Can you check if a JPEG has been post-processed or if it is out-of-camera?

[KrazyKevin]

Or, maybe, the idea is that in this contest the winner should be

the best photographer and not the best photoshop wiz.

I'm curious to know when "user processing" or "post processing" begins. There are many settings on the new D40, and probably others, like sharpening, cropping, etc. I know my D50 has different settings like vivid, sharper, softer, direct print, portrait, and landscape mode. Even Noise reduction on long exposures. All these are things film cameras couldn't do in the past. So unless everyone uses the same camera, the field will not be level. I'm all for taking the best picture possible at the moment, but post processing plays a huge part in digital photography.

BTW. Digital photography is NOT about post processing. It is about
photography with digital cameras.

Agreed. But I bet 90%, probably 95% of the photos you see here in the forums and galleries have been touched up a bit by some program or another. Digital photography is more about post processing than you think!!!! There's a whole forum dedicated to it here!!

 

[SteveL54]

EXIF viewers like Opanda report the last program that saves the image. I notice for images straight from a Nikon DSLR it reports the camera's firmware version number. If it says something like NC or Photoshop it may have been adjusted. Or maybe it was just converted to raw without adjustment.

Of course anything in the EXIF can be forged with the right software. I don't think there is any practical way to tell for sure.

IMHO I think that rule about no PP is naive. Cameras are doing more PP internally. Some cameras do more levels adjustment than others. Some do more sharpening etc. The D80 has user directed internal PP such as D-lighting! Where do you draw the line?

Steve

Hello world!

I am asking because of a photo contest where the participants must
take 5 pictures with their cams. The pictures that they take must
be delivered straight out of the camera with NO post-processing
work at all! But is it possible to check this.
Is it possible with some sort of program to analyse a JPEG and tell
wether or not the photo was straight-out-of-the-cam or if it has
been post-processed?

A participant can easily sharpen and give his/her photo more
contrast and saturation in photoshop on a laptop and then pretend
that it is straight out of the camera!

So is there a way to tell if post processing has taken place, or is
it impossible to see wether a JPEG has been post-processed or if it
is out-of-camera?

Sinc
Andrew

 

[GPSMapNut]

You have totally lost me now. You shoot raw and yet don't post
process.

I think that you lost yourself all on your own.
I've clearly stated two posts earlier, in my reply to you:

"I do know how to PP. I crop and resize and sharpen for the print or post. I routinely use in camera curves and that's how far I normally go with it. Yes, I do know how to do much more and occasionally do much more. Still, I aim for the best out of the box results.

Why in the world do you shoot raw, then. Batch processing
is your rationalization.

It's not my "rationalization". It's a solution to converting large number of RAW images into JPGs. You don't have to use it.

Look at reviews and comparison shots and
tell me that a batch processed raw file to JPG is in any noticeable
way different than one processed to a jpg in the camera.

I guess we were reading different reviews... Anyway; I couldn't care any less about what somebody's review says when my own experience proved to me that, there is a noticeable difference between in Camera and in computer conversion. Sure, you will not see that on shots resized to 700 pixels but for the fine details it is visible in large prints. Also; by shooting RAW I leave myself an option to post process when I need to but, I already wrote that in my previous reply to you. I guess, you either did not read it (than why bother to reply?) or you didn't understand it.

Yet you do
that and don't even take the next logical step and do a little
white balance correction, some contrast tweaking, maybe some
saturation changes. Gosh you surely resize, yet you don't do
sharpening after you resize.

Are you really so cought up in your own argument that you didn't read anything I wrote before?

Raw vs JPG has been debated to death in these forums. The concensus
with most folks who aren't obsessive about it, seems to be that raw
holds advantages for problem images. Reasonably good exposures and
balanced colors do just as well in post processing as raw files do.

Yes, the whole things is discussed over and over again but, there is never any consensus other than; everybody should shoot in the format that suits his needs.

When you are printing to normal sizes like I do for my journal, raw
files are tremendous over kill. If all the images I have shot over
the last six years were raw files, I would have filled a stack of
hard drives with them. Just this summer I shot 13 gigs of jpg
files. Can you imagine how much space they would take up if they
were raw files. I'm not being defensive, just practical.
--
Dave Lewis

13 gig (if you are using a 6 Mpix camera) is over 5000 images. I'm curious, do you post process them all? Hmm, guess not; In a different post you stated: " Most of my shooting is for my summer journal. I usually have about 500 keepers in it." 1 out of 10 keepers? Very good! My ratio is more like 1 out of 50 !!! Anyway, even that the 500 images to keep doesn't take much space in RAW, lets work on your 13 gig in JPG Shooting the same in RAW would take anywhere between 2 and 3X as much space. Lets take 3X and that would be, say 40G Lets assume for a moment that you actually could shoot a 6MP images in RAW even that 6 years ago you were using a 3MP camera. OK, so 40G X 6 = 240G = an average size hard drive. Darn, you are right, add to that images that you shoot at other times of the year and jpgs that would be produced out of the RAWs and you would really need a stack of hard drives... if you really do keep everything you shoot. Oh well, whatever you think is practical that's what you do.

--
Andrew Kalinowski
Photography: http://www.FotoCanada.ca
Maps http://www.topocanada.com
GPS and mapping: http://www.GPSNuts.com Recreational

 

[Dave Lewis]

You shoot in raw, then batch process to jpg, then resize and sharpen, yet you claim you don't post process, now I'm really confused. I'm thinking your post processing regimen is a little more involved than mine. I am further curious why you don't save to tiff rather than jpg, but maybe you do for finished files.

You are just arguing semantics. All of us strive to have the best files in our cameras that we and the cameras are capable of producing. None of us wants to have to repair images in post processing. The most any of us wants to do is to correct small errors and take advantage of sharpening after resizing. Your handing in raw is surely more time consuming than my post processing in Photoshop. In fact I have several actions set up to take care of resizing and final sharpening for similar photos for my journal.

Concerning file sizes and the magnitude of keeping all our photographic wanderings, I do find the ever increasing file sizes and the overwhelming quantity of image files ever burdensome. I keep most files, since so many are slight variations of the ones I've converted to tiff and used for my journal or printed. The ones I use for my web site I of course keep as JPG's. It gets big quickly. I keep stuff by dates and can access them with the dates in my Journal. The rest of the year I keep them in named folders. Of course a whole host of new software is coming along to help to organize all this stuff. I do think, in time we can indeed fill stacks of hard drives with all this data. When you consider that we keep current stuff in our working computers and backups in enternal drives and working copies in our notebook computers and hard copy backups on DVD's and more important stuff on web servers, it begins to make the head swim.

I think probably continuing this little debate is not really going to be fruitful. We are, after all, both aiming for the same thing and not really going at it in a very different way. The end product is probably pretty much the same. I looked at your photos and they are just fine.
--
Dave Lewis

 

[GPSMapNut]

You shoot in raw, then batch process to jpg, then resize and
sharpen, yet you claim you don't post process, now I'm really
confused.

I couldn't agree any more! You are very confused. Please, quote where did I say that I "don't post process".

And you obviously have little knowledge of my work flow - I actually sharpen and whatever else I need to do in RAW, usually as a batch. Than I batch resize and sharpen into JPG if JPG is what I need.

I'm thinking your post processing regimen is a little
more involved than mine.

I don't thinks so since my processing is mostly done as a batch

I am further curious why you don't save to
tiff rather than jpg, but maybe you do for finished files.

Why would I save to TIFF if I already have NEF from which I can print or convert into JPG at will? What would I gain?

You are just arguing semantics. All of us strive to have the best
files in our cameras that we and the cameras are capable of
producing.

Semantics? I thought that you shoot flat images because such are best for post processing. That's a bit more than semantics...

None of us wants to have to repair images in post
processing. The most any of us wants to do is to correct small
errors and take advantage of sharpening after resizing. Your
handing in raw is surely more time consuming than my post
processing in Photoshop.

I doubt it. But that may be mainly due to the fact that I heavily cull before I start any processing.

In fact I have several actions set up to
take care of resizing and final sharpening for similar photos for
my journal.

Frankly, I consider re-sizing and sharpening to be a part of processing as it is normally done by me in a batch. Just the same as in the times when I dropped of a roll at a lab and asked to have it developed and printed, first frame has a grey card shot, calibrate to this, print the roll on X size, no adjustments. Every decent lab would know exactly what you want. I could've made the same request except ask for the film to be push or pull processed. Still, it's a part of processing.

Now; Manipulating individual images for colour, selective sharpening or blurring, dodging, burning and such are and always were for me post-processing. And, lets don't kid ourselves. In film days very few photographers were doing that. AFAIK most pros shooting for magazines and such were shooting on slide. The ones who needed prints were giving their roll to a decent lab and were asking for specific type of processing but rarely for tweaking individual images. It was the snap shooters who had their film post-processed to death in mini labs. Sure, there always was a group of photographers who processed, printed, developed and post processed to death or perfection but that was relatively small group.

Concerning file sizes and the magnitude of keeping all our
photographic wanderings, I do find the ever increasing file sizes
and the overwhelming quantity of image files ever burdensome. I
keep most files, since so many are slight variations of the ones
I've converted to tiff and used for my journal or printed. The ones
I use for my web site I of course keep as JPG's. It gets big
quickly. I keep stuff by dates and can access them with the dates
in my Journal. The rest of the year I keep them in named folders.
Of course a whole host of new software is coming along to help to
organize all this stuff. I do think, in time we can indeed fill
stacks of hard drives with all this data. When you consider that we
keep current stuff in our working computers and backups in enternal
drives and working copies in our notebook computers and hard copy
backups on DVD's and more important stuff on web servers, it begins
to make the head swim.

I know the pain but, IMHO it's no so much the size of the files but the sheer number of images that we want to keep track of, that is the biggest problem. Actually, by keeping my images in RAW I keep the number of files to minimum - I can always output or print from RAW into whatever I want without a worry that I'm going to loose anything in the transformation. The only drawback of NEF that truly affects me is that, I haven't found a truly quick and simple organizing software that would work well with NEF and display them correctly and really fit into my work-flow. I hope that Nikon is going to finally release View Pro and that it will do the job for me.

I think probably continuing this little debate is not really going
to be fruitful.

Ah, debates are fun when both sides can keep reasonable cool and nobody gets too upset or offended at an occasional, light stab ;-))

We are, after all, both aiming for the same thing
and not really going at it in a very different way. The end product
is probably pretty much the same.

Right you are. We all have different needs, uses and preferences. There is no single solution that fits everybody and that's really the only reason I got into this debate in the first place - it was questioning the validity or a value of a competition where only straight from the camera shots were allowed.

I looked at your photos and they
are just fine.
--
Dave Lewis

Thanks. I know that many of them could post-processed and "improved" but than, they wouldn't be what and how I wanted them to look like or they wouldn't give me as much satisfaction as they do. Heck, I know very well that I'm not an Ansel Adams but than, I'm ready to bet, if many of his images were posted on this forum, we would hear no end of suggestions how to make them better or complaints about the exposure and contrast and such...

--
Andrew Kalinowski
Photography: http://www.FotoCanada.ca
Maps http://www.topocanada.com
GPS and mapping: http://www.GPSNuts.com Recreational

 

[GPSMapNut]

Or, maybe, the idea is that in this contest the winner should be

the best photographer and not the best photoshop wiz.

I'm curious to know when "user processing" or "post processing"
begins. There are many settings on the new D40, and probably
others, like sharpening, cropping, etc. I know my D50 has
different settings like vivid, sharper, softer, direct print,
portrait, and landscape mode. Even Noise reduction on long
exposures. All these are things film cameras couldn't do in the
past.

Well, actually many of these things were controlled by use of optical filters and by choice of the film. Some of these (like sharpening or noise reduction) are mainly to compensate for shortcomings of the digital media.
To me:

Whatever you set in the camera before you release the shutter is a part of taking the photo.

Whatever is done in the conversion from the file initially recorded by the camera but consistent with the way a slide film or negative film was processed in developing and than no adjustment for individual images prints on a calibrated machine were done is processing.
Anything after and above that would fall into post processing category.

So unless everyone uses the same camera, the field will not
be level. I'm all for taking the best picture possible at the
moment, but post processing plays a huge part in digital
photography.

You are right; The field is never absolutely even unless everybody is using the same camera. Still, post processing adds another variable that has a lot to do with the software used (not everybody has Photo Shop) and the variance is magnified by individual's computer / editing skills that may have little to do with photographic skills.

Removing such variables makes the level much more even and allows the judges (who are well aware of the restrictions) to concentrate on contestants' ability to take good shot instead on ability to manufacture a photograph.

Granted, such contest will not be to everybody's liking but, there is a whole bunch of people who like it this way so, why not?

BTW. Digital photography is NOT about post processing. It is about
photography with digital cameras.

Agreed. But I bet 90%, probably 95% of the photos you see here in
the forums and galleries have been touched up a bit by some program
or another.

Oh, I know that "purists" are in minority but, AFAIK their work is not any worst than what is produced by photoshoppers so, who cares?

Digital photography is more about post processing than
you think!!!! There's a whole forum dedicated to it here!!

I guess, what "digital photography" is really about depends on one's criteria as to when photography stops and digital begins and the line isn't very clear. Oh well, the more things change, the more they stay the same. All this is very reminiscent of slide vs negative arguments. There never was a consensus and I don't think that we can ever change that so, let's all just shoot and process and post process the way each one of us likes. To me, there is no wrong or wright way to do it. No better or worst. It's just the way you, I or whoever does it.

--
Andrew Kalinowski
Photography: http://www.FotoCanada.ca
Maps http://www.topocanada.com
GPS and mapping: http://www.GPSNuts.com Recreational

 

[daniel99]

I just love discussions like this...

Here's my 2 cents ---

When I look at a photo, I really don't care what PP if any happened, unless I want to learn how a specific effect was achieved. To me the question of whether an image was PP'd is fun to discuss, but entirely academic unless the photo in question is being presented as evidence or as photojournalism.

DSLRs are little computers with one program: they make files that can be made into photos. In a sense, if you're shooting JPEG, your camera is aplying your 'PP' for you. You can choose to do as much or as little in camera as you want, and as much or as little as you want on your computer. For me, I'm happy when a photo comes out-of-camera looking good, but until it looks as good as I can make it, I'm not done with it.

When I prepare a photo for viewing, I'd like it to reflect the feeling I got when I was there. Therefore I don't necessarily try to get it to look exactly like it looked, but rather to feel like it felt. Sometimes that requires PP, sometimes not.

--
Dan O'Connell

 

[GPSMapNut]

Here's my 2 cents ---

When I look at a photo, I really don't care what PP if any
happened, unless I want to learn how a specific effect was
achieved. To me the question of whether an image was PP'd is fun to
discuss, but entirely academic unless the photo in question is
being presented as evidence or as photojournalism.

snip> > >

Dan O'Connell

I understand and appreciate your point of view however my point of view is different. Note that my point of view is purely emotional so I am not trying to justify it. Heck, because it is emotional it's hard to explain it but, let me try to do so by a series of analogies;

If I was presented with two virtually identical photos of an animal but one shot taken at a zoo and the other in a wild, I'd value much more the one shot in the wild even that I wouldn't be able to distinguish the two.

When I look at a painting, it makes a difference to me when I know that I look at an original and not at a perfect copy even that I wouldn't be able to distinguish between the two.

When I hear about somebody making trip to a North Pole, I admire the one who made it by dog sleds much more than the one who flew by plane.

When I look at my photos, I'm much more satisfied with the ones that I shot just right than with the ones I processed to be right.

Chinese say it: "It's Not the Destination that Counts, It’s the Journey" and that's pretty close how I approach photography - the final image is only a part of the overall experience.

--
Andrew Kalinowski
Photography: http://www.FotoCanada.ca
Maps http://www.topocanada.com
GPS and mapping: http://www.GPSNuts.com Recreational

 

[daniel99]

Here's my 2 cents ---

When I look at a photo, I really don't care what PP if any
happened, unless I want to learn how a specific effect was
achieved. To me the question of whether an image was PP'd is fun to
discuss, but entirely academic unless the photo in question is
being presented as evidence or as photojournalism.

snip> > >

Dan O'Connell

I understand and appreciate your point of view however my point of
view is different. Note that my point of view is purely emotional
so I am not trying to justify it. Heck, because it is emotional
it's hard to explain it but, let me try to do so by a series of
analogies;
If I was presented with two virtually identical photos of an animal
but one shot taken at a zoo and the other in a wild, I'd value much
more the one shot in the wild even that I wouldn't be able to
distinguish the two.
When I look at a painting, it makes a difference to me when I know
that I look at an original and not at a perfect copy even that I
wouldn't be able to distinguish between the two.
When I hear about somebody making trip to a North Pole, I admire
the one who made it by dog sleds much more than the one who flew by
plane.
When I look at my photos, I'm much more satisfied with the ones
that I shot just right than with the ones I processed to be right.
Chinese say it: "It's Not the Destination that Counts, It’s the
Journey" and that's pretty close how I approach photography - the
final image is only a part of the overall experience.

Well said! Curiously, I agree completely, and also stand by my own statements. I think you put your finger on it when you say it's emotional and hard to explain. But it's fun to try...

Dan O'Connell

 

[GPSMapNut]

Well said! Curiously, I agree completely, and also stand by my own
statements. I think you put your finger on it when you say it's
emotional and hard to explain. But it's fun to try...

Dan O'Connell

Thank you. This is all that I was hoping for. I'm happy to know that it wasn't one of the cases of "if I have to explain it, you wouldn't understand it anyway" ;-) I'm not surprised at all that you stand by your statements - this is the way you approach photography and that's OK with me. There is no right or wrong in it. It's just a set of standards that each person sets for him / herself and there may be just about as many sets of standards as there are photographers and this particular forum brings some together not because they use similar standards but because they use similar cameras... speaking of which I'm of to my fav forum where nobody cares what camera the other person uses as long as they have fun with using it

Cheers,

--
Andrew Kalinowski
Photography: http://www.FotoCanada.ca
Maps http://www.topocanada.com
GPS and mapping: http://www.GPSNuts.com Recreational

 

[evan631]

Please forgive me, if the post turned into differnet conversation...I didn't read the entire thing.

But if the original question still stand...my answer is YES...see here:



--
Thanks
Evan
------------------------------------
http://www.pbase.com/evan631

 

[leungtao]

Mapnut,

Please read my writing carefully, I said using the Nikon View, not the Nikon Capture. The Nikon View will not show the lens info after you had PP it. If the original is un-touched, the lens info is there.

 

[GPSMapNut]

Mapnut,

Please read my writing carefully, I said using the Nikon View, not
the Nikon Capture. The Nikon View will not show the lens info
after you had PP it. If the original is un-touched, the lens info
is there.

I did.
You wrote:

"Of course it can tell if you had post-processed. Software like Nikon View shows the full EXIF info including what lens used. After you had process the picture, there is no more lens info. Lots of other softwares can also tell. The picture after PP, the EXIF info may even disappear."

the incorrect parts are:

"Of course it can tell if you had post-processed." is incorrect because it applies only to the cases where the EXIF was not fadged after editing.

"Software like Nikon View shows the full EXIF info including what lens used."

Vie doesn't show full EXIF info. It shows only selected fields. For example, it does not show # of shots taken. That info is viewable in most EXIF viewers.

"After you had process the picture, there is no more lens info."

Again, that depends on the software used for processing. If you re-size in View than View does not show the lens info but that info is still there and acessible with any decent EXIF viewer. If you edit with Capture, all the original info, including the lens info is still shown in Nikon View.

But, you were perfectly correct when you wrote "If the original is un-touched, the lens info is there." so, it's not all bad ;-)

--
Andrew Kalinowski
Photography: http://www.FotoCanada.ca
Maps http://www.topocanada.com
GPS and mapping: http://www.GPSNuts.com Recreational

 

[jeremyInMT]

Hello world!

Hi Anders!

I am asking because of a photo contest where the participants must
take 5 pictures with their cams. The pictures that they take must
be delivered straight out of the camera with NO post-processing
work at all!

The camera does the post-processing on jpg's, so you're really not getting a shot that is "clean".

Is it possible with some sort of program to analyse a JPEG and tell
wether or not the photo was straight-out-of-the-cam or if it has
been post-processed?

A participant can easily sharpen and give his/her photo more
contrast and saturation in photoshop on a laptop and then pretend
that it is straight out of the camera!

So this is a test of the camera's jpg engine then.

So is there a way to tell if post processing has taken place, or is
it impossible to see wether a JPEG has been post-processed or if it
is out-of-camera?

Your eyes.

Sinc
Andrew

--
Gallery: http://www.mastersphoto.net/copper

 

[careytilden]

I have to say, I am surprised that you think photoshop can turn a bad shot into a good one. I suppose some truly considerable photoshop skills can remove major defects in a photo, but I still think the original shot would need to be good to end up with a good end result. If you want to discourage heavy post processing in a photography contest, that's your decision to make, but I think it's much ado about nothing.

 

[uufda]

Yeah, and Ansel Adams would not qualify for this contest!
--
Having a plan B simply detracts from accomplishing Plan A. -- Will Smith
http://flickr.com/photos/dickdurnan/

 

[Intermezzo]

Look at reviews and comparison shots and
tell me that a batch processed raw file to JPG is in any noticeable
way different than one processed to a jpg in the camera.

I guess we were reading different reviews... Anyway; I couldn't
care any less about what somebody's review says when my own
experience proved to me that, there is a noticeable difference
between in Camera and in computer conversion. Sure, you will not
see that on shots resized to 700 pixels but for the fine details it
is visible in large prints.

Has anyone else had these kinds of results also? I've done extensive testing with my camera and when set to the same conversion parameters, I could see absolutely no difference at all between a NEF file converted with Capture NX vs. the exact same picture written to Jpeg Fine on my camera. I'm not talking about 700 pixel sizes either. Even when scrutinzed at 100%, I could see no difference in quality. In fact, for images with less than ideal lighting, I got less noise with Jpegs processed in camera.

Also, I've never seen any articles on the internet claim (and back up with photos) that a Raw file converted on your computer will look better than one processed in camera (using the same settings).

To me, the primary advantage of shooting RAW was the increased flexibility in PP. The IQ of photos that don't need too much PP isn't an issue with JPEG because I always convert to TIFF before starting. If a Jpeg processed by computer is in fact VISIBLY superior in IQ to a JPEG processed in camera, then I'm going to have to rethink my workflow.

 

[uufda]

This rule is so silly.....you can set sharpening, contrast, etc. etc. and then put the camera on "auto" and shoot. The next thing the rule makers will insist on is shooting in "manual" mode only. During their coffee break they probably discuss how many angels can stand on the head of a pin.

 

[uufda]

You stated, "Removing such variables makes the level much more even and allows the judges (who are well aware of the restrictions) to concentrate on contestants' ability to take good shot instead on ability to manufacture a photograph."

Perhaps they could solve their dilema by giving everyone a disposable camera and have them turn them in to the judges. Then they would truly know who was the "best photographer"! Oh, and by the way...make them black and white cameras so one cannot use the crutch of color.

Granted, such contest will not be to everybody's liking but, there is a whole bunch of people who like it this way so, why not? "

True, I really don't care what they do...it just seems so artificial to eliminate tools that a true artist can use to communicate. I can understand not being able to add or subtract elements to a picture, e.g. putting a Moose into a woodsy sunset picture.. but, the discussion about whether you should be able to increase contrast, sharpness, vividness, etc. in camera or after camera seem moot.
Please....it is only my opinion...

Why is it you can put in your two cents worth, but only get a penny for your thoughts? What happened to the other penny?
uufda

 

[GPSMapNut]

Look at reviews and comparison shots and
tell me that a batch processed raw file to JPG is in any noticeable
way different than one processed to a jpg in the camera.

I guess we were reading different reviews... Anyway; I couldn't
care any less about what somebody's review says when my own
experience proved to me that, there is a noticeable difference
between in Camera and in computer conversion. Sure, you will not
see that on shots resized to 700 pixels but for the fine details it
is visible in large prints.

Has anyone else had these kinds of results also? I've done
extensive testing with my camera and when set to the same
conversion parameters, I could see absolutely no difference at all
between a NEF file converted with Capture NX vs. the exact same
picture written to Jpeg Fine on my camera. I'm not talking about
700 pixel sizes either. Even when scrutinzed at 100%, I could see
no difference in quality. In fact, for images with less than ideal
lighting, I got less noise with Jpegs processed in camera.

Also, I've never seen any articles on the internet claim (and back
up with photos) that a Raw file converted on your computer will
look better than one processed in camera (using the same settings).

Right. And I made a mistake. A mistake of not making clear that I wasn't talking about conversion using the same parameters in batch processing as they were used in camera. Now, I think that this is what the question was and in this case my answer was incorrect. My answer was in the context of the part of discussion where we were talking about suitability of JPG vs NEF for post processing and when I was replying, my mind was bent on batch processing from NEF with parameters changed from the original vs processing from JPG.

So, here it goes:

My answer to the very particular question was wrong and I apologies for the confusion it could've created in some minds. The correct answer should've been:

When batch processing using Nikon Capture from NEF to JPG Fine, with Capture set to use the default parameters (as shot) and than comparing these to JPG Fine generated right in the camera the only difference that I never noticed was in aberrations visible in some of the images. This however is because by default Capture applies some lens corrections that are not available as a setting in camera and one could rightfully argue that it makes parameters different between the in camera and in Capture conversion into JPG.

To me, the primary advantage of shooting RAW was the increased
flexibility in PP. The IQ of photos that don't need too much PP
isn't an issue with JPEG because I always convert to TIFF before
starting. If a Jpeg processed by computer is in fact VISIBLY
superior in IQ to a JPEG processed in camera, then I'm going to
have to rethink my workflow.

I suggest that you rethink your work-flow anyway. If you stick with shooting JPG (assuming that that's what you normally do) that's fine but, consider this. Well, more than likely, you already thought of all of this but, I'm still going to say it:

• starting with JPG means that you don't have some of the information that is in NEF. Converting into TIFF does not recreate this info. Any exposure headroom is lost forever so, you can not do such basic processing as exposure compensation. You can mimic it to some extend but it's not the same since the data isn't there to start with.
• with JPG or TIFF you can't do true WB adjustment. Yes, you can mimic it to some extend but it's just not the same.
• Converting into uncompressed TIFF creates a file that is much larger than NEF so, it doesn't save any room on the hard drive.
• JPG is 8 bit. NEF is 12 bit. TIFF can be 16 bit but when generated from a 8 bit JPG it contains only 8 bit data. IS it significant? In my experience, on occasion it is. More than once, when making very minor adjustment to a curve, in areas with very fine graduations in tones, starting with 8 bit data I got visible banding. The same adjustment made on 12 bit (NEF) source data resulted in clean transitions.
• A shot that is sharpened (in camera) in JPG may contain sharpening artifacts that are easily exaggerated if subsequent sharpening in processing is added. If low or no sharpening is set in camera than the sharpening in processing needs to be added anyway. With NEF, there is an option to either accept the set sharpening or, process with a totally different sharpening settings without worrying about any existing artifacts. In fact, I have a preset (for NX) where sharpening is done in 5 minute steps and works fine for almost all images and the effect is one that I could never replicate with a single step.

Oh, an yes, I still aim for getting the best possible image right from the box and not having to do anything other than a straight batch conversion (if a JPG is what I'm after) but (as I said before) on occasion I do much more and I leave myself an option to do so with most possible data, for any image I choose. In fact, for most of my images, I don't even keep JPGs on my computer nor on backup. They mostly stay in NEF and mostly are printed directly from NEF. They get converted to JPG for Internet or when given to people as final images. Few times they were converted into TIFF for high quality large prints done outside and for a customer who needed to process them further for use on packaging but, other than that, they stay in NEF and are viewed (on my computer) from NEF.

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Andrew Kalinowski
Photography: http://www.FotoCanada.ca
Maps http://www.topocanada.com
GPS and mapping: http://www.GPSNuts.com Recreational