Pre-processing vs post-processing

[Theoinpa]

With so many cameras offering processing in camera, how many use it? I just use the standard picture style, no DRO, no HDR, the lowest NR I can select and do it all in LightRoom. I have only been using cameras for hobby shooting for a couple months, so this might just be lack of knowledge, but does the pre-processing only effect jpegs taken with the camera? is RAW always unprocessed?

RAW is unprocessed.

Nah-ha-hah-evAR pre-process.... totally kills any ability to go backwards.

~Eric

[inkista]

RAW isn't an acronym or a file format. RAW just means "raw image data". So, yeah, it's unprocessed.

[nickbedford]

RAW is basically:

• Camera metadata
• Sensor dump
• JPEG preview based on the camera's current "develop" profile (what is used when shooting JPEG)

Shoot RAW.

[tuxcomputers]

Shoot RAW if you want to increase the complexity and amount of time it takes to process an image by a factor of about 3 while only increasing the quality by about 5%.

If you need the extra 5% then yeah go ahead and shoot RAW

[inkista]

Originally Posted by tuxcomputers

Shoot RAW if you want to increase the complexity and amount of time it takes to process an image by a factor of about 3 while only increasing the quality by about 5%.

If you need the extra 5% then yeah go ahead and shoot RAW

So not the way I see it. Wouldn't consider being able to fix this little whoopsie as a mere 5% quality increase.



Shot underexposed as JPEG, increased exposure by 1.5 stops or so, and blew out the sky, but left those blue halos thanks to lossy JPEG compression having dumped all those extra transitional tones of blue in the sky. Shooting RAW would have eliminated the blue halo.

Not to mention that this was early enough in my digital photography post-processing experience that I was still doing edits in the original JPEG file--i.e., destructive editing (there was no Lightroom back then). I can't go back to the original.

It's not a quality issue. It's a missing data issue.

[OsmosisStudios]

Originally Posted by tuxcomputers

Shoot RAW if you want to increase the complexity and amount of time it takes to process an image by a factor of about 3 while only increasing the quality by about 5%.

If you need the extra 5% then yeah go ahead and shoot RAW

Wow, this is sooo wrong. So very very wrong.

[tuxcomputers]

Originally Posted by OsmosisStudios

Wow, this is sooo wrong. So very very wrong.

Which part the 3x factor or the 5%?

[nickbedford]

Originally Posted by tuxcomputers

Shoot RAW if you want to increase the complexity and amount of time it takes to process an image by a factor of about 3 while only increasing the quality by about 5%.

If you need the extra 5% then yeah go ahead and shoot RAW

Please stop talking now. Thanks.

HEY GUYS LETS ALL SHOOT POLAROIDS.

[tuxcomputers]

Originally Posted by inkista

Shot underexposed as JPEG, increased exposure by 1.5 stops or so, and blew out the sky, but left those blue halos thanks to lossy JPEG compression having dumped all those extra transitional tones of blue in the sky. Shooting RAW would have eliminated the blue halo.

Not to mention that this was early enough in my digital photography post-processing experience that I was still doing edits in the original JPEG file--i.e., destructive editing (there was no Lightroom back then). I can't go back to the original.

It's not a quality issue. It's a missing data issue.

So the original was a JPEG and you adjusted it or there was 2 shots, one underexposed and the other with blue halos? If it was the former why didn't you use layers and masks to adjust one but not the other? As I demonstrate here.

If you edit a JPEG and then save as a JPEG you deserve all you get. I take images as JPEG, edit, save as an XCF (the native GIMP format, it would be PSD for PS?) then as the last step use a plug-in called David Batch Processor to convert them all to a JPEG just before uploading.