To Edit, or not to edit . . .

GoofBckt

I'm just curious. Is it typical for most photographers to alter, edit, fine tune their photos? Or do most pro photographers just have the "eye" or talent to get it right the first time MOST of the time and leave their photos as-is? Would love to hear experiences, opinions on this. Thank you.

ChatKat

GoofBckt wrote:

I'm just curious. Is it typical for most photographers to alter, edit, fine tune their photos? Or do most pro photographers just have the "eye" or talent to get it right the first time MOST of the time and leave their photos as-is? Would love to hear experiences, opinions on this. Thank you.

.

I used to always shoot in JPG and leave things alone except for the occasional crop or color adjustments. My background came from shooting film for many years so there wasn't much to do back then. It was up to the lab. I switched to RAW about three years ago. My goal is to always have them pretty close to how I want them straight out of camera but adjusting for color, a bit of crop and sharpening. But, for the last year or a little longer have started taking some select photos and do all kinds of treatments to color, sepia, black and white and even pixelating some of them. However, just because you can, doesn't mean you should. That's my story.

GoofBckt

What exactly does RAW give you that .jpg doesn't? I'm not real clear on the whole RAW thing yet. (pardon my ignorance) Thanks for your reply too.

ChatKat wrote:

.

I used to always shoot in JPG and leave things alone except for the occasional crop or color adjustments. My background came from shooting film for many years so there wasn't much to do back then. It was up to the lab. I switched to RAW about three years ago. My goal is to always have them pretty close to how I want them straight out of camera but adjusting for color, a bit of crop and sharpening. But, for the last year or a little longer have started taking some select photos and do all kinds of treatments to color, sepia, black and white and even pixelating some of them. However, just because you can, doesn't mean you should. That's my story.

jfriend

GoofBckt wrote:

What exactly does RAW give you that .jpg doesn't? I'm not real clear on the whole RAW thing yet. (pardon my ignorance) Thanks for your reply too.

If you really want the answer to this question, then simply search for "RAW vs. JPEG" on Google and read some of the many articles on the subject.

The short answer is that a RAW file contains the original 12 or 14-bit data from the sensor while the JPEG has taken that original data and made a bunch of irreversible decisions and then converted it to an 8-bit image, then compressed it into a JPEG. Lots of data is lost when the image is baked into an 8-bit JPEG. If the 8-bit JPEG is perfectly exposed and the other in-camera settings are perfect (contrast, sharpening, shadows, etc...), then you won't see much difference between what can be made from the RAW file vs. the JPEG.

But ... if anything is not quite right in the exposure or the scene has more dynamic range than a JPEG can capture, then the extra data contained in the RAW file can make a big difference in how good an image you can create from the original. This is particularly obvious if you need to restore detail in shadows or highlights. It's those cases where the 12-14 bit data of the RAW file can contain much more information than the 8-bits of the JPEG, giving you much more of an ability to get the result you need.

In a RAW file, if the white balance setting isn't right in the camera, nothing is lost as the white balance setting is simply a piece of metadata, it isn't actually applied to the image data yet. In a JPEG, if the white balance setting is off, it is already applied to the image data so some color channel information may be irreversibly clipped.

RAW files are typically larger to store and they require an extra step of converting them to something like a JPEG that can be used on the web, in email, sent to a printer, etc...

While many will make it a religious debate about which is "better" RAW or JPEG, I just look at them as tools to choose from. You should choose the tool that gets you the best results in the time you have to invest.

GoofBckt

Well, thank you very much for that explanation. It made more sense than what I've read on the internet. I've only been shooting in .jpg, so now I get to try something different and "play." Thank you.

jfriend wrote:

If you really want the answer to this question, then simply search for "RAW vs. JPEG" on Google and read some of the many articles on the subject.

The short answer is that a RAW file contains the original 12 or 14-bit data from the sensor while the JPEG has taken that original data and made a bunch of irreversible decisions and then converted it to an 8-bit image, then compressed it into a JPEG. Lots of data is lost when the image is baked into an 8-bit JPEG. If the 8-bit JPEG is perfectly exposed and the other in-camera settings are perfect (contrast, sharpening, shadows, etc...), then you won't see much difference between what can be made from the RAW file vs. the JPEG.

But ... if anything is not quite right in the exposure of the scene has more dynamic range than a JPEG can capture, then the extra data contained in the RAW file can make a big difference in how good an image you can create from the original. This is particularly obvious if you need to restore detail in shadows or highlights. It's those cases where the 12-14 bit data of the RAW file can contain much more information than the 8-bits of the JPEG, giving you much more of an ability to get the result you need.

In a RAW file, if the white balance setting isn't right in the camera, nothing is lost as the white balance setting is simply a piece of metadata, it isn't actually applied to the image data yet. In a JPEG, if the white balance setting is off, it is already applied to the image data so some color channel information may be irreversibly clipped.

RAW files are typically larger to store and they require an extra step of converting them to something like a JPEG that can be used on the web, in email, sent to a printer, etc...

While many will make it a religious debate about which is "better" RAW or JPEG, I just look at them as tools to choose from. You should choose the tool that gets you the best results in the time you have to invest.

arodney

GoofBckt wrote:

What exactly does RAW give you that .jpg doesn't?

The ability to fully render the tone and color as I desire.

A JPEG is a lot look a transparency. The rendering is fixed. A Raw is like printing a color neg in the darkroom. You have vastly more control over the rendering.

Quick example, white balance. Shoot a JPEG set for Daylight under Tungsten and good luck fixing that mess. Do the same on a Raw. The white balance settings doesn't affect the Raw data a lick, and you can easily alter it by simply moving a slider, building a rendering instruction in a converter which tells it how to build the RGB data. JPEG is like a baked cake. If you added salt instead of sugar, its never going to taste right. Raw is just that, Raw. Its the individual ingredients of the cake before you mix and bake. As such, you have tremendous control over the rendering.

Lastly, JPEG is 8-bit and usually funneled into a very small color space. Raw is Raw. Its all the data the sensor captured and can be rendered in high bit, any color space you desire. JPEG has lost a great deal of original data from the get go.

GoofBckt

Thank you so much for that! I loved your analogy about the cake. That helps make it very simple and clear. from now on, I'm using RAW only. I've been trying to render the heck outta my jpg's and it's "ok" but not fabulous. Now, for another question? My camera has a setting for RAW + L(quality). What is that and why would you use that? I just set my setting to RAW only. Thanks again for your help.
~C

arodney wrote:

The ability to fully render the tone and color as I desire.

A JPEG is a lot look a transparency. The rendering is fixed. A Raw is like printing a color neg in the darkroom. You have vastly more control over the rendering.

Quick example, white balance. Shoot a JPEG set for Daylight under Tungsten and good luck fixing that mess. Do the same on a Raw. The white balance settings doesn't affect the Raw data a lick, and you can easily alter it by simply moving a slider, building a rendering instruction in a converter which tells it how to build the RGB data. JPEG is like a baked cake. If you added salt instead of sugar, its never going to taste right. Raw is just that, Raw. Its the individual ingredients of the cake before you mix and bake. As such, you have tremendous control over the rendering.

Lastly, JPEG is 8-bit and usually funneled into a very small color space. Raw is Raw. Its all the data the sensor captured and can be rendered in high bit, any color space you desire. JPEG has lost a great deal of original data from the get go.

arodney

GoofBckt wrote:

My camera has a setting for RAW + L(quality). What is that and why would you use that? I just set my setting to RAW only. Thanks again for your help.
~C

Probably Raw plus JPEG. Not real useful IMHO. Reason is, the JPEG, while providing you instant access to the image without having to process the Raw, will likely not match the rendered Raw once you process the Raw. Keep in mind that the JPEG is from the Raw data, but the processing is proprietary and produced in-camera. If you gave that to say a client, they would probably expect a match from the processed Raw which might be difficult to provide and be time consuming. Plus the card now has twice as many files to deal with (the JPEGs are just taking up space. If instead you process the Raw as you desire and save out a JPEG iteration, it matches prefect. There should be just a Raw setting on any camera.

One thing to keep in mind is that the previews on the back of the camera LCD, including clipping and so forth are based on the JPEG processed by the camera, NOT the Raw data!
http://www.digitalphotopro.com/technique/camera-technique/exposing-for-raw.html

GoofBckt

That's what I thought. Thanks for clarifying. You've been a huge help.

arodney wrote:

Probably Raw plus JPEG. Not real useful IMHO. Reason is, the JPEG, while providing you instant access to the image without having to process the Raw, will likely not match the rendered Raw once you process the Raw. Keep in mind that the JPEG is from the Raw data, but the processing is proprietary and produced in-camera. If you gave that to say a client, they would probably expect a match from the processed Raw which might be difficult to provide and be time consuming. Plus the card now has twice as many files to deal with (the JPEGs are just taking up space. If instead you process the Raw as you desire and save out a JPEG iteration, it matches prefect. There should be just a Raw setting on any camera.

One thing to keep in mind is that the previews on the back of the camera LCD, including clipping and so forth are based on the JPEG processed by the camera, NOT the Raw data!
http://www.digitalphotopro.com/technique/camera-technique/exposing-for-raw.html