Why do JPEGs look so much better than my RAW files?

TheCheesehead

I always shoot Raw, but the other day when at the EAA I set my WB to daylight, and shot all outdoor JPEGs, and they were much better than my RAW images, sharpness and color sat. I always sharpen my images in Elements, but even so, the JPEGs look better. Is the whole "RAW is better" camp just a myth, or a fad?

Thanks!!

rsquared

The jpg was generated from the raw file by your camera, with a certain level of sharpness and saturation boost automatically. (There is usually somewhere in the menus you can adjust these things)

So yes, jpg often does look better straight out of camera. You can usually set your software (I don't know elements well enough) to do a similar level of boost automatically also, which will make them closely match. It really depends on your situation whether "RAW is better", but it is definitely more flexible! Raw has a LOT more data in it, which is thrown away to make the jpg. If you need to do large edits (e.g. you underexposed by a stop or your white balance was way off) you can make those changes to the raw file without much degradation of the image. This is not true of jpg.

I personally prefer to use raw, and have Lightroom generate the jpg once I've dialed in the settings I like.

gecko0

Your RAW files are...raw. Unprocessed. JPEG files are highly processed in your camera at the time you press the shutter, so they are essentially "done", so it's not a fair comparison. If you process the RAW file and adjust it, you'll find your overall quality to improve, depending on the original image (flexibility to adjust white balance, etc after the fact).

.02

basflt

RAW is not better
it just give you the possibility to do the editing / processing yourself
with JPEG , the camera software does it for you
that is the only difference

arodney

The key is setting up a good default rendering for the raws much like you feel the default rendering from raw to JPEG in camera provides. No one setting will work for every capture, but you can get much, much closer to either that JPEG rendering or something you prefer even more by creating a good preset in the raw converter (certainly Adobe Camera Raw or Lightroom). Think of the default, initial raw rendering like the first test print out of a color darkroom. Its often necessary to tweak the filter packs to get the desired color and tone for that print. The default you have currently set may not be close to what you’d like as this initial default ordering so update it. Then you would just select “Use as Camera Raw Default” and it would be used from now on. Then you season to taste from there, using the sliders in Camera Raw to get the final color appearance you desire.

As to why raw is better, this may help:
http://wwwimages.adobe.com/www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/family/prophotographer/pdfs/pscs3_renderprint.pdf

gecko0

basflt wrote: »

RAW is not better
it just give you the possibility to do the editing / processing yourself
with JPEG , the camera software does it for you
that is the only difference

In an absolute sense, saying RAW is not better is true...but it provides so much more flexibility and "recovery" options that it is safe to say most people desire it over JPEG. In the end, it just depends on what your goal is when shooting. If you want to do heavy editing on the image after the pic is taken, RAW allows it to be done much more easily (HDR, non-destructive pixel editing, etc). Also, if you don't get the exposure and WB perfect in JPEG, it's more painful (or impossible) to correct it.

TheCheesehead

Why do JPEGs look so much better than my RAW files?
Hmmm...so basically I'm sort of wasting time in ACR, unless it's a difficult lighting situation?

TheCheesehead

Why do JPEGs look so much better than my RAW files?
Perhaps the best shooting mode would be to set my camera to RAW + Jpeg if space allows?

arodney

TheCheesehead wrote: »

Hmmm...so basically I'm sort of wasting time in ACR, unless it's a difficult lighting situation?

Read the piece by Karl Lang above. No, not a waste at all. One big job of a photographers is to render the scene, something you have full control over with raw and very little when you ask the camera to do it.

basflt

TheCheesehead wrote: »

Perhaps the best shooting mode would be to set my camera to RAW + Jpeg if space allows?

you can try,
so , you can compare to see if they are really better
but , if you dont want to edit each shot , better leave at JPEG

BradfordBenn

I will in no way shape or form say I have as much experience as others do. However I have found that going to RAW has allowed for much better control and adjustment of the image than a JPG can. Forgetting the issue of what compression can do to an image, just the fact that one can adjust the full range of data, not a less detailed set of detail that is trying to convey the same thing. Often times the compression process "alters" the image to look more pleasing in JPG than it would in RAW. This variance is on purpose so that the less technical photographers will get pleasing results and not get frustrated by the camera. It becomes "user friendly", much like Red Eye Reduction on many point and shoots. Red Eye can be avoided through other techniques but taking this approach makes it easier for the customer.

For a while I did set my camera to RAW+JPG and would compare them and after about a month of shooting this way I turned off the JPG encoding as I found that I liked the detail in the RAW better but I also knew that I would have to do some processing of the images to make them POP like the JPGs did. However I did not do it on every image and I started to be able to review the keepers and chuckers in RAW and then work on just the keepers. I also started doing batch processing and it simply became part of the workflow. I don't even think about it anymore.

Don't even get me started about Audio Compression algorithms. Same issues, I still have vinyl and CDs.

pathfinder

If your camera creates better jpgs than you can create from a RAW file, then you will prefer to shoot out of the camera jpgs. Faster, easier, smaller files to store.

You may, at some point, begin to realize that your camera's jpgs don't always match your artistic vision, and decide to invest some time in learning a more skillful conversion of RAW file images.

If jpgs are always better than processed RAW images, thousands of professional photographers are wasting a lot of time processing their RAW files, needlessly.

I have numerous jpgs shot around 2003-2005, some of which I like a lot, but if they had been shot in RAW could now be edited with the latest RAW conversion engine from Adobe, Adobe Camera RAW v 6.1 which is head and shoulders better than the RAW converter available in 2004.

I have re-editing some 20D Raw files from 2005, and they are significantly better when rendered via ACR 6.1.

Camera jpgs can be very good when the lighting contrast ratios are less than 5 stops, but RAW offers significantly more potential dynamic range than out of the camera jpgs can ever hope to capture.

ziggy53

pathfinder wrote: »

... I have re-editing some 20D Raw files from 2005, and they are significantly better when rendered via ACR 6.1.

...

Working with the latest RAW converters on older RAW files seems almost like an upgrade for the camera. I get around 2/3rd stop more dynamic range from the same RAW image files using the newer RAW processors versus the original RAW processors of 2005. Add in much more competent sharpening and more effective noise reduction and it's a whole new ball game (when using the new RAW processing software).

BradfordBenn

ziggy53 wrote: »

Working with the latest RAW converters on older RAW files seems almost like an upgrade for the camera.

Would LightRoom 3 provide that improvement over Lightroom 2 as well?

rsquared

BradfordBenn wrote: »

Would LightRoom 3 provide that improvement over Lightroom 2 as well?

LR3 was a HUGE jump over LR2 in terms of noise reduction!

pathfinder

BradfordBenn wrote: »

Would LightRoom 3 provide that improvement over Lightroom 2 as well?

Yup! Same Raw engine, ACR 6.2

colourbox

JPEG is as good as raw if you'll never edit the image.
But as soon as you want to start tweaking lots of sliders...you should have shot raw.

JPEG is like letting the lab develop your film.
Raw is like developing your film with your chemicals, your recipe, and your timing. In the same way that there's no point developing your own film unless you can do it better than the lab, the catch with raw is that you have to know how to develop them better than the camera's own programming which is getting better all the time.

I shoot raw...the fixes are so much easier and cleaner. And when a company comes out with an improved raw processor like Adobe just did with their noise reduction, even your old raw photos can be "redeveloped" better than they were originally. You can't do that with JPEGs because a JPEG is done. Finished. Can't do any better, ever.

MKD

A JPG is simply a file which has been processed via the settings on the camera, i.e. set to winter sports/landscapes etc and it processes the picture using those parameters.
Having processed the picture it compresses the data and saves it as a JPG.

The RAW file on the other hand receives no processing by the camera and is unprocessed and saved as a RAW file.

aj986s

Perhaps another way to describe it is to compare RAW to old-school negatives and JPG to old-school prints. Once you have a print in hand, there's only so much more you can do to change it. But the negative contains all of the original available information, and from it you can create a broad range of print results.