Another photo question

[cwearing]

I read somewhere that it is best to shoot digital in the RAW format. I think it said that if you edit and change JPEG images several times that the qauality left diminishes. 😕

 

[Wipedout]

I read somewhere that it is best to shoot digital in the RAW format. I think it said that if you edit and change JPEG images several times that the qauality left diminishes. 😕

Kinda of confused - what's the question?

 

[MichaelMouse]

So it is said. RAW is a huge file, so you'll want a good box to process it on. I upgraded to this box when I got a camera of 10MP which produced a loose JPEG of around 3-4megs. Each recompression could change something, but given the quality and consistency of the average monitor and the average printer, most will never notice.

Related question. Anyone else using Corel? Photoshop could not produce consistent results with my printer(s), but the Corel engine is doing well.

 

[DOCworks]

Raw vs something else

I think what your are asking is, should you shoot in RAW as opposed to say "fine JPG". RAW is a great file format if you have a lot of room and the software to deal with it. There are more than one type of RAW format also. I use PhotoShop and Lightroom to compose most of my photographs. I'm not sure you want to put out the funds for these two programs or have the resourses to find alternatives. JPG, BMP, GIF are the most used and you can find software and free software to manipulate this files without much problem. Loss of clarity in a photo is a real problem, but there is an easy fix. Do use the origninal photo. Copy and paste and play with the copy. If you mess it up...so what..delete it and copy and paste a new one. RAW is great but there is a learning curve using it and using the software to make it do what you want. I'd rather be turning. I use RAW at work and for some studio work but most of the time JPG works. Use what ever camera you have and play with it until you find something you are happy with and stick with it. I spent one afternoon taking a picture of one bowl, must have been over a 100 just messing with the setting and lighting. Also invest in background paper that stuff is cheap and has more effect on our photo outcome that file format. Sorry that was a bit long winded. 🙄

 

[Vaughn]

Raw images are sort of similar to a film negative. They're the basic, raw information from the photo sensor on the camera, and have not been precessed yet for viewing. One advantage they provide is precise control in post-processing for tweaking colors and other fine tuning, but you need special software to do it. And "raw" is not a single file format. There are hundreds of raw formats, as they often vary from one manufacturer to the next. As I understand it, Photoshop can handle many of them, but they have to be converted to a standardized format that Photoshop can recognize.

For the purposes of most of us, working with JPG files is plenty sufficient, especially if our primary intent is to show photos on the web.

More info about raw images here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raw_image

 

[Joe Greiner]

Experiments will give you more guidance than detailed analysis. Be aware that compression algorithms replace a continuous bit-map image with periodic parameters. In some cases, the compressed file size can be larger than the original, if too high a "quality" is requested, because a lot of parameters need to be included.

Particularly troublesome are line art and high-contrast boundaries. Jpg compression introduces ripples on both sides of the boundary; Google [gibbs effect] for insight.

By all means, work on copies, and save the manipulated copies with auxiliary file names, such as Picture001, Picture002, etc. When you're satisfied, rename the results to something more meaningful.

 

[n7bsn]

I read somewhere that it is best to shoot digital in the RAW format. I think it said that if you edit and change JPEG images several times that the qauality left diminishes. 😕

It depends. When I am shooting something serious I have my camera set to record on both RAW and (max) jpeg.

As noted by others, edit copies not originals

BTW, another option is Adobe's Digital Negative format (DNG). This format offers a common "raw" format. This is because "RAW" varies not just from manufacturer to manufacturer, but even between different models from the same manufacturer. Many manufacturers support direct storage in DNG and there are converters to convert most RAW formats to DNG

TTFN
Ralph

 

[Bill Boehme]

I read somewhere that it is best to shoot digital in the RAW format. I think it said that if you edit and change JPEG images several times that the qauality left diminishes. 😕

The answer is that it depends a lot on how deeply you want to get involved in photo editing. There is nothing like getting it right in the camera -- if you can do that then there will be minimal need for editing and saving images in RAW format. I generally save everything in RAW, but then it takes some experience in editing to rescue less-than-perfect images. If you were to shoot in RAW and then simply use the RAW converters default settings for conversion to JPG, then it is mostly wasted effort to go through the RAW process.

As far as editing JPG images is concerned, it only takes a single pass to goober up an image -- multiple passes are not necessary. The things that are the most destructive to JPG images are changing white balance (especially if the change is significant) and tonal value shifts, especially if the tonal corrections are made to an underexposed image. After editing a JPG, the two most common problems are posterization and loss of detail especially in darker areas. An example of posterization is when the blue sky in an image no longer has a smooth transition from light to dark, but instead shows bands of colors.

I do a lot of creative editing of images and therefore RAW is more important for my needs. However, I still try to get the exposure and white balance the best that I can achieve so that I do not have to correct for mistakes.

Here is a list of things that are a lot more important than shooting RAW vs. JPG: composition, focusing, depth of field, avoiding motion blur, exposure, and white balance. If you capture what you want in the camera, then the only post processing that is needed is resizing and cropping.

 

[Bill Travelstead]

If you are familiar with using PhotoShop or Gimp (free software) raw format will give editing options that jpg doesn't. However as an amateur that generally isn't needed.

Also recognize that you have a fixed amount of storage in the camera and raw output is quite a bit larger then fine jpg.

Look at the manual for your camera and it should have a table showing you how many pictures you can hold in the camera using each format and memory card size.

On a day to day basis this may not matter, but if you go on a trip/vacation you probably will want enough memory for your file format to hold all the pix for the vacation in the camera, which could be several hundred.

 

[john lucas]

Here is a list of things that are a lot more important than shooting RAW vs. JPG: composition, focusing, depth of field, avoiding motion blur, exposure, and white balance. If you capture what you want in the camera, then the only post processing that is needed is resizing and cropping.j

Extremely well said Bill.

I quit teaching photography because every question was basically about how to save an image in photoshop or whatever program, and "shoot in Raw because you can correct it"
Whatever happened to get it right the first time. I shoot in Raw mostly because as a professional I am expected to get a good image every time. RAW has saved my butt because no matter how good you might be accidents happen.
I do shoot a point and shoot camera occasionally that only has JPG capability. I convert the images to TIFF files and then work on them. My understanding (and I ain't no computer person) is that editing in TIFF doesn't change the image. Then you can convert it back to JPG if your saving just for the computer.

 

[Bill Boehme]

.... I do shoot a point and shoot camera occasionally that only has JPG capability. I convert the images to TIFF files and then work on them. My understanding (and I ain't no computer person) is that editing in TIFF doesn't change the image. Then you can convert it back to JPG if your saving just for the computer.

I suppose that if you convert the image to a 16-bit TIFF (not 8-bit) then image degradation will be less during editing than working directly on the JPG. However, an easier approach is to simply use the RAW converter in Photoshop (Adobe Camera RAW) or if you use Adobe Lightroom, use its RAW converter to work on the JPG image -- and it is less destructive than simply working on a TIFF image. Both ACR and Lightroom now support directly editing JPG and TIFF files. I recommend setting the RAW converter preferences to 16-bits and the color space to ProPhotoRGB. While your monitor can't display the full gamut of colors in ProPhotoRGB (nor can any printers), it is still best to work in the largest color space available. Most people don't realize that the color space of most digital cameras is huge -- larger than even AdobeRGB and comparable to ProPhotoRGB. Using a large color space will help minimize "picket fencing" of tones and colors (picket fencing is when the histogram starts to look like a picket fence rather than a relatively smooth curve). The image can be converted to sRGB and 8-bits later in the editing process before final output sharpening.

Obviously we can't regain what was lost when the image was first converted to JPG, but working in 16 bits using ACR or LR can help to keep the damage to a bare minimum.

The idea that shooting in RAW allows the user to "fix" images later works for a while, but it is like the IN basket that keeps accumulating stuff that we can't keep up with. I pretty much use the same workflow on all of my images and then only do "special" processing on "hero" images or boo-boos that I really want to save. Also, my current camera produces RAW files that are about 25 MB each and it doesn't take too long to clog up hard drives that are in the terabyte category -- especially when I save working files as PSD type that can be 300 to 500 MB each. I am learning to be more hard nosed about culling and throwing out images that will never see the light of day.

 

[kevinkabby]

I suppose that if you convert the image to a 16-bit TIFF (not 8-bit) then image degradation will be less during editing than working directly on the JPG. However, an easier approach is to simply use the RAW converter in Photoshop (Adobe Camera RAW) or if you use Adobe Lightroom, use its RAW converter to work on the JPG image -- and it is less destructive than simply working on a TIFF image. Both ACR and Lightroom now support directly editing JPG and TIFF files. I recommend setting the RAW converter preferences to 16-bits and the color space to ProPhotoRGB. While your monitor can't display the full gamut of colors in ProPhotoRGB (nor can any printers), it is still best to work in the largest color space available. Most people don't realize that the color space of most digital cameras is huge -- larger than even AdobeRGB and comparable to ProPhotoRGB. Using a large color space will help minimize "picket fencing" of tones and colors (picket fencing is when the histogram starts to look like a picket fence rather than a relatively smooth curve). The image can be converted to sRGB and 8-bits later in the editing process before final output sharpening.

Obviously we can't regain what was lost when the image was first converted to JPG, but working in 16 bits using ACR or LR can help to keep the damage to a bare minimum.

The idea that shooting in RAW allows the user to "fix" images later works for a while, but it is like the IN basket that keeps accumulating stuff that we can't keep up with. I pretty much use the same workflow on all of my images and then only do "special" processing on "hero" images or boo-boos that I really want to save. Also, my current camera produces RAW files that are about 25 MB each and it doesn't take too long to clog up hard drives that are in the terabyte category -- especially when I save working files as PSD type that can be 300 to 500 MB each. I am learning to be more hard nosed about culling and throwing out images that will never see the light of day.

Your photos are great bill. What would you recommend as far as a camera goes. I have a 7 mega pixel camera (samsung). The pictures dont turn out the greatest, even in photoshop.

 

[Bill Boehme]

Kevin,

While having a fancy camera helps, it is mostly about composition and exposure. There is a nice Canon P&S camera, I believe the model is G10 that is purported to be very good. The Canon Powershot series is also nice. I recommend reading some texts on composition and exposure because the best photo tool is between your ears.

The number of megapixels is not very important when it comes to good images.