Difference between --- RAW / JPEG

[DonRent]

I've been away from photography for many years and re-learning the art of picture taking by digital....

My question is: What is the difference between RAW and JPEG images....
'
Thanks a bunch..............

[Grizraz]

Check out this excellent write up found here at DPS:
RAW vs. JPEG

[Krusty79]

RAW vs JPG explain it to me one more time

[SwissJon]

LoL..

Ok, for the lazy.. (And also cos I don't think it's covered in these links..)

RAW is lossless. In other words, the information in it is 12 or 14bits of information for each and every pixel in your 12MPix camera. Resulting in very large picture files, but a lot of information that might help you alter the picture at a later date.

JPEG discards a lot of information that is not needed to create the file exactly as it is produced, so you are much more limited to how you can manipulate the file.

It also does some clever tricks to compress the file even further.

This discarding of data is called "Lossy" and over time, when you save the file multiple times, the data that is discarded starts to degrade the picture quality, even if you haven't manipulated it further. Resulting in oss of carity and digital noise.

RAW files don't suffer from degredation nearly as much over multiple saves, because the compression is not lossy. If you want to avoid degredation in your photos, I suggest you export to PNG or TIFF, which are also lossless, and retain all the information contained in the export from RAW.

[Plpix]

Basically to simply put it raw is the unprocessed file and the jpeg is the processed file from the camera ..so in most cases the jpeg looks better as it ready for printing or viewing.

[ccting]

Originally Posted by DonRent

I've been away from photography for many years and re-learning the art of picture taking by digital....

My question is: What is the difference between RAW and JPEG images....
'
Thanks a bunch..............

I hate RAW as the post-production is a few thousand times slower.. ! Ugh.. You can correct distortion, HDR etc automatically with JPEG

[ceremus]

Originally Posted by ccting

I hate RAW as the post-production is a few thousand times slower.. ! Ugh.. You can correct distortion, HDR etc automatically with JPEG

Post-processing with JPEGs is automatically giving yourself a handicap. When doing post corrections with RAW files it's relatively easy and natural to do corrections for over or under exposure, as well as corrective white balance. That's because all of the proper color data is preserved in the RAW file, while in the JPEG the raw data is compressed and the color data is saved as the algorithm best guesses what data to save and what to throw away. Thus, "Lossy compression". You can't throw a jpeg into Lightroom and recover data which is no longer there. inkista's examples are brilliant on this point.

[inkista]

For an oldtimer, the easiest way to think of it is that RAW is like the negative; JPEG is like a print.

If you shoot in JPEG, you've thrown away the negative, and are left with a print. This may be good (from a disk space storage standpoint), but could be bad (from a going-back-to-rework-the-image standpoint).

Theoretically (though not in reality), the RAW file is a dump of the raw sensor data. It is not a file format. It is not a standard. It changes with each new camera model, and can be a PITA for older software to understand. RAW converters must continually and constantly be updated to grok the newer formats from newer cameras. But it is ALL of the sensor data, relatively unmanipulated.

JPEG files have gone through in-camera processing. Styles, sharpness/saturation adjustments, and compression have been performed on the file, and the original data has been dumped for the resulting (smaller) file. So, doing things like B&W conversion, white balance adjustments, etc. cannot be "undone" or "redone" after the image is taken.

With RAW, they can.

As with film, where more resolution is always better? With digital, more data is always better. I did a little demo of that here (same link ceremus gave--thanks for the nice words!).

[Lefteris Katsantonis]

I believe RAW is much better than negative. You can do more than what you could do on negative. That's why I only work with RAW.
What you get with RAW:
1- Correct colour temperature.
2- Easily adjust under or over exposed pictures.
3- More detail on black and white.
4- sharper images.
5- much better contrast and saturation.
6- Noise reduction on high iso.
7- smoother skin with clarity adjustment.
8- Touch up with brush tool to apply any adjustment to any specific place on the picture.
9- HSL correction, lens correction, and many more....

You can apply all these adjustments on JPG files, but result will not be same!

People think it takes time to process raw files. No! they are wrong. Because they spend more time in Photoshop to fix JPG files.

It will take time till you learn how to process RAW files. But you will be satisfied with the result.

Regards,

[ceremus]

Originally Posted by inkista

...
As with film, where more resolution is always better? With digital, more data is always better. I did a little demo of that here (same link ceremus gave--thanks for the nice words!).

Most welcome!