need to go anywhere near any post processing at all - it's straight to output. That's where the time saving is.



The camera doesn't do any interpretation, it only does eactly what you tell it with the pre-set parameters in Picture Styles with adjustments for sharpness, contrast, saturation and colour tone. With that lot, you have hundreds of different processing permutations. If you use auto white balance, the camera will take a guess at that, just as it will with fully auto exposure control, but you can set both of these manually if you know what you're doing and don't trust the camera. And it's sometimes best that you do, regardless of Raw or JPEG - you cannot afford to be too far out with either.

If all you ever do in post processing is basic tweaking of Picture Styles, then if you know what you want before the picture is taken the camera will do it all for you, and the result will be identical in every respect. There is no improvement in quality just by doing it manually in post; there is only a benefit if you change things in post that the camera is not programmed to do.

Sorry if you know this, it's just not clear from you post

Yes, I do know all that, but I still get better results when I produce the jpeg from the raw file rather than when the camera produces it, which ever presets I put into the camera. There is far more room for maneuver that way.

So it is still an interpretation by the camera. If I set the contrast, for example, in canera there are only a small number of settings I can choose. If I set the contrast in the raw file I have a much better fine tuning option. For example,for argument's sake, I can set the contrast in camera from -3 to +3 whereas in the raw converter I can set from -50 to +100. It takes me approximately 1 minute to do what I need to do in ACR, a short time to produce what I think is a "decent" jpeg.

 

[HoppyUK]

Yes, I do know all that, but I still get better results when I produce the jpeg from the raw file rather than when the camera produces it, which ever presets I put into the camera. There is far more room for maneuver that way.

So it is still an interpretation by the camera. If I set the contrast, for example, in canera there are only a small number of settings I can choose. If I set the contrast in the raw file I have a much better fine tuning option. For example,for argument's sake, I can set the contrast in camera from -3 to +3 whereas in the raw converter I can set from -50 to +100. It takes me approximately 1 minute to do what I need to do in ACR, a short time to produce what I think is a "decent" jpeg.

Ah right. Sorry, it's just the wording, but the camera does not do any interpretation in JPEGing - it does eactly what you tell it, in exactly the same way as you do in post.

I don't really want to question your way of working that obviousloy works for you, but when you talk about fine tuning, going from -50 to +100 is not fine tuning! The camera gives you fine tuning, that is massively changing! How much do you want

 

[Marc]

Ah right. Sorry, it's just the wording, but the camera does not do any interpretation in JPEGing - it does eactly what you tell it, in exactly the same way as you do in post.

I don't really want to question your way of working that obviousloy works for you, but when you talk about fine tuning, going from -50 to +100 is not fine tuning! The camera gives you fine tuning, that is massively changing! How much do you want

I was just pointing out the massive range available! What I meant was that instead of just three settings either side of zero, there are more options in the raw conversion. As for "interpretation", well maybe I'm not using the correct word there but I'm sure you know what I meant.

 

[keirik]

It takes me approximately 1 minute to do what I need to do in ACR, a short time to produce what I think is a "decent" jpeg.

but if you're doing a wedding with potentially 500 shots to give to the b&g that's (potentially) 500 extra processing minutes over doing it in jpeg.

Now I'm not saying there's only one way to do things, but certainly for my outdoor shots at a wedding I don't spend anywhere near that sort of time

 

[Marc]

but if you're doing a wedding with potentially 500 shots to give to the b&g that's (potentially) 500 extra processing minutes over doing it in jpeg.

Now I'm not saying there's only one way to do things, but certainly for my outdoor shots at a wedding I don't spend anywhere near that sort of time

It's a fair point but I'm not sure I would hand over wedding shots straight from camera anyway. For me, it's worth spending that extra time to ensure all the photos are as I want them to be, especially if the client is spending hundreds/thousands of pounds.