RAW or JPEG?

[pianoadib]

" jared polin froknowsphoto . com " I SHOOT RAW ...

[Randomaited]

I always PNG becuase JPEG is compressed & PNG isn't, if a camera has the RAW option then I'd use that because I can open it in Paint.NET and the re-save it as a PNG.

Also, I use WAV for my audio files, mainly becuase it's uncompressed & I have a tone of memory space left on my PC.

[rorrt]

I was recently converted over to the RAW way of thinking, which is quite unfortionate, as i am a photographer planning on going to university in september to study pure photography.

And pretty much all my college work over the last year and a bit is all in Jpeg. Still i always duplicate files, and lightroom doesnt edit destructively.

Still. Its that old thing that people always talk about, its like destroying your negatives when you get them back from the chemists.

[martirpeperino]

SHOOT RAW MEN!!! WTF are you thinking...

[schoolsucks1234545]

I shoot RAW

[lagerbaer]

If you plan to do ANY editing with the picture at all, shoot RAW.

If you shoot JPEG, the camera does white balance AND (more important) sharpening. Also, due to limited bit depth, playing with curves/levels is somewhat limited by histogram binning effects.

[TutorialThis]

raw if you want to edit photos your self with 3rd party software such as white balence and exposure hue/sat jpeg if your lazy like me and let my camera do everything for me:)

[bollwerkman]

RAW as a former film shooter I prefer the full control and for me RAW is my negative.

[retepvosnul]

@bollwerkman If you want a negative, you should shoot analogue. RAW != negative.

The quality is marginally better with RAW, but the trouble of it does not make up at all.

[MrRob502]

Hey, I have a quesion for those of you more up on digital sensors that I am.

Would Raw capture on a non DSLR, say like a G11 Canon, or FZ35 Panasonic really be much more benifit with the smaller sensor?

Thanks.

[chashathaway]

If you want to save your photo before you finish working on it, and have done editing beyond the basics (maybe you removed unwanted subjects from the photo), you can save it as a .png or .tif and it will remain lossless. If you're in photoshop, you can also save it as a .psd file and finish it later - especially if you want to keep editing layers. You won't lose anything.

.tif will also keep your layers (in case you're not using Photoshop).

[DavidNartey27]

CANON RAW (.cr2)

For changing settings afterwards such as White Balance and Picture modes.

...dav

[Morningsidenursery]

I use LightRoom to open Raw files and its perfect! same for the Jpeg files too, Because of how well LightRoom preserves both Raw and Jpeg files, I cannot tell the difference between to 2. So I just shoot in Jpeg mode just to save space on my Memory card in the camera. =0)

[cesarv30]

if you have nef format pix and want them to be jpeg, put them on a cd and use a macbook. create a new album on iphoto and copy them to this album. then select one or all the pix and go to the top of the window to "photos" and click revert to original. 2nd option would be to transfer them from iphoto to a memory card and it does it automaticly to jpeg. hit me up if you need help.

[masticina]

The big reality is that it takes time to open the RAW information and put the settings right then indeed export it probably to a JPEG. The question is hence is that worth your time.

If you want more control and are willing to invest time YES! Then 12bits colors, access to all the sliders and settings to make the image as YOU envision it is worth it.

If though you don't have the time then forget about raw. Some photographers shoot JPG only and throw away the bad photos. And why not?

[mahalolovesyou]

if i'm working on a RAW file and would like to finish at a later time, how should i save it so it won't lose picture quality?

[RUGRLN]

You don't lose format with RAW...any edits made are saved in a different file and applied when the pic is opened...RAW isn't lossy!!

[61862006]

please help, which one is better quality????

[HunterMolnarFilms]

To simplify, Raw is 10 times better in terms of color information.  As far as resolution goes, no difference.

[welfaremother]

How did you measure this "10 times better?" Your response does nothing to assist the person asking. A shitty photo with color that is "10 times better" is still a shitty photo. My response to the original asker would be that RAW is for people who may lack the confidence to make settings "in camera" and who may feel the need to change them later. For example, you are unsure whether to use Auto, Cloudy, or Daylight white balance, and would rather have more flexibility to change it later.

[persia1001]

I kind of disagree with you. Because some photographers prefer to edit there pictures later because they have a bigger range of options to edit the picture. I personally choose my the options but I think Raw can be useful sometimes as well.

[heminder]

i'm upgrading my camera soon, and i'm definately getting one with RAW support for bigger, uncompressed files to be manually processed for my own (excessively) large prints.

i am, however, against camera manufacturers developing proprietary formats for their RAW files, and therefore support the OpenRAW (.org) movement to standardise RAW in an open-source file format. Adobe are trying to unify RAW with their DNG format which i think great support will be added to if it were an open source format

[Fredrico00]

I use RAW because of the possibilities and by using RAW I can turn the file into almost whatever format I want to, including JPG. Because of the manufacturers not being unanimous about which RAW format to support (fore example, Nikon NEF or Canon CR2), converting your files to the DNG format for storage is probably good as that is most likely the future format. I will shoot JPG if the images are non-important i.e. NOT stock/gallery or for an assignment.

[KaiAdin]

I use RAW for 'important' shoots such as outings, landscapes, anything in which quality and post-processing is needed, for random snapshots when out with the friends or just playing around, JPEG is just fine.

[sirfatalx]

PNG

[wakeupfist]

RAW or JPEG you ask?

The answer is simple - CELLULOID!

[lanswipe]

actually you may be surprised but its only recently with the invent of the 16 megapixel CCD that digital has been able to equal film.

[wakeupfist]

Oh yeah? Not just resolution-wise, but bit depth-wise, color gamut-wise? :-)

[lanswipe]

oh, i dont know about that, im only talking about resolution.

[welfaremother]

That is totally incorrect. My 6 MP camera easily can produce larger more "grain free" prints than a Velvia slide. This is why National Geographic's requirements are a 6MP minimum digital camera. Joe McNally shot an entire assignment with a 3MP camera in 2001 and no one could tell the difference.

[lanswipe]

but, welfaremother im not talking about slide film, im talking about 35mm film.

And i actually read it somewhere, so i cant say its definately true, im just passing on information from a photography website the address of which now eludes me

[DMXell]

As a fact, 95% of all digital camera's only shoot in jpg or some other format (most also have hacks to shoot in RAW). So for that 5%, they're the only ones that need to use Photoshop. The rest of us can stick on GIMP or PSP and be just fine.

[Mike0000100]

how can you hack a camera to do RAW? that would be awesome :P

[sk8crazy93]

If you have a canon you can using CHDK, just google it, its great! It lets you customize your camera and even download/make scripts to do other things with your camera

[phxmark123]

Great video. I dig your videos, very informative. I shoot in RAW 99% of the time. Most professional photographers do also. Have you ever overexposed a picture? nothing you can do with it in JPEG. RAW you can adjust the exposure afterwards just like you would on your camera before the shot or many other adjustments. Much more control of how well your pictures look in RAW. The average person should probably just use JPEG to save space. But you could always convert a RAW to JPEG

[dogpound71]

The only correct comment so far.

[wutangxxx]

If you have Adobe Bridge CS3, You can open a Jpeg in RAW format where it can be edited just like a raw file then resaved. Sayin that I still shoot RAW 99% of the time.

[mysticfm]

I use JPEG, only because my camera doesn't do RAW files - it does TIFF for lossless, and it is painfully slow to save them. If my camera had RAW and did a good job with it, I'd probably use it. Also, some cameras will save RAW files that contain a larger color gamut than what a JPEG can store, so that's another potential advantage.

On the audio side, I think WAV is as ubiquitous as MP3, and I would never archive any irreplaceable audio as MP3 only (far too lossy).

[CajunTechie]

Good video Chris. Very informative. Personally, I hardly ever use RAW. Most of what I need to do can still be done with a JPG.

[Nikiaf]

jpeg all the way. and is .jpg and .jpeg the same thing?