RAW vs JPEG (PIC)

[Greg Kovacs]

Please refrain yourself from dispensing incorrect information.

The samples comparing Raw v JPG really don't demonstrate the
differences between the 2 formats bar the effects of in camera
processing (converting 36bit colour range to 24bit + compression
etc). Or putting it another way, if I show you 1 colour it can be
in 1bit or 128bit but it will still be the same colour as it's not
outside either bit range scope.

Actually, RAW stores 14 bits (not 12) per pixel, but not for each colour channel. Only the lightness value is stored.

Since most digital still cameras use only one sensor (opposed to 3CCD video cameras or the special Foveon sensor), there is a colour filter array that lets only red, green or blue light to each pixel. These filters are arranged in a mosaic fashion, therefore there are twice the amount of "green pixels". Your RAW converter knows each and every pixels location (or colour), and with sophisticated algorithms it creates the full colour image.

So this 14 bits + the colour mosaic information is definitely more, than the 24bits of RGB JPEG. It is advised that you do your editing in Photoshop in 16bit (it's per channel, so actually 48 bits of colour), so no information gets lost.

Greg

--
Greg

 

[iwantarebel]

There is one advantage that I can think of that has not been touched on yet and that has to do with how digital sensors capture bit depth. If you look at a histogram and divide it into fifths it is useful to realize that digital sensors capture double the bit depth in the right most fifth (the highlights)of the hisotgram as it does in the second right most fifth of the histogram and so on until the last fifth, which is the left most fifth (the shadow detail) of the histogram.

With this knowledge it becomes obviouse that there is much more bit depth in the highlights than in the shadows.

What does this mean?

Always overexpose your image to shift the histogram to the right as much as possible without blowing out highlights (the blinking part of the picture on your LCD). When you PP you pictures first balance the highlights and shadows as the picture is overexposed and then go from there with your workflow. This will insure much more bit depth which means better colors and more resolution possibilities.

This can not be done with the camera set to JPG and can only be done in RAW format because if in JPG the canera will do the PP work and then compress to JPG and 8 Bit. In RAW the picture is captured in 16 Bit and you PP. After PP you can compress to JPG and 8 Bit without losing the extra detail you have gained.

LK

 

[Daniella68313]

I think I suck at RAW conversion.

I would conclude that as well. Only from seeing how
breathtakingly beautiful your jpg photos are. The only conclusion
I can come to is that "you suck" at converting raw.

yes but it's easy to process a raw to give ok results..but to process it so that it looks identical to the .jpg convertion in camera is another story.

have you tried it? let me see how close you can get to it...it might open your eyes

I tried and rejected raw several times before finally getting to
where I could really get better photos from the raw. But frankly,
when I see your work I'd say "why bother"?

it bother to me because I surely wish I could have the full data from my images but not at the expenses of loosing the fine in-camera conversion since I cannot match it. I don't want to get one and loose the other in the process.

My photos looks good partly because of the DIGI II. There is some subtle variations with the jpg that I just can't match with converting the raw. to put it simple, I would want to have the same tools available for the raw conversion that the DIGI II uses. so far can't find a raw converter that does it. for exemple, I pointed out the possibility to adjust each channel separatly for saturation..RSE does not have that. with CS2 it does but it is missing the fine tuning of the sharpening. I am also not sure I like the RAW conversion noise reduction compared to the .jpg file.

Lee

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[iwantarebel]

Your pictures are awesome!!!!

LK

 

[Daniella68313]

To some degree I agree with you LeeBase... Danellia clearly can do
wonders with her camera and her 'jpeg' post processing...
Apparently she's not quite mastered or found the magical uses of
RAW...

My only quibble is... shooting RAW would leave her the option of
possible making even better use of her original shots, if someday
she does find some use and/or the skills nessasary to make full use
of the original RAW data.... By not shooting RAW, or keeping that
original full detail that's 'hidden' in the RAW, she's insuring
that it will NEVER be used, even if it were desireable at some
point...

never was so far

It might not matter too much... but I've been lead to beleive that
some really high end photo professionals like at magazines, etc...
may not be too keen on getting a JPEG image,

you can transfer that to tiff later and they will never know I did that already

but if I ever become good enough to be able to match the DIGI II, then I might start to shoot RAW..for now the DIGI II is my master...can't beat it and can't afford to loose it either because my photos would not be as good without it.

if someoene ever

wanted to hire you and/or pay money for your work, etc... I think
somoene of Danellia's tallent would be best served by shooting and
keeping the RAW files, even if she chooses not to use anything but
the ebeded JPEG for now.

XT does not have embeded jpg but a separate file..that is huge. the raw is sometimes near 12 meg, plus the 3 megs .jpg..that makes 15 meg per shots..now you're not going very far in the field with a 1gb card and shooting this. it'S not exactly practical. piling up DVD is not exactly fun either. Imagine the rumba when it is time to renew 100 of DVD backup.

I have 3 x 1gb card and with that I can shoot about a thousand .jpg and only about 200 raw + jpg. quite bit of difference. now if I want to delete one photo to make room for something special hapening in the field, I would have to delete both raw and jpg and loose the photo. either I need to get a better psd or need to buy more CF cards if I was to shoot raw..which I don,t have budget for right now anyway.

I also don't want to miss shots and loose shots.

the problem with your guys is that you don't really like the .jpg to begin with, but I do.

I think I suck at RAW conversion.

I would conclude that as well. Only from seeing how
breathtakingly beautiful your jpg photos are. The only conclusion
I can come to is that "you suck" at converting raw.



I tried and rejected raw several times before finally getting to
where I could really get better photos from the raw. But frankly,
when I see your work I'd say "why bother"?

Lee

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[Daniella68313]

I have done it and not seen the advantages of it in my photos.

I think that's only good for controling noise in high ISO.

There is one advantage that I can think of that has not been
touched on yet and that has to do with how digital sensors capture
bit depth. If you look at a histogram and divide it into fifths it
is useful to realize that digital sensors capture double the bit
depth in the right most fifth (the highlights)of the hisotgram as
it does in the second right most fifth of the histogram and so on
until the last fifth, which is the left most fifth (the shadow
detail) of the histogram.

With this knowledge it becomes obviouse that there is much more bit
depth in the highlights than in the shadows.

What does this mean?

Always overexpose your image to shift the histogram to the right as
much as possible without blowing out highlights (the blinking part
of the picture on your LCD). When you PP you pictures first
balance the highlights and shadows as the picture is overexposed
and then go from there with your workflow. This will insure much
more bit depth which means better colors and more resolution
possibilities.

This can not be done with the camera set to JPG and can only be
done in RAW format because if in JPG the canera will do the PP work
and then compress to JPG and 8 Bit. In RAW the picture is captured
in 16 Bit and you PP. After PP you can compress to JPG and 8 Bit
without losing the extra detail you have gained.

LK

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[Daniella68313]

Your pictures are awesome!!!!

thanks I guess I have to thank DIGI II for part of it. funny up until I tried the raw vs jpg comparison, I had not realized how good of a job the in-camera processor was doing.

LK

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[Daniella68313]

which is a major omission.

it only let you adjust the value for each channel..nto the saturation nor the hue of each channel. that way it is impossible to match the in-camera conversion.

ok we are talking about the same thing but seeing it differently! ;-)
I see the advanced details, but have had results where DPP has
added "detail/noise" in areas of flat colour (like black curtains
at the back of a play, which suddenly become "noisy")
I do prefer DPP to RSE, as I find it easier to use and the results
easier to attain.
maybe I do need to change the sharpening (I think i had it at 2)
is it worth putting the value to ZERO and doing USM later in PS?
--
AJ
http://www.pbase.com/manjade

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[Daniella68313]

What am I doing wrong with RAW PP?

Try as I might, using PS, RSE or any other program, I cannot get my
RAW images to look as good as the JPEG, especially in terms of
colours. The RAW images just seem "flatter". Sure, I can boost the
contrast/saturation etc, but for some reason the colours STILL look
"different" to the JPEG - its hard to explain....

I know what you mean..the in-camera conversion produce a very subtle range of colour that is hard to match. I tried..geee I tried really hard and hard..and having the .jpg as a reference because I was shooting RAW + jpg at the same time, but to no avail. I tried it with CS2, RSE, DPP..no way.

this is the main thing that is stopping me from routinely shooting
RAW.

sigh..that's going to be my faith too I guess.

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[Daniella68313]

depend..if you use the 300d and EVU, you can embed a jpg large fine (if you have the hack) and extract that as shot later.

if you use the XT, there is no way.

do far all conversions "as shot" with all programs give me something way way different than the in-camera conversion.

if there is a way to do that, that'S what I am tring to find out too.

I see there is a little more detail in RAW at iso1600.
But I have a couple questions that I hope someone can answer.
Why there is a color difference between RAW and JPEG?
And how to set a camera or Photoshop to match same colors as JPEG?
I get this with all the cameras.
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[Daniella68313]

I'm not being rude, but I seriously doubt there are 36bits of
colour in this picture.

That's 68719476736 colours (2^36)

Finally, all this chatter about RAW vs JPEG has me at a loss.

JPEG is a lossy compression format, it acheives its considerable
reduction by removing data from the file.

look at it this way..what ever bit it remove, the .jpg still look better for me for the colour then what ever I get at the end with a RAW to Tiff conversion, no matter how hard I tried..I seem to be keeping the wrong bits..so it goes like that.. 16 bits of bad data vs 8 bits of good data.

By definition it will contain less information that RAW and thus
less 'quality'

problem is that you cannot really see this in prints. I printed at 16 x 20 and still can't see it.

If you see an improvement in the picture, it is likely the jpeg
compression smoothing or abstracting the image.

nah. it is the DIGI II superiority in processign those data.

The arguement shouldn't be about which looks better, but rather are
you willing to trade storage vs quality

Frankly another 8MB of lost space isn't worth it for me, and I
suspect most people.

it would be worth for me if I could match the DIGI II, but I can't and probably never will.

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[Daniella68313]

I would need how many if they were raw? lets see..probably around 600 gb.

the HD space! RAW files are killing my 80G HD. I do archive to
DVD and a second external, but even so the disk which I thought a
year ago would last years is going to last months at this rate!
--
TonySD

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[Daniella68313]

and they can become unreadable after few years..so they need to be renewed on regular basis..a total hassle if you shoot raw.

There is no reason to keep the origingals all on your HD. Back them
up to DVD-R and/or CD-R. The only large photo files you need on
your HD are the ones your currently working on. Once your finished,
keep the resulting photo on your HD if you like, but I ussualy off
load even those to DVD-R/CD-R, unless I'm plannin on showing them
to someone sometime soon...

In my opinion HD should not be thought of or used for longterm
archival storage.

for best protection, both HD and DVD should be used. another way to put it..it is much easier to carry a 300gb hard disk than a 100 DVD..this can be quite heavy, especialy when traveling.

the HD space! RAW files are killing my 80G HD. I do archive to
DVD and a second external, but even so the disk which I thought a
year ago would last years is going to last months at this rate!

Shooting raw has REALLY increased my HD space needs. There's the
10mg for the raw file, and I still usually create the jpg's, then
when I do larger than 4x6 prints there's the 25-50mg Tiff or
photoshop file.

This year's images so far take up 50gig -- that's what all of last
years needed. Multiply that by 2 because I keep a second copy on
an external drive. It starts to add up fast.

I just purchased an internal 300gig hd for $150.

Lee

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[LeeBase]

Always overexpose your image to shift the histogram to the right as
much as possible without blowing out highlights (the blinking part
of the picture on your LCD). When you PP you pictures first
balance the highlights and shadows as the picture is overexposed
and then go from there with your workflow.

Funny thing, I had read those "expose to the right" articles and I don't remember any of them emphasizing that in post you need to shift back.

So I had all these over exposed (but not blown out) photos.....LOL!

I eventually stumbled onto the reality that I need to move my exposure back to the left when processing those raw files.

Lee

 

[LeeBase]

that'S a 2 sharp-sided knive though. if you don't let the camera
do it, then you loose the ability to use the DIGI II fine
conversion.

Not if you shoot RAW+JPG.

Lee

 

[LeeBase]

I'm not one to presume to teach you anything about getting the best out of a photo. The output is the measure of success and who can argue with your output?'

Here's one of my "shot in raw"



Yet you can blow this photo away with any of a number of your excellent bird shots.

However, I have seen the improvements in MY photos.

BTW, when you convert with RAW -- do you then further process the jpg? If you don't like the sharpening in the raw converter....why not sharpen the jpg?

Again, the results is all that matter



In the above photo, what matters is the expression on the faces, the capture of a moment -- the emotion of the photo. I shot with raw -- but do I think an in camera jpg is incapable? Not at all.

I have a hard time with the concept of you not being able to get good colors when you shoot raw -- but whatever works for you is all that matters when you get the results you get.

As an event shooter, the pace goes so fast, and the lighting changes, that I cannot guarantee that on every shot I'll have the optimum exposure and wb. RAW helps.

Lee

 

[LeeBase]

I burn both DVD and CD. I've been doing it for 3 or 4 years now.
Never had any problems... I don't expect them to last forever...
just untill something better come along...

If that's longer than 2 years or so .... you may find you've already lost valuable photos.

If your keeping all your stuff on HD, I trust you have at least two
copies and the original...

Two copies. Very unlikely that both hard drives will crash at the same time.

one copy stored off site and/or in a
fireproof climate controled enviornment...

That's what my dvd backups are for. And since I keep it off site, and since NONE of my backups are the "only source" -- I'm not worried about needing a fireproof safe.

If my house burns and both hard drives and my house kept dvd's burn up -- then I have my dvd's kept at work.

I've been working with computers and electronics for 20 years
now... I'm fully aware of the pros and cons of most types of
afordable storage.

Which is surprising considering your using CD's and DVD's as long term storage solutions.

Lee

 

[LeeBase]

I would need how many if they were raw? lets see..probably around
600 gb.

Yep. RAW storage is about triple of jpg storage. Volume shooters like you and I will definately feel it.

However, if storage is your major concern with RAW, you could just use RAW as an intermediate "work file" which helps you create your jpg, then you delete the raw.

When I'm shooting church events, or girl scout events, or my kids' soccer games -- I've begun to delete the raw files of all but the best photos. Photos I feel I may one day want to print again or use in another way (mostly photos of my kids or the few really good landscape/nature/wildlife photos I manage to take) -- I certainly keep the raw for those.

At 50 cents a gig, it's not THAT expensive to keep my photos on my hard drives.

Lee

 

[LeeBase]

in deed..look at the eye of that insect? the raw conversion made
the highlight in the eye very harsh..it is smooth in the .jpg and
will remain smooth in printing:

The raw file is sharpened much more everywhere else as well. Turn down the sharpening on the raw file and try again.

Lee

 

[Jim Allison]

I think the whole point of shooting raw is to have control over what processing is done to the raw data captured by the camera as it is pulled into a jpeg or tiff. It is unlikely that "no" processing will be ideal. I usually sharpen, adjust color balance and boost saturation just a tad during the raw conversion using Photoshop CS. Using raw I can get my images as sharp as possible. If I sharpen too much and I can see noticible edge artifacts, I start over and turn the sharpening down some. If I get too much noise I start over and turn the noise supression up a bit and or the sharpening down. It does seem to take a "lot" longer to get your images out of raw, but I think you can get a better image most of the time. It only makes sense. The camera automation is just a program designed to optimize as much as possible, but you can't really expect it to be just right for every picture.