RAW Vs. JPG please help me understand

[lynweber]

So i have always shot in JPG but I must say I am very curious as to what RAW does for your pictures?

How hard is it to develop the pictures in say lightroom if you dont know much about lightroom or program of the like?

Is the picture quality better then jpg? Thank you for your thoughts and I apprecaite your input as I am not getting the RAW vs JPG thing.

[Elmo]

Basically RAW stores the raw data your sensor records. Ut is not a photograph it is raw computer data. JPEG is a picture file format and stores the minimal data used to display a photograph.

By shooting RAW the photographer, in post processing, can determine how to use the captured data and not rely on the camera to select the data applicable to an "average" image. At the most basic shooting Raw allows for slight corrections in exposure and white balance.

[Almond.Butterscotch]

WB, especially, is very nice in RAW. Rather than setting at some arbitrary point from which you can make adjustments in lightroom, RAW just sets it at a point and if you feel like it was the wrong point in post, you can totally move it around, just as if you wouldve while you were still in the camera. (if that made any sense)

also, like Elmo said, misexposure is much more forgiving in RAW. the Recovery sliders work much better in RAW than JPEG.

Downside is this: Neither Canon nor Nikon have released their supersecret algorithm, so unless you use their proprietary software, Lightroom and Aperture (and Camera RAW, etc.) will just make as a good a guess as they can.

[LeeR]

When you take a picture with a digital camera the sensor gathers a great deal of information which is then processed and compressed to make maximum use of the memory space available. During processing a very sophisticated program makes various adjustments to the image based on the program's paramets. These programs are usually very good at turning out results that are pleasing to most people. Most People.

Some of us are passionate about photography and we are not satisfied to let programmers decide what adjustments to make like Most People. We would prefer to make our own adjustments. A lot of digital cameras, therefore, now allow you access to the RAW image; that is, the image information BEFORE it is processed and compressed. This gives the Passionate Few two advantages: the images do not suffer any loss from compression, and we get to make our own adjustments. The disadvantages are that these files gobble up an enormous amount of memory and there is a significant learning curve associated with working RAW images. However, if you are willing to buy some extra memory and learn the tools required, you can do some amazing things with RAW files.
One more thing. Working with RAW does require specialized software. You may get some software from the camera manufacturer but these tend to be rather rudimentary. It's far better to have one of the specialized programs for working with RAW and/or Photoshop. (These are the 'tools' you will have to master.)
My own experience with RAW files is that very often I can get exactly what I am looking for in camera RAW and no further work in Photoshop is required. Some programs (Lightroom, for instance) will allow you to batch process a great number of RAW files. This is a boon to, say, portrait photographers who are using the same set up over and over. Honestly, I can't think of anything else in image processing that can make as big a difference in how well your images turn out than learning to work in RAW.

[inkista]

Originally Posted by lynweber

So i have always shot in JPG but I must say I am very curious as to what RAW does for your pictures?

Gives you more of a security blanket/safety net in terms of having all the original data to work with. It's like having the original negative, rather than a print for us film oldbies.

Think of it this way: would you rather start with a full-sized image--even if you're going to deliver at web sizes? Or would you rather start with a web-sized image? Which is going to give you the sharper picture when downsized? Having more data gives you more flexibility and quality in the final delivery form. If you start with the full-sized image, you can make a large print and you can create a smaller web-sized image.

The same advantages of quality, flexibility, and control on the final image size if you start with something large is analogous to the quality, flexibility, and control on the final image data happens when you have RAW vs. JPEG, because you're starting with all the data. With JPEG, when the file was compressed to be smaller on the disk, some of that original data was discarded. The largest example of this kind of discarding is if you shoot in B&W.

If you shoot B&W in JPEG, the color information is completely discarded all together, and you can't go back to a color image. With RAW, you actually retain all the color information as it came from the sensor, and the image is merely notated as having been shot in a B&W mode. You still keep all the color information, which can be invaluable when it comes to B&W conversion--you can then fake using any color filter on the camera you want. Again, something you can't do with JPEG, because all that information was discarded.

Similarly, with RAW, if you goofed your white balance setting, you can "reset" it in post-processing, whereas with JPEG, you're stuck with what you picked at the time you took the shot. If you try to correct the color too far, you can end up with color "halos" from the discarded color information "holes" that the JPEG compression does, based on the image's original colors.

The biggest advantage of RAW, however, is that programs that can process RAW files do so in a non-destructive manner. If you, say, open up a JPEG file, crop it, and save it, you can't get the cropped data back. If you crop a RAW file in Lightroom, you can. Every change you make to the file is recorded as an edit to be applied to the data, but the original data is left alone, so you can always go back to the original unchanged file if you want to create something different from it.

How hard is it to develop the pictures in say lightroom if you dont know much about lightroom or program of the like?

Not hard. It's more involved than using iPhoto or Picasa, but the majority of it is just pulling sliders around to taste. The only thing you may really need to learn is curve adjustments.

Is the picture quality better then jpg?

Not strictly. It depends on your post-processing skills. But the flexibility and extent to which the image can be manipulated in post-processing is larger with RAW than with JPEG. If JPEG screwed up the quality that badly, nobody would use it. Obviously, though, the biggest drawback to shooting RAW is that it takes up drastically more space: both on your cards, and on your hard drive. JPEG can be better in some situations, and if you don't plan to do any post-processing manipulating at all, and you can nail it perfectly in camera consistently, then JPEG may be a better format choice for you.

But if you want complete control, and the latitude to do the most possible corrections for exposure/white balancing, then RAW is going to be a better format.

[GadgetRick]

Inksta said it best. With RAW you will always have your original file to fall back on. Not so with JPEG. Also, every time you save a JPEG file, you lose a little bit because it uses lossy compression whereas RAW does no compression so you don't lose anything there either.

As others have said, you have more control over your file as well. You can do more with WB and you can correct for a wider range of stops (over/under-exposed) with RAW than with JPEG. There are some other technical things which make RAW more forgiving than JPEG but these are all of the major things.

[Almond.Butterscotch]

Originally Posted by GadgetRick

Inksta said it best.

Inkista ALWAYS says it best. Woman's a beast.

[SusanH1970]

Originally Posted by Almond.Butterscotch

Inkista ALWAYS says it best. Woman's a beast.

Wouldn't say she's a beast, but the biotch knows her stuff! LOL

[inkista]

I got mad skillz. 20+ years of professional techwriting and an EE/CS degree leave their mark.

Now, if only I could get out from behind this damn computer and go out and shoot something! I'm starting to forget what my camera's for...

[Almond.Butterscotch]

making planets- what else?