Shooting jpgs

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raythefab

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I have CS_2 but i always shoot in jpg am i wasting my time with photoshop:thinking::)
 
No of course not. Photoshop is all about enhancing the picture not just converting them.

Then again if you shoot RAW then you will end up with a better image after you have done your work in PS.
 
AndyB said:
No of course not. Photoshop is all about enhancing the picture not just converting them.

Then again if you shoot RAW then you will end up with a better image after you have done your work in PS.
Click to expand...

I'll agree that your not wasting time, you need to look at JPEG and RAW being two different types of tool. RAW can give you a little more flexibility in editing exposure etc. I'm not sure that by shooting RAW you'll end up with a better image after editing though.

I was on a portrait course the other day where it was recommended that in situations where you can control all the variabls (such as a studio environment) then you may as well shoot JPEG. Where you can't (outside, no lighting set up etc) , RAW is the better of the two as you can edit more after.
 
Thank you that makes it clearer for me i think i will stick to jpgs then cheers...Ray:)
 
Rob I would have to say I think always better to do it in RAW! Simply because it leave you more options. If you want to adjust sharpnes, colour, contrast etc it is better done before converting to JPG. As soon as you create a JPG you are compressing the file and losing information from it so it makes sense to do as much work on a picture as you can before it's converted.

Imagine you did a studio shoot in JPG. Later you decide to try some composites or mono converts. You're going to need to open the JPG and resave it which compresses further. Bit like using film and working from the neg each time or using polaroid and being stuck with it :)
 
If you keep the original JPG and then create a new image and don't keep saving over the original, then you'll not loose that much information. Only overwriting the same JPG image will loose information.

Carl.
 
Very true Carl. But if you want to keep coming back to the image to make changes at different times you're going to end up with a lot of copies :)
 
If I know that I am doing a major amount of photoshoping (for example creating a sponsor poster) then I'd start by creating a new image of whatever dimesions, copy the photo onto the new image as a layer, make all the changes, save as a PSD, flatten, save as a JPG and then send, agree changes, open PSD, then repeat the above.

If I sell an image from my website, I take the photo from DVD/CD, level, resize, sharpen as necessary and then save a new JPG, then send that file off to print!

Oh! And I've yet to be proven with your statement of "Then again if you shoot RAW then you will end up with a better image after you have done your work in PS."

But am 100% open to someone showing me the light :D

Carl.
 
All I was saying there was that if you do adjustments to exposure and contrast etc whilst in RAW you are not affecting the IQ (within reason). You can usually get away with more significant adjustments in RAW than after you convert.

And remember - although you might have a work flow that minimises the need to resave JPGs, the fuile has already been converted and saved once in camera, you are then saving a second time. If you start work on a RAW and then save you have only compressed once.
 
I know a very successful commercial photographer who always shoots JPEGs. He is used to shooting on slide and can nail the exposure and so JPEG suits him fine. He can easily share images with the client on the fly and minimises work after.

Having said that, I always shoot RAW as a lot of stuff I do is outdoors and it can help pull out that last bit of detail from the higher bit depth.
 
Thats fine grumpy if it is fast turnaround and the images are spot on. I tend to view the original photo as a starting point though and always prefer to keep options open. Now and then I will shoot JPG for a specific job where I know I wont want to do any processing but otherwise it has to be RAW for me.
 
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