20D, RAW vs. JPEG vs. Why not TIFF?

Khaos

The 20D’s big advantage is the low noise on high ISO (along with awesome clarity of course). However, that isn’t going to happen on RAW, nor will any of the other special features.



Now I know RAW is nice because of the 16 bits\channel that you can’t get from jpeg and that you don’t lose anything like you do in jpeg including during post processing, but it’s a pain in the ass and time consuming, processing all these photos afterwards.



Yes, you can take RAW and jpeg at the same time, but I really don’t care to look like the Frito Bandito (showing my age here) with flash memory cards in my cross over ammo belts because of a day of intense shooting.



Why not TIFF? You can get the 16 bits and it has lossless (LZA) compression and much more generous tagging. Is it speed? Are the royalties for that format that much more expensive?



Are there any DSLRs out there that offer RAW and TIFF instead of jpeg?



My old Kodak point and shoot used jpeg for the compressed pic and TIFF for the full sized.



Am I alone in wanting this? Am I missing something?



What do you prefer and why? RAW only? JPEG only? A mix with one side heavier or both even? Or do you agree and would like the TIFF option instead of jpeg?

Andy

if you shoot in raw, you can control color, white balance, saturation, chromatic abberation (to a degree), and most importantly, exposure. you're working with the raw data, untouched. i find it gives you the most flexibility, over tiff. oh and you can work in 16 bit or 8 bit, choice.

oh ps: love this guy!



and, who could forget these:

DoctorIt

Khaos wrote:

The 20D’s big advantage is the low noise on high ISO (along with awesome clarity of course). However, that isn’t going to happen on RAW, nor will any of the other special features.

Huh? I'm going to venture maybe you're confused about RAW?

ISO affects RAW images too...

bkriete

Why wouldn't your D20 provide the same ISO benefits at any picture setting? AFAIK that's a function of the sensor, and has zippo to do with the file type or algorithm used in creating it. Are you referring to to in-camera sharpening and contrast settings?

Anyway...my Drebel CRW (Canon RAW) files are about 6.6 megabytes...a 16 bit TIFF created by Canon FileViewer is 36 megabytes. Given the gigs of storage on my PC, I don't care much about that when manipulating it, but with limited in-camera storage, CRW makes a lot more sense to me. And it's equally lossless. Now that Elements 3.0 and Photoshop CS can convert RAW in a fairly seamless fashion, with the ability to tweak as necessary, TIFF seems like a poor tradeoff to me.

Edit-took a little long composing that and finding out just how big my RAW and TIFF files are...

Shay Stephens

I only shoot RAW these days. The reason is the exposure latitude I have, the white balance control, and the ability to control chroma noise, well shoot, just about everything really.

JPG is good for situations where you just don't have the memory space. Or if you are in a situation where you can get all the variables right (WB, exposure, etc) it is very easy on the memory cards. I have no worries about shooting jpg if needed. It has all the image quality of tiff without the bloated files.

TIFF is the 800 pound gorilla that consumes memory like a pig and yet does not give you the flexibility of RAW. TIFF for all practical purposes has passed it's prime. I never consider it a viable shooting mode.

If you don't want to have a lot of memory, shoot jpg. Modern jpg has all the image quality you need.

cmr164

Tiff
Even pros just don't get what TIFF is and that is evident in the answers. TIFF is a file format can encapsulate any image format, including lossy formats like 8 bit jpegs and GIFs and lossless formats like the DCS raw compressed and thumb image in some highend dslrs. So TIFF is not 8 bit or 16 bit or 24 bit or 48 bit, is not compressed or uncompressed, although all of those exist as TIFFs. As a file format, TIFF doesn't give a hoot what the encapsulated image formet is. The completely erroneous idea that TIFF is a 16/8 bit lossless image format can be traced to crippled implementations in PC S/W.

fish

Further info on TIFF:


TIFF

Tiff is hardly a file format, but a whole series of them, and it is possible to write a Tiff file that will be unreadable with other software, or produce images that are in negative colour. However most modern software seems to understand and properly represent Tiff images, perhaps explaining why it has become the standard format for the exchange of images professionally.

Most professional image input devices - scanners and cameras - can produce Tiff files. For the best results from professional digital cameras you should shoot using the camera's raw format, and then convert to tiff on your computer before delivering or printing. Otherwise you should, were possible, write directly to Tiff files from your scanner or camera, wherever possible using higher bit depth files (see below.)

Tiff compression (as seen above) is lossless and not particularly efficient at cutting image sizes. To ensure maximum compatibility it is best to supply images to other people in uncompressed format, as there are several different lossfree compression methods that can he use and not all software can cope with all of them.

Tiff is mainly used for 24 bit colour and 8 bit grayscale files, but it can also handle higher bit depths. Most cameras and scanners produce 10 or 12 bits per RGB channel (30 or 36 bits per pixel), and the better devices allow you to output the whole of this data, with added padding bits to produce 16 bits per channel. This extra data, which can be save in 'High Dynamic Range' (HDR) 48 bit Tiff colour files or 16 bit Tiff grayscale files, allows for considerable manipulation of the images in software without the loss of quality that occurs with 8 bits per channel.

As mentioned before, Tiff is the standard format used for sending files to printers, publishers, etc. Unless otherwise specified, when sending files on CD you should use an uncompressed Tiff foramt, with the file produced in and tagged with the Adobe RGB (1998) colour space. Most editors expect files to have the resolution set at 300 dpi (don't resize your file, just alter the resolution setting.) For most purpose a scanned file of around 30Mb or a file from a professional digital camera at around 17Mb (5 or 6Mp) will be fine. Don't send files at this size across the internet unless asked. For electronic delivery, jpeg files are more normal.


source.

Andy

cmr164 wrote:

Even pros just don't get what TIFF is and that is evident in the answers.

elaborate, charles

jimf

Shay Stephens wrote:

(JPG) has all the image quality of tiff without the bloated files.

This is not the case, at least not if you're using a lossless TIFF format.

For kicks someday, shoot a raw frame and then convert it into lossless TIFF and the highest quality JPG you have available. Then print both and compare.

When I did this I was surprised to find that not only could I tell the difference easily even at only 5x7, every single person I asked to compare the images picked the TIFF print as the better of the two. It was noticably sharper.

This was something of a surprise to me, but if you do the calculations you find that the minimum resolution at 5x7 (cropping the image) is 16p/mm -- or two JPG pixel groups per mm. If you think of JPG as doing a kind of blurring within a pixel group you can see how you might be able to see that, although pixel reproduction within a group is so good, especially at high quality, that it is hard for me to understand why it was so visible. I wonder whether or not what we're seeing is not so much pixel group reproduction error as boundary conditions between pixel groups.

Someday when I have a lot of free time I'd like to investigate whether it's intra-pixel-group error that is most obvious, or cross-pixel-group boundary issues. The latter could be easily reduced by modifying the JPG image format to overlap pixel groups and discard or merge overlapping data (ie JPEG iterates and compresses in 8x8 pixel increments; you could continue to compress as an 8x8 pixel group but increment in, say, 4x4 pixel groups and during reconstruction use only the 4x4 non-overlapping pixels in the group, ignoring edge issues). I believe that would produce an image with far fewer artifacts, although it'd be significantly larger.

If you don't want to have a lot of memory, shoot jpg. Modern jpg has all the image quality you need.

Despite the fact that it's pretty easy to tell the difference I do find JPG images to have acceptable quality, at least most of the time. I significantly prefer RAW for two reasons: 1) It's a lot more accurate to do white balance correction in post than to let the camera guess at it (Canon is bad at that); and 2) I like the extra exposure lattitude. But another reason to shoot JPG besides storage concerns, and in fact the only reason I ever do, is that most cameras can cycle a JPG far faster than a RAW image -- and that means much longer bursts before the shot buffer needs to be flushed.

jimf

andy wrote:

elaborate, charles

TIFF is an envelope format. It doesn't describe a particular storage mechanism, but rather allows you to put image data within it stored in one of a fairly large number of different ways -- everything from the fully expanded pixel data (in various representations such as RGB or CMY) to JPEG-style lossy compression and lots of stuff in-between.

In most cases when TIFF is used one of a handful of variations is used -- typically expanded pixel data, or the same pixel data LZW (losslessly) compressed (which is usually about 50% smaller). That's what most TIFF users are familiar with, and in fact a lot of TIFF readers will have trouble with other variations.

Shay Stephens

But it's implementation in camera is not what you describe. Yes, TIFF as a format and concept is capable and can do everything except slice and dice. But what camera is currently using TIFF to it's full? Instead you see bloated file size and very little else in the way of benefit over jpg and it's not even worth comparing to RAW as all three are currently emplemented.

cmr164 wrote:

Even pros just don't get what TIFF is and that is evident in the answers. TIFF is a file format can encapsulate any image format, including lossy formats like 8 bit jpegs and GIFs and lossless formats like the DCS raw compressed and thumb image in some highend dslrs. So TIFF is not 8 bit or 16 bit or 24 bit or 48 bit, is not compressed or uncompressed, although all of those exist as TIFFs. As a file format, TIFF doesn't give a hoot what the encapsulated image formet is. The completely erroneous idea that TIFF is a 16/8 bit lossless image format can be traced to crippled implementations in PC S/W.

Shay Stephens

Any camera I have used that offers tiff output and jpg output I have tested to compare the image quality difference. The only differences I have noted are only visible at 200%-400% magnification. In my opinion, that difference is way to small to recommend camera outputted tiff for anything but filling a memory card as fast as possible

Again, I am not talking about raw converted to tiff. I am talking about tiff files made by the camera itself. And I am also not talking about the theoretical capabilities of the file format.

jimf wrote:

This is not the case, at least not if you're using a lossless TIFF format.

For kicks someday, shoot a raw frame and then convert it into lossless TIFF and the highest quality JPG you have available. Then print both and compare.

mercphoto

There's been a lot of discussions about RAW versus JPG in the Rob Galbraith 20D forums as well. I shoot JPG almost all the time. Next weekend I will do a dirt bike race. Outdoors, predictable lighting, and should take 2,000 images or so. There is absolutely no way I will do that RAW. And the prices people pay for racing photos does not warrant manipulating an image anyway. This Saturday I am photographing an awards ceremony. I will shoot RAW because of the small number of photos and the problematic lighting. However, I anticipate having to do very little to fix the photos.

The in-camera JPG's from the 20D are amazing. The metering is amazing. The truth is, for most people, if you pay attention to what you are doing, an in-camera JPG from a 20D will get you so close to your final output that the RAW flexibility is of increasingly less value.

Oh, and those who think you "lose nothing shooting RAW", I beg to differ. Photo manipulation is all integer based mathematics. Whole numbers, not real numbers. Anytime you manipulate an image YOU ARE LOSING SOMETHING. Even with RAW.

mercphoto

jimf wrote:

For kicks someday, shoot a raw frame and then convert it into lossless TIFF and the highest quality JPG you have available. Then print both and compare.

I have, and at 12x18 I could not notice a difference on the types of photos I take. And what most people don't realize in this whole RAW vs TIFF vs JPG debate is that the type of photo makes a huge difference in what you will do. Some images simply have more detail and contrast in them than others do. Same with megapixel debates. Six megapixels is fine for poster-sized racing photos, its maybe adequate for poster-sized portraits, it doesn't work for poster-sized fine art or landscapes.

Its why this debate never comes to a resolution or answer: there isn't one.

jimf

Shay Stephens wrote:

Any camera I have used that offers tiff output and jpg output I have tested to compare the image quality difference. The only differences I have noted are only visible at 200%-400% magnification. In my opinion, that difference is way to small to recommend camera outputted tiff for anything but filling a memory card as fast as possible

I suppose the first thing I'd ask is what your target medium is. If it's the screen, I certainly wouldn't get worked up about it. But print has much different characteristics: Significantly higher resolution in particular (at least four times higher, and quite probably sixteen or more), and also much higher contrast. Things that are invisible on the screen will be visible on a print -- in both detail and shading.

Since I typically target prints I ran my tests against prints. The results were utterly undeniable. I attempted to control for every variable I could -- exactly the same source material, exactly the same color balance and sharpening, etc. Going to the printer (I used a professional printing service) there was no difference in source material between the two images other than compression.

I encourage anyone who's interested to try the test. Maybe you'll get the same results as I did, maybe not, but you'll learn something either way.

If you're comparing in-camera JPEG processing to in-camera TIFF you should be aware that the camera may do significant processing of the JPEG image but not the TIFF. Typically they'll do white balance, contrast and sharpening enhancements at a minimum. If your workflow is shoot-and-print you could actually get superior results from JPEG due to this processing. I suspect that a lot of folks shoot this way. If you're shooting RAW and converting, you need to be aware of the any such processing done by your conversion utility. Some (perhaps most) do this kind of processing by default.

Shay Stephens

I'm a photographer by profession so the ultimate output medium for me is indeed prints :-)

jimf wrote:

I suppose the first thing I'd ask is what your target medium is.

mercphoto

jimf wrote:

If your workflow is shoot-and-print you could actually get superior results from JPEG due to this processing.

Exactly. And that is why I say the RAW versus JPG debate is not as simple as many want to make it. Those who tell others to only shoot RAW, or only shoot JPG, make things too simple. Its why I shoot races as JPG, but portraits as RAW. There is a place for both. For every season...

jimf

Shay Stephens wrote:

I'm a photographer by profession so the ultimate output medium for me is indeed prints :-)

That's what I thought, but it was curious that you talked about only being able to see the difference at certain magnifications. That would seem to be an on-screen operation.

Anyway I don't mean to diss anyone for being happy with the quality they get from JPEG; IMO the two are so close that if you're not comparing images side-by-side you'd likely never notice and there are definitely some advantages to using JPEG. Still, the quality difference is there even if it's minimal.

Khaos

I think I will shoot my family stuff as jpeg and my "I'm trying to be arty" stuff as RAW+jpeg. This way I can test and see how well I'm able to adjust the RAW compared to how the jpeg looks.

I'll continue to save the final edit as a TIFF.

I posted the same question over in the FM forums in case anyone is interested in seeing other viewpoints.

GerryDavid

jimf wrote:

For kicks someday, shoot a raw frame and then convert it into lossless TIFF and the highest quality JPG you have available. Then print both and compare.

Did you do this on a home printer or at the lab?

I was under the impression that labs only takes jpg's, but I could and probably am wrong on this.

jimf

GerryDavid wrote:

Did you do this on a home printer or at the lab?

I was under the impression that labs only takes jpg's, but I could and probably am wrong on this.

Lab. The pro lab around the corner is happy with either JPG or 8-bit TIFF. They are not happy with 16-bit TIFF. I've been meaning to do the test again with my own printer, especially now that I'm doing most of my own printing, but I haven't gotten around to it.