JPEG Vs RAW

[DebQ]

Hi!

I've recently started a photography course (only a short beginner kind of thing) and was amazed at the reaction I got off a few people on it when they learnt I didn't shoot in RAW
I have to admit always being slightly afraid (what a wuss I am!!) - what are the differences, benfits etc?

Deb

[Robster]

Hi debbiec,

Well you have a lot more scope with a raw file, to start with it may seem a little daunting but once you have got to understand it its great.
the thing with JPeg is the camera does a fair amount of in camera editing to get the result, yet with RAW there is no editing done and no compression to the picture so what you see is what you get.
you also have the option to see the highlight and shadow cliping.
hope this is of help
Robster

[Robster]

Also if you put RAW into the Photoradar serch bar there is a lot of usefull information about it

[ether]

Originally Posted by debbiec

Hi!

I've recently started a photography course (only a short beginner kind of thing) and was amazed at the reaction I got off a few people on it when they learnt I didn't shoot in RAW
I have to admit always being slightly afraid (what a wuss I am!!) - what are the differences, benfits etc?

Deb

The easiest way to look at Raw is to think of it as a photo negative it is in fact just the raw digital data captured by the sensor in your camera you will always have to process it in a computer to get an image and the files size may be quite large needing a powerful computer to handle it. the advantage is that it is never altered so you can always go back to the original just like a film negative and that you can apply just the processing that you think it needs on an individual image basis.
Jpegs on the other hand are processed at least in part by the camera, usually to a set of rules you set up in your camera the most important of the steps it does when converting your raw data to a jpeg is that it compresses the file size to make it smaller and there by easier to handle, but this is a destructive process so you can never recover the lost data . that said if you choose a high quality setting you will see very little difference and if you only need small prints or only publish to the web then jpegs are absolutely fine.
Like Hi-Fi of years ago much rubbish is talked about resolution so unless you are building a portfolio or hoping to publish professionally or you want to spend time at your computer adjusting your images stick with jpegs compressed to level 10 or better

Ed

[DebQ]

Thanks you both for the answers and info!

[tjw_78]

What is a good programme for handling and editing RAW files? Photoshop can't, or can it?

[ether]

Originally Posted by tjw_78

What is a good programme for handling and editing RAW files? Photoshop can't, or can it?

strictly speaking photoshop does and it doesn't it handles raw images through Bridge which comes with it but you cant save in raw so it doesn't if you see what I mean it is the industry standard for photo processing but Elements is cheaper

Ed

[tjw_78]

Sorry, I should have said:

What is a good programme for handling and editing RAW files? Photoshop Elemements can't, or can it?

[OldBoy]

Originally Posted by tjw_78

Sorry, I should have said:

What is a good programme for handling and editing RAW files? Photoshop Elemements can't, or can it?

Yes, Photoshop Elements can handle raw.

As to the OP original question it doesn't matter if you shoot Raw or Jpeg. Use which ever you feel happy with.

[Forseti]

Originally Posted by ether

strictly speaking photoshop does and it doesn't it handles raw images through Bridge which comes with it but you cant save in raw so it doesn't if you see what I mean it is the industry standard for photo processing but Elements is cheaper

Ed

And to be even more strictly speaking it's not Photoshop/Elements that does the developing, rendering, processing (call it what you will), but the Camera Raw plug-in to it. In this it differs slightly to Adobe Lightroom in that there is no additional plug-in but instead the entire application (Lightroom) is built around Camera Raw and uses the same engine. For that reason, users of Lightroom who wish to maintain full integration with Photoshop should, at the same time as any updates are released for Lightroom, ensure that the Camera Raw plug-in for Photoshop is updated at the same time. Latest version of Lightroom is 2.5 and ACR (Adobe Camera Raw) is 5.5.

As to the jpg versus Raw discussion this is very much dependent upon both the photographer as well as the use the images are to be put to. For instance, a press photographer who prime purpose is getting images to the newspapers image editor for publication is more interested in the speed in which this can be achieved rather than the image quality. Within reason of course. A landscape photographer on the other hand wishing to retain as much of the captured image data as possible for self processing may well choose to shoot in Raw as opposed to shooting in jpg whereby the camera controls the quality of processing as well as the amount of compression the result of which is to throw away data.

So in short, there is no right or wrong answer to the argument of 'should I shoot in jpg or Raw'. The camera (most) are capable of both and it's up to the user to consider the situation, the amount of control that he/she desires and of course convenience. That's may take on it anyway.