Exporting RAW files in Lightroom 3

[MissChristina]

The technicalities of all this RAW/J PEG stuff has me so extremely confused, no matter how much I research! So maybe a few of you can simplify it for me.

I just purchased Lightroom 3, and on my new computer unfortunately I do not yet have Photoshop. I have heard time and again that JPEG files lose data so I fear converting images to JPEG and losing the work in editing I put into each picture.

In Lightroom 3 there is an "Export" process, can I export the images from CR2/RAW files into JPEG files and know they will be the same quality? Or should I export to DNG when printing? Does it even matter?

I called the lab in my area for photo-professionals and they said they prefer JPEG files - though they can print in all formats. So it still leaves me confused as to what is better at the end of the day? I do a lot of family portraiture and want the best quality, best colors, sharpest images possible. Also, a good amount of my clients are interested in the images on a CD - will putting the pictures as JPEG's be a bad idea for them?

So many questions - sorry. I just really want to understand and follow the best process.
Thanks in advance!

[BigFuzzy]

Hi Miss Christina,
I'll keep it simple in hopes of pointing you in the right direction.
First off, you don't really need photoshop yet, LR should be more than enough for someone starting off. You'll find that as you gain experience, unless you're trying to do lots of really complex photo manipulation, you'll be fine with LR.

RAW images are always going to be better quality because they are 100% of the digital data of what makes up your image. A jpeg (or tiff or DNG etc) is a compressed version of the RAW, but it'll be what you'll send to the printer to print after you've done all/any PP corrections in LR>

I'll let others with deeper knowledge discuss DNG v jpeg as I'm not so familiar with all. All I can tell you is that you don't need to convert ALL your images to Jpegs.. only those you wish to have printed. The beauty of LR is that it saves all your originals untouched so that you can always revisit the untouched original for future editing. I would only export those images you've selected for printing/uploading/etc.

I personally have never had a problem with prints made from Jpegs... as long as you know how to export properly for good printing (which is a whole other issue).

As for your clients, I'd ONLY ever give them images on CD.. never the unedited RAWs. Don't know anyone that does that without good reason.. plus your client couldn't do anything with the RAW unless they have programs such as LR.

Best colors, sharpest etc has more to do with your original image (raw) and how you process it after getting it into your computer than it does with what format you save it in. If your image is crap in Raw when you capture it, doesn't matter how you export it. Also, if you process the RAW poorly, again, it doesn't matter what format you export it as.

No offense, but for someone with "clients" and who does "a lot of family portraiture" you seem to know very little of a very important part of the whole "creating a good photograph" issue. May I ask what you were doing before getting LR?

Good luck.

EDIT: good point Luke.. important to know that the image quality loss has more to do with repeated savings of a jpeg rather that is simply being a jpeg.

[kirbinster]

When you "edit" in Lightroom you are not really editing anything. What you are doing is writing a series of instructions in the database (catalog) that tell it what changes you would like to see. The display in lightroom applies those changes on the screen as you make them but does not do anything to the actual data file. When you export as a jpeg, or tiff or other format, lightroom applies those instructions and writes the new files with those instructions, your original raw file is not modified in anyway.

Thus unlike normal editors which make changes to you pictures, lightoom does not. This is even true if you are working with jpegs rather than raw in lightroom. Once you make all your edits there is really no significant loss (for most practical purposes) in exporting as a high quality jpeg for printing. If you want no loss at all you could export as a tiff - but files will be huge.

[MissChristina]

thanks to both of you - Big Fuzzy, you made it pretty simple to understand, I appreciate it.
There is just SOOO much information all over the place, it's tough to grasp, but I'm starting to gain an understanding.

I don't have a ridiculous amount of clients, but enough here and there. I'm purposefully building slowly because I'm a perfectionist and don't want to offer junk work that is half ass- so no offense taken.

As for what I did before LR, I used PS CS3 and was learning through countless hours of youtube tutorials. Right now I'm just in the learning process and I'm feeling my way around LR. My system crashed and so there went my Photoshop. My father trying to be helpful purchased Lightroom for me for Christmas. I'm not going to turn it down!

Just recently I started to really be determined to learn and have been practicing like crazy shooting in RAW because I know that's the key to the best images. I had been shooting in Auto only to not ruin any images for people I did shoots for. Since I am on this path of shooting in Manual, I have gone back to taking pictures of family/friends so when I do continue to build clients I can provide the best. I'm a newbie by all means - we all gotta start somewhere, right?

Another question, and I know you said it's a whole other issue, but I'm curious- how do you properly export for the best prints? Is there certain settings that have to be set up for LR to do this? I guess I didn't know there was a bad way to export, lol.