Lightroom jpegs

Just started playing around with a trial version of LR 1.1. One of the things that fascinates me about the program is that you can make exposure, WB, and other adjustments to jpegs files that I thought could only be made to a RAW file.

So, am I missing something here? Why would I continue shooting in RAW if LR gives my jpegs all the flexibility of RAW files?
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Please view my galleries at http://www.pbase.com/mpov

RAW gives you much more latitude and flexibility. You could test this yourself by shooting the same image in RAW and JPG. Shoot at various exposures.
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Tom Grollman

A JPEG image is an 8-bit image, whereas a raw image is 12 bits. That means there's more data to work with. The raw images will tolerate more aggressive adjustments. But the nice thing about doing these adjustments in Lightroom (or the new ACR 4.1 in the new Photoshop) is that those adjustments are made nondestructively. So while the raw images will give you noticeably more control, I have found that I can get much better results from my JPEG images.

I am using the trial of LR also and have just started playing with raw. I have noticed that while moving the white balance slider does make some changes to a jpg, they are not the same as what it does to a raw image. I can't tell any difference about exposure, but I'm becoming convinced of the advantages of having the 12 bits from a raw to start with. Maybe someone can answer this for us. Even if you convert to jpg won't your converted jpg still be a better quality than if you had shot jpg from the camera? I'm thinking it will.

Theoretically, that is probably true. But a lot of that will depend on how good your raw converter is, and how well you know how to use it. I'm finding the JPEG images produced by current cameras are really very good. And if you expose properly you can get very good images. I have a panorama hanging on my wall that I took in JPEG mode that is very sharp and clear. Even though it is comprised of three JPEG images, I did process them in Adobe Camera Raw before I created the panorama. So it depends on the image and how well it was taken, and on just how much skill you have using your software.

RAW files and high quality JPEG's seem to produce the same real world quality (at least I can't tell a big difference). Lightroom handles RAW files and JPEG's identically, which keeps things easy since the workflow is the same.

That being said, if a photo isn't quite right (exposure & recovering highlights stand out for me), the sliders will have a much larger effect on the RAW image. Since RAW is not compressed it can be considered a "digital negative".

Think of it this way...JPEG quality is comparable to RAW if you never screw up the shot and never decide to do something creatively in post processing.

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Doug

Doug and Jim, what you have both said is what I have felt for a long time, and why I have not bothered with raw before. I have been reading a lot more about it lately and have reluctantly decided I could squeeze out better quality with raw. Especially so with a shot that wasn't quite right.

I've been playing with lightroom and am about to decide it's the one for me. And part of that decision is that I think it will help me do a better job of processing even in-camera jpg shots along with PSE5 which I've used for a long time. It does have stuff that I probably will never use, and I know I'm paying a high price for that, but the prosessing abilities and the amount of support for it seem to offset all that. Ernie

Eureka! I knew Lightroom could catalog JPEGs but never knew it could 'Develop' them also. I had some old family snaps taken with my trusty old D30 (one of the great JPEG processing engines of all time) in JPEG mode which had a nasty florescent/flash combo cast that I could not get rid of. Until now. A couple of seconds with the Develop module and they look great.

Another reason to keep reading this forum (maybe my wife will even agree..)

thanks

Mike