Any point in shooting JPG rather than RAW?

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artington
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Any point in shooting JPG rather than RAW?

Unread post by artington »

I am a new convert to RAW, largely because I now have an imaging programme (PSE6) which will give RAW thumbnails in the Organiser and allow easy conversion at the Develop / Fix stage. Prior to this I used PS7 / PSE2. I'm not even sure whether PS7 permitted the use of ACR - PSE2 certainly did not. Having seen the flexibility and transformative power of ACR to develop ARW files I wonder if there is any point at all now in using in-camera processing, whether in the A700 or A900, whether it be AWB, DRO, or any of the imaging styles. It even seems that you have a lot of latitude to correct exposure in ACR as well. I suppose that using JPGs does give you more image space on the cards but CF cards are really cheap now - even an 8GB card does not break the bank - that I can't see any purpose in economising in that arena. Am I missing something here or is the current ease of RAW conversion a recent phenomenon?
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Re: Any point in shooting JPG rather than RAW?

Unread post by Javelin »

well with JPG you can maintain the maximum shooting speed on the camera without having it lock up on you momentarily after a burst while it clears the buffer.
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harveyzone
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Re: Any point in shooting JPG rather than RAW?

Unread post by harveyzone »

Also DRO which only works on JPG, not RAW. OK, so you can get similar results from RAW, but it is more time consuming.
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Re: Any point in shooting JPG rather than RAW?

Unread post by Javelin »

good point. if your going to have a 1000 pics at the end of the day and say .. 6-800 keepers in the end. thats a lot of processing if the shots are varied and can't use batch tools to your advantage.
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bonneville
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Re: Any point in shooting JPG rather than RAW?

Unread post by bonneville »

My sixpenthworth: It took a while for me to be convinced but now I only ever use RAW.

I discovered a cracking bit of freeware called "RAW to JPEG" which gives a right click menu option to extract the mini jpegs imbedded in RAW files (to enable them to be displayed in camera). It creates a sub-folder of them with the same file numbers enabling rapid view in windows before delving into the serious Bridge and PS programmes.

Now I never have my alpha set to anything else. (And RAW + JPEG is a complete waste of card space IMHO)
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Dusty
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Re: Any point in shooting JPG rather than RAW?

Unread post by Dusty »

RAW is a digital negative, jpeg is the 'print'. Would you shoot film w/o a negative? (yes, Polaroid users did).

Shooting RAW+JPG give you the advantage of a quickie, processed photo, such as DRO, as well as all of the advantages of the RAW. There are times I don't have the time to PP my RAW files before I need to send someone a shot, and there have been a few times I was so pleased w/ a jpeg that I didn't bother to PP it.

I would never shoot just JPG, and would only shoot RAW only if I was really tight on card space.

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Birma
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Re: Any point in shooting JPG rather than RAW?

Unread post by Birma »

I'm with Dusty on this one. As a relative newb and still learning the art of PP I like to keep the jpg around so that when I have finished PP'ing the raw file I can compare it with what the camera reckoned it should look like. If my pp'd effort is better then great - if not, well I still have the jpg :D
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Re: Any point in shooting JPG rather than RAW?

Unread post by KevinBarrett »

I don't trust my monitor, so I use the camera's jpg engine. When I take the picture, I have the image as captured and the subject right in front of me--no better time for getting the right color. So, if I use the right WB then I should have got the exposure I wanted. Also, I'm lazy. :)
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bonneville
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Re: Any point in shooting JPG rather than RAW?

Unread post by bonneville »

This is an interesting discussion and since I was wondering what folks prefer I set up this poll

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Dusty
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Re: Any point in shooting JPG rather than RAW?

Unread post by Dusty »

KevinBarrett wrote:I don't trust my monitor, so I use the camera's jpg engine. When I take the picture, I have the image as captured and the subject right in front of me--no better time for getting the right color. So, if I use the right WB then I should have got the exposure I wanted. Also, I'm lazy. :)
Sooner or later you'll blow a shot you can't re-do. With RAW, you have a lot more ability to fix it. If you don't trust your monitor, download Calibrize. http://www.calibrize.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

That should put you in the ball-park with color correction.

Dusty
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bonneville
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Re: Any point in shooting JPG rather than RAW?

Unread post by bonneville »

Dusty wrote:Sooner or later you'll blow a shot you can't re-do. With RAW, you have a lot more ability to fix it. If you don't trust your monitor, download Calibrize. http://www.calibrize.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
That should put you in the ball-park with color correction.
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Thanks Dusty, that's helpful. I've not come across that one before so I'll give it a look.
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harveyzone
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Re: Any point in shooting JPG rather than RAW?

Unread post by harveyzone »

Dusty wrote:If you don't trust your monitor, download Calibrize. http://www.calibrize.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

That should put you in the ball-park with color correction.
I ran this on my home PC, and it came out almost exactly as I had it already set - a good sign. I was quite impressed - looked a nice little freebie. :)
So I ran it on my work laptop and it right screwed it up! Everything is now blue/magenta. I cannot get it to set it correctly at all so will have to go back through it by hand. :(
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Dusty
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Re: Any point in shooting JPG rather than RAW?

Unread post by Dusty »

harveyzone wrote:I ran this on my home PC, and it came out almost exactly as I had it already set - a good sign. I was quite impressed - looked a nice little freebie. :)
So I ran it on my work laptop and it right screwed it up! Everything is now blue/magenta. I cannot get it to set it correctly at all so will have to go back through it by hand. :(
Try Monitor Calibration Wizard. It lets you do adjustments at several points in all 3 colors, plus black and white adjustments.
http://www.hex2bit.com/products/product_mcw.asp" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

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