IQ: JPG vs straight RAW-JPG convert

KIWI Rik said:

However, because these are rather small.....I would be interested to see some 100% selections from these, both JPG and RAW..... to see how the RAW processing may be effecting the image at pixel level....too hard to tell at this size...

Click to expand...

OK Rik, here we go at 100%, not totally accurate in area

Crops from the dunking shot, as stated obvious as hell how the nef did well on the highlights (from memory there was some usm etc also, but try to ignore that)





Now the fun bit, with the pelican instead of just the straight compare I tried to bring up the jpeg to match, so spent some time tinkering.

I admit to getting the colour and contrast a bit different (my fault, just got bored with it !) but sharpening is about the same. There is more detail in some spots on the nef, ie the wing between the apex of neck/body, drops on front of neck etc.

But where the highlights were not recovered the detail is pretty similar, so you would notice very little difference in a decent sized print. Most of the differnce here would be my processing from 2 years ago to now I suspect. The full sized shot would stack up well either way. And in reality I'm not that anal about a blown spot here and there in a shot.

jpeg tweaked



nef tweaked



Having said all this, I still stand by my original comments

For me;
nef for recovery (WB and exposure predominantly)
nef for pp to the max
jpeg more than adequate if you nail it (out for the way I shoot )

--
Gerry,
http://gerryd.smugmug.com/ discount code on homepage

'There's a fine line between fishing and just standing on the shore like an idiot.' - Steven Wright

BrianHalcYoN said:

I think if I were printing on large formats, RAW would be the only format for me. Not there yet, though I know it is inevitable. The hard to believe part is that I haven't ever been that far off when shooting by shooting a lot. If I was far enough off, I have tried to figure out what I missed. I see too many comments about RAW "saving" the shot. I am not saying that you shouldn't shoot in RAW, I just try to shoot to minimize post-processing, making post-processing a RAW shot more valuable, more detail oriented.

Click to expand...

Two things:

• RAW will not save the shot unless you took care to get close enough (what that is depends on the lighting, etc.). I have plenty of examples (well, actually they are deleted now) of shots that were unsalvageable, even with RAW. The goal isn't to slop around in RAW and lean on PP to save the day. We should get it right in-camera, then capitalize on image potential and maximize image impact with PP.
• I resonate with what winparkman about great photographers always being willing to invest in their shots through PP. But then again, you and I probably fall into a different category. So while my approach includes PP, I try to do only the PP that is strictly necessary given a) the best shot I could get out of camera and b) my vision for what the image should look like.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Rule of Thirds is meant to be broken, but only 1/3
of the time.



D80/D90 gallery: http://esfotoclix.com
Photo blog: http://esfotoclix.com/blog1

gerryd04 said:

KIWI Rik said:

Hi Gerry, thanks for posting

These are good examples, for sure!..........I can see how you were able to save and also enhance these particular shots...

Click to expand...

Yes but not to be confused, purely examples of recovery and detail that can be pulled from blown highlights

gerryd04 said:

However, because these are rather small.....I would be interested to see some 100% selections from these, both JPG and RAW..... to see how the RAW processing may be effecting the image at pixel level....too hard to tell at this size...

Click to expand...

Have to do it later as smugmug is down, but it will be totally obvious as far as highlight recovery goes.

gerryd04 said:

In your experience, can you achieve OOC jpgs using "picture controls, correct exposure, etc" as good as processing RAW...

Click to expand...

If you nail it and the image itself does not really require much processing the jpeg is more than fine, even at large sizes. You might get a small incrimental improvement in the nef converted but 99.9% would likely not notice a difference.

Click to expand...

Or with RAW, you can just do a straight convert in NX and you have the same JPG (as I've shown) you would have gotten out of the camera. The problem I see with trying to get it right-in-camera is that it's more than just about exposure. Let's say one minute you are shooting a great landscape, for which the Landscape Picture control and Sunny WB setting renders the JPG just perfect (as in, the way you want it). The next second, you see a great shot of your daughter under the shade of a tree, you adjust exposure quickly and nail it... or did you? The Landscape Picture Control will render her skin tones too warm (forget it if you were using Vivid), and the WB is wrong. So yeah, you nailed the exposure, but you are still left with the choice of how best to "salvage" the color rendition with only a JPG in hand. Bonne chance.

If on the other hand, you took the time to set the right WB and plow through the menus to change Picture control to Portrait or Neutral, the shot may be gone.

Oh, and one last point: if you think you nailed the second shot, think again. It turns out that WB and Picture controls affect the histogram, so you may in fact have an incorrectly exposed shot if you go by the histogram alone, as shown here:
http://esfotoclix.com/blog1/?p=54

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Rule of Thirds is meant to be broken, but only 1/3
of the time.



D80/D90 gallery: http://esfotoclix.com
Photo blog: http://esfotoclix.com/blog1

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Rule of Thirds is meant to be broken, but only 1/3
of the time.



D80/D90 gallery: http://esfotoclix.com
Photo blog: http://esfotoclix.com/blog1

KIWI Rik said:

I think perhaps we have the answer with the absolute silence to our request.... and it would seem no RAW shooters are game enough to visually prove their point....

There has always been plenty of verbal defense of RAW, but never any real visual proof that it is better than in camera jpg processing...

RAW may have been better in the past.....but modern in cam processing seems to come of age....

Click to expand...

Actually, I just realized that I already had an example of RAW processing producing superior results with fairly simple editing. See the 1st vs. the 5th images at http://esfotoclix.com/blog1/?p=94 , which I'll reproduce here:

The first image is the straight, unedited RAW-to-JPG conversion in ViewNX, which as we have already discussed, produces pretty much the same JPG as the camera would. The issue here is that the background is distractingly over-exposed, and the foreground is too dark.



The fifth image is a RAW-to-JPG conversion after dialing -0.7EV and Shadow protection=30 in ViewNX -- nothing more than that!



You decide which is the superior shot. BTW, ADL might have gotten similar results, but at the cost of pushing out noise in the foreground midtones and shadows, as shown here: http://esfotoclix.com/blog1/?p=421

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Rule of Thirds is meant to be broken, but only 1/3
of the time.



D80/D90 gallery: http://esfotoclix.com
Photo blog: http://esfotoclix.com/blog1

When you add active D lighting, that changes the equation a lot. My wife shoots a D60 and she only shoots JPEGs. She gets pretty good results with that feature. I think ADL is doing pretty much the same thing automatically as I do manually with my D80 (no ADL).

eNo said:

KIWI Rik said:

I think perhaps we have the answer with the absolute silence to our request.... and it would seem no RAW shooters are game enough to visually prove their point....

There has always been plenty of verbal defense of RAW, but never any real visual proof that it is better than in camera jpg processing...

RAW may have been better in the past.....but modern in cam processing seems to come of age....

Click to expand...

Actually, I just realized that I already had an example of RAW processing producing superior results with fairly simple editing. See the 1st vs. the 5th images at http://esfotoclix.com/blog1/?p=94 , which I'll reproduce here:

The first image is the straight, unedited RAW-to-JPG conversion in ViewNX, which as we have already discussed, produces pretty much the same JPG as the camera would. The issue here is that the background is distractingly over-exposed, and the foreground is too dark.



The fifth image is a RAW-to-JPG conversion after dialing -0.7EV and Shadow protection=30 in ViewNX -- nothing more than that!



You decide which is the superior shot. BTW, ADL might have gotten similar results, but at the cost of pushing out noise in the foreground midtones and shadows, as shown here: http://esfotoclix.com/blog1/?p=421

Click to expand...

Wellllll...I always do a minimum of PP of my JPEGs after I've shot them in Picasa or PSE, no matter what I've got my camera settings at. I could still ask if, after all the proper PP is done on comparable RAW and JPEG images, if the RAW could always be tweaked "better". I don't know if your examples answer that question.

I finally figured out how to get my RAW images from my SD card "directly" to ViewNX and let me just say it was a completely different way of finally viewing my pics in some program than I've ever done. But I figured it out.

So, I'm still asking: is there a way to separate out the RAW image from the JPEG image (if I've shot RAW+JPEG) in ViewNX and look at them side by side in ViewNX? This would be where I could tweak the RAW as much as I could, tweak the JPEG as well then compare the two to see which ultimately I liked better.

Someone other than eNo could answer this one if he doesn't want to (insert smiley here).

BrianHalcYoN said:

I am not saying that you shouldn't shoot in RAW, I just try to shoot to minimize post-processing, making post-processing a RAW shot more valuable, more detail oriented.

Click to expand...

RAW is really the best of both worlds as you can always produce the out of camera jpeg later by making a couple of mouse clicks - want them all to jpeg? click and batch convert to jpeg

you do not have to hand edit every raw file

to me the real time spent is simply sorting out which are good and bad pictures -

and like jpeg - you still want to try to get them right

so to me - the whole raw takes a lot more effort argument is not a good one

there is even a program (exiftool) that will extract the full size jpeg out of the raw files - and include the EXIF data

exiftool -b -jpgfromraw -w jpg -ext nef .
exiftool -tagsfromfile %%d%%f.nef -ext jpg . -overwrite_original

and it is fast

so in my opinion, if you are shooting a lot of pictures - there is not a lot of reason not to shoot raw - as you can just batch process to jpeg and for those pictures you want to make nicer, i think it is much easier to alter in raw

now if you are shooting a couple of pictures to get onto the web or get to someone post haste - i am clicking over to jpeg

for everything else it is raw

now i certainly don't begrudge the professional photogs using jpegs - what with deadlines and hundreds of wedding photos to process time is money

i take a few pictures at my work and if someone says that want a picture of this thing right away, i will not even think about messing with raw

Good shooting!

David

toomanycanons said:

Wellllll...I always do a minimum of PP of my JPEGs after I've shot them in Picasa or PSE, no matter what I've got my camera settings at. I could still ask if, after all the proper PP is done on comparable RAW and JPEG images, if the RAW could always be tweaked "better". I don't know if your examples answer that question.

Click to expand...

Of course, but that's not the question KIWIRik was asking... we can't answer all the questions at the same time.

But yeah, I still owe the community an example of applying the same PP to JPG and RAW (to salvage highlights, adjust WB, etc.) to see if the differences are significant enough to care... early indications are that subtle to readily noticeable (but not killer) differences are appreciable.

toomanycanons said:

So, I'm still asking: is there a way to separate out the RAW image from the JPEG image (if I've shot RAW+JPEG) in ViewNX and look at them side by side in ViewNX? This would be where I could tweak the RAW as much as I could, tweak the JPEG as well then compare the two to see which ultimately I liked better.

Click to expand...

There's no real way that I know of. Since I don't fully trust ViewNX, I like keeping my JPG and RAW separate (on those times when I shoot RAW+JPG). This is what I do.

• I create a folder for my shoot on my PC's hard disk, insert my SD card into my reader, and do a straight copy from card to hard disk.
• Then I create a sub-folder in the same directory, and move the JPGs into it.
• Now I can open ViewNX and point it to my directory, and now for sure that I am seeint the RAW and nothing but the RAW.
• To see what the RAW actually looks like, not the embedded JPG the RAW carries around (different, smaller JPG than the one the camera captured separately), either press the RAW button (must be yellow) or (the way I prefer) make any change under QuickAdjust, and ViewNX will load and modify the RAW data.
• When I'm done tweaking, save to JPG if you don't need to do anything else to the image, or save to 16-bit TIF (as I often do) and bring that into your editor of choice.

You know, it occurs to me that a barebones ViewNX tutorial might be a good blog topic...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Rule of Thirds is meant to be broken, but only 1/3
of the time.



D80/D90 gallery: http://esfotoclix.com
Photo blog: http://esfotoclix.com/blog1

David314 said:

BrianHalcYoN said:

I am not saying that you shouldn't shoot in RAW, I just try to shoot to minimize post-processing, making post-processing a RAW shot more valuable, more detail oriented.

Click to expand...

RAW is really the best of both worlds as you can always produce the out of camera jpeg later by making a couple of mouse clicks - want them all to jpeg? click and batch convert to jpeg

you do not have to hand edit every raw file

to me the real time spent is simply sorting out which are good and bad pictures -

and like jpeg - you still want to try to get them right

so to me - the whole raw takes a lot more effort argument is not a good one

there is even a program (exiftool) that will extract the full size jpeg out of the raw files - and include the EXIF data

exiftool -b -jpgfromraw -w jpg -ext nef .
exiftool -tagsfromfile %%d%%f.nef -ext jpg . -overwrite_original

and it is fast

Click to expand...

I'm not entirely sure of this... Isn't the JPG embedded in the RAW file a smaller/compressed version, and if so, aren't you giving up on IQ by using it for anything other than quick review browsing.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Rule of Thirds is meant to be broken, but only 1/3
of the time.



D80/D90 gallery: http://esfotoclix.com
Photo blog: http://esfotoclix.com/blog1

Yes, a bare bones ViewNX tutorial is a good idea. I searched "how to separate out RAW from JPEG in ViewNX" and other such questions a whole bunch, on DPR and the internet in general and have resorted to asking here. The problem is in reading ViewNX Help is it isn't written from the perspective of someone just wanting to be shown the proper steps to get started. It's like a driving instructor saying "here's the steering wheel, you got your gas pedal down there, here's the radio". Then leaves you wondering how to really drive a that car. An FAQ would help.

eNo said:

I'm not entirely sure of this... Isn't the JPG embedded in the RAW file a smaller/compressed version, and if so, aren't you giving up on IQ by using it for anything other than quick review browsing.

Click to expand...

it is a full size basic compressed jpeg that is embedded in the NEF whether you want it or not

there is also a small sized thumbnail but that isn't as interesting

if you need a jpeg and you need it now - it is quick and easy way to get it

and i bet for 4x6 5x7 or web you wouldn't notice any difference anyway

so imagine you are on vacation and you just took 500 raw images and someone says, hey, can i have those, no problem, you have one of these preview extractors on your thumb drive (they don't need to be installed on to a machine ) and bingo - you can hand them 500 jpegs

yes, marginally reduced quality but still full sized

or you can convert your raw one at a time in your camera to jpeg

i am not sure - but i think some of the newer Nikons can batch convert in camera?

D300s? anyone?

David

David314 said:

eNo said:

I'm not entirely sure of this... Isn't the JPG embedded in the RAW file a smaller/compressed version, and if so, aren't you giving up on IQ by using it for anything other than quick review browsing.

Click to expand...

it is a full size basic compressed jpeg that is embedded in the NEF whether you want it or not

there is also a small sized thumbnail but that isn't as interesting

if you need a jpeg and you need it now - it is quick and easy way to get it

and i bet for 4x6 5x7 or web you wouldn't notice any difference anyway

so imagine you are on vacation and you just took 500 raw images and someone says, hey, can i have those, no problem, you have one of these preview extractors on your thumb drive (they don't need to be installed on to a machine ) and bingo - you can hand them 500 jpegs

yes, marginally reduced quality but still full sized

or you can convert your raw one at a time in your camera to jpeg

i am not sure - but i think some of the newer Nikons can batch convert in camera?

D300s? anyone?

David

Click to expand...

Wow, in just a few words David has opened up the world of "preview extractors". Who knew such a thing existed? Now we know that a RAW file contains a full sized JPEG and one of these programs magically extracts the JPEG, just like that. Is this common knowledge to all RAW shooters? And now it's pointless to shoot RAW+JPEG if you've got one of these programs (or is it?). Amazing.

So I Googled "preview extractor" and mostly came up with that Korean guys program. Are you saying there are many such programs? Are they camera specific?

toomanycanons said:

David314 said:

eNo said:

I'm not entirely sure of this... Isn't the JPG embedded in the RAW file a smaller/compressed version, and if so, aren't you giving up on IQ by using it for anything other than quick review browsing.

Click to expand...

it is a full size basic compressed jpeg that is embedded in the NEF whether you want it or not

there is also a small sized thumbnail but that isn't as interesting

if you need a jpeg and you need it now - it is quick and easy way to get it

and i bet for 4x6 5x7 or web you wouldn't notice any difference anyway

so imagine you are on vacation and you just took 500 raw images and someone says, hey, can i have those, no problem, you have one of these preview extractors on your thumb drive (they don't need to be installed on to a machine ) and bingo - you can hand them 500 jpegs

yes, marginally reduced quality but still full sized

or you can convert your raw one at a time in your camera to jpeg

i am not sure - but i think some of the newer Nikons can batch convert in camera?

D300s? anyone?

David

Click to expand...

Wow, in just a few words David has opened up the world of "preview extractors". Who knew such a thing existed? Now we know that a RAW file contains a full sized JPEG and one of these programs magically extracts the JPEG, just like that. Is this common knowledge to all RAW shooters?

Click to expand...

apparently not but it is pretty cool - i have used it mostly on vacations where i didn't have my computer

toomanycanons said:

And now it's pointless to shoot RAW+JPEG if you've got one of these programs (or is it?). Amazing.

Click to expand...

considering you can always batch convert and get a less compressed jpeg? there are very limited times to shoot raw+jpeg

toomanycanons said:

So I Googled "preview extractor" and mostly came up with that Korean guys program. Are you saying there are many such programs? Are they camera specific?

Click to expand...

i know of three - two camera specific and exiftool which is not

i think dcraw also extracts the embedded jpeg

exiftool is the only one i know of that can extract the full size jpeg and embed the complete exif information

good shooting!

David

I just did an experiment (now that I'm an expert in ViewNX) of taking pics using RAW+JPEG with my D40 and tweaking both as much as I could. I'd post the pics but I personally never can appreciate pics posted here to prove a point. You're just going to have to take my word for the following:

Incredibly, both the RAW and JPEG images started looking out almost identical, even though it's my understanding that the JPEG would have been tweaked somewhat in-camera since I do have some settings custom set. Guess the difference isn't much, huh?

I tweaked away. To make a long tweaking story short, both came out pleasing to the eye at full size, nice vibrant color. The blue in the sky was a little different but I could only tell that when I switched back and forth. The BIG difference was in the highlight areas that were wont to be blown out

I purposely shot in high contrasty scenarios and, it's true, I could bring out the details in a washed out area satisfactorily in the RAW image and not in the JPEG image. If you knew where to look you could see the difference. I hate blown highlights. It's crazy, the basic JPEG file size is tiny compared to the RAW file size and they look the same at full size. So is the difference great? Actually, no. They both looked great.

It's going to take a big leap in faith for me to start shooting RAW on the off chance that I'll be able to save some highlights, but have to worry about CA and purple fringing and whatever else my cameras' JPEG engine might automatically take care of. It's like making the decision to triple my PP worries. Guess I'll have to start using 8 GB cards just in case and delete unwanted pics before they clog up my hard drive like a sumb!tch.

One last question: is it possible to batch edit RAW files with a set list of tweaks you'd normally do, in ViewNX? I have to say that I also loaded some RAW files into Paint Shop Pro X2 and started tweaking from scratch and it was really tiresome. I'm more of a "hit I'm Feeling Lucky and sharpen a bit in Picasa" kind of guy. I don't look at every shot as infinitely tweakable. I have other things to do, you know?

toomanycanons said:

Incredibly, both the RAW and JPEG images started looking out almost identical, even though it's my understanding that the JPEG would have been tweaked somewhat in-camera since I do have some settings custom set.

Click to expand...

doesn't matter view NX will read those and make it look like out of camera

Guess the difference isn't much, huh?

toomanycanons said:

I tweaked away. To make a long tweaking story short, both came out pleasing to the eye at full size, nice vibrant color. The blue in the sky was a little different but I could only tell that when I switched back and forth. The BIG difference was in the highlight areas that were wont to be blown out

Click to expand...

yep one stop more highlight retention in raw on a D40 - reason enough right there to shoot raw

toomanycanons said:

It's going to take a big leap in faith for me to start shooting RAW on the off chance that I'll be able to save some highlights, but have to worry about CA and purple fringing and whatever else my cameras' JPEG engine might automatically take care of. It's like making the decision to triple my PP worries.

Click to expand...

don't worry view NX will take care of all that - given that your cameras jpeg engine is stuck when you bought it, the NX products might have better CA removal then your camera

toomanycanons said:

Guess I'll have to start using 8 GB cards just in case and delete unwanted pics before they clog up my hard drive like a sumb!tch.

One last question: is it possible to batch edit RAW files with a set list of tweaks you'd normally do, in ViewNX?

Click to expand...

• yes - highlight the pictures you want to change in the viewer - open the quick fix window - apply setting - it will apply to all of the selected files

but capture NX is the real way to batch edit - i have some sharpening settings that i apply when converting to jpeg - select and right click - walk away

in this regard it isn't really any different than handling jpegs since you will likely do the same thing to them

toomanycanons said:

I have to say that I also loaded some RAW files into Paint Shop Pro X2 and started tweaking from scratch and it was really tiresome. I'm more of a "hit I'm Feeling Lucky and sharpen a bit in Picasa" kind of guy. I don't look at every shot as infinitely tweakable. I have other things to do, you know?

Click to expand...

if you use anything but View NX or Capture NX you will have to do some tweaking at the beginning ot get it right

shove it through the NX products and you can just sit back

so i use view NX to rate and sort - occasional quick conversion to jpeg - since it will resize in the conversion

batch conversion editing in capture NX

good shooting!

David

You have to have the latest version of any NEF converter to process the new features. The reason the two products are bundled together is to assure the newest features like curves in Picture Controls can be processed. One of the features of the new downloader is that it knows you have already downloaded some images when you forget to erase the already downloaded images on the card. There are a lot of features that you don't know about or you would be using them together.

James Sherman said:

If you're running Windows and want Nikon Transfer to open automagically, you have to associate Nikon Transfer with NEFs, which you likely don't want to do . Open the card contents in Explorer, select the NEFs, drag them into your (what ever your photo directory is named) directory, select one and open it with whatever you want. If you associate it with Nikon Transfer, then whenever you click on a NEF NT will open and be very confused . NT is designed to be used with USB cable transfer of photos from the camera.

I use NT and have it automatically rename my photos and then open NX2. I also always use the USB cable and I run a Mac, but the process is pretty much the same.

Click to expand...

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eNo said:

But yeah, I still owe the community an example of applying the same PP to JPG and RAW (to salvage highlights, adjust WB, etc.) to see if the differences are significant enough to care... early indications are that subtle to readily noticeable (but not killer) differences are appreciable.

Click to expand...

You don't owe anything, but you're free to do it... There was a very nice example posted a few months ago with a tall bright white building and some dark trees and bushes in front. Then the shadows were substantially lifted from a NEF and from a JPG. Obviously the NEF outcome of the lifted foliage was much better, since the histogram of the processed image looked like a comb with few teeth left in the shadows end. If the JPG were shot with maximum ADL, some shadows lifting would still be required to get a similar result, but it would be better (less gaps in the histogram, less depleted colours).

[U] sem said:

eNo said:

But yeah, I still owe the community an example of applying the same PP to JPG and RAW (to salvage highlights, adjust WB, etc.) to see if the differences are significant enough to care... early indications are that subtle to readily noticeable (but not killer) differences are appreciable.

Click to expand...

You don't owe anything, but you're free to do it...

Click to expand...

Let me go on thinking I do owe it, so I have some urgency about it, okay?

_sem_ said:

There was a very nice example posted a few months ago with a tall bright white building and some dark trees and bushes in front. Then the shadows were substantially lifted from a NEF and from a JPG. Obviously the NEF outcome of the lifted foliage was much better, since the histogram of the processed image looked like a comb with few teeth left in the shadows end. If the JPG were shot with maximum ADL, some shadows lifting would still be required to get a similar result, but it would be better (less gaps in the histogram, less depleted colours).

Click to expand...

Yes, I suspect I will get similar results. The trick has been coming up with test cases that make the differences really obvious vs. ones that fall under the so-what category.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Rule of Thirds is meant to be broken, but only 1/3
of the time.



D80/D90 gallery: http://esfotoclix.com
Photo blog: http://esfotoclix.com/blog1 [/U]

PhotoLeon1935 said:

There are a lot of features that you don't know about or you would be using them together.

Click to expand...

Um, was that addressed to me? I use Nikon Transfer and NX2 all the time.