I have a stupid question.... so if I do geat great results with JPeg should I change? I know I should know what I am doing with RAW incase I need to shoot it at a wedding.... but I have never had any problems so far that I couldn't fix through bullzeye or photoshop

Much good discussion here -> http://davidjay.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=2134

But I am with you on wanting to stick with jpeg. But a lot of smart people are saying otherwise...

I say ignorance is bliss...stick with JPEG. Thats all I ever shoot 95% of the time. If you can switch to RAW and not add any significant time and effort to your workflow, then do it. If its going to make you sit in front of the computer for longer, I say don't go that route. The advantages of Raw would have to be pretty substantial for me to change the way I shoot. When I shoot a wedding, I will usually come back with about 20 or so images that were shot in RAW. Everything else is JPEG. I'm happy....maybe ignorant...but happy none the less.

I have too many kids and too many fun things to do to shoot RAW at this point. Too time consuming. I am JPG's all the way. I do 20X30 inch canvas and prints all the time and have never had a complaint. I shoot all 3 megapixels at normal with the Fuji S3.

When I read about Apples's new Apperature software and the new work flow for RAW I gave switching some thought and as soon as I set the camera on Raw and noticed I only get a few shots on my 512meg cards, and saw how slow the camera writes, I felt like I was shooting medium format again in a bad and restrictive way. I think that Apperature will be great for jpg workflow but you will not get me switching to RAW. Nope not me! Not yet! Why fix it if it ain't broken.

Is ignorance really bliss though?

I mean think about it....what would you say about people who wanted to stick with type writers because they didn't want to learn how to use a computer because the type writer was working just fine for them?

Or for that matter why even shoot digital? If you want the "easiest" workflow just shoot film! Load it, shoot it, and send it in! If I were a film shooter and said I was happy just the way I was shooting film would I be smart to not switch to a better system of shooting?

To resist change just because you are happy with your current system means you'll miss opportunities to do things better. Think about it, if the TOP wedding photographers in the country (Reggie, Colon, Bussink, David Jay, etc etc) ALL shoot RAW you don't think it's at least worth investigating why they do that? Does it make you wonder why the vast majority of people switch from JPEG to RAW and yet hardly anyone switches from RAW to JPEG?

Sure...maybe the initial time investment will be more than it would be if you just stuck with what you're doing now, but maybe in the long run you'll have a FASTER, BETTER, SMARTER workflow.

Is that initial investment worth it to you?

I am the first to embrace change. I was shooting digital 20 years ago with 100,000 computer systems for Nike before it was even called Digital Photogaphy. It was called computer graphics back then. I never want the easy way out but I do want the most effecient.

There is now way that you can tell me you can shoot 1,000 plus images in raw and have a faster work flow that I can do in JPEG. My end results are 8X12 coffee table books I design myself. I do not think there would be any difference in the quality of the images from RAW to JPG.

If the workflow is as fast and I can be convinced the quality is better then I would be happy to switch but until then SHOW ME THE MONEY, then I will switch.

As far as a faster, better, smarter work flow, I do not think raw is faster, or better so it is not smarter to me until it is faster and better.

I do not beleive that you should use new technology just because it is there. I do beleive in swithcing to things that are new and improved. With faster and larger cards, and new software like Aperature, I will always look to the future and switch in a blink of an eye if I thinik RAW or any other new format will out do what I am doing now.

Feel free to convince me that I should switch.

Ok....

A few things just to clarify....

RAW is not going to necessarily give you better quality images. If you nail your exposures and your color in JPEG with every image you need not shoot RAW. JPEGs are really for the perfect shooters out there who get it right everytime. If you're one of them, DON'T switch. It's a waste of time and money since you need to do no editing.

Even if you do end up making minor adjustments you're right in that you probably won't notice a print quality difference if the adjustments you're making are small.

I'm interested in the RAW workflow because it's speed. When you edit your JPEG images do you have to open them individually? With RAW images you really don't have to open any images. I edit my RAW files in DPP and edit in the thumbnails. I edit one image and then copy/paste that "recipie" (which are the changes I made) and then apply it to all the images that have similar lighting situations. So for instance....lets say I have 90 family portrait images that are all equally underexposed by about a stop. Instead of having to open each one and fix it, I quickly fix one of them and then copy the recipie and paste it to the other 89 images that are equally underexposed. DONE. Now I move on to the next set. I'm able to move through thousands of images in a fraction of the time it would have taken me to edit them as JPEGs.

If you know a method of editing JPEGs that is that faster I would love to know..... (really! I'm not just saying that!)

I'm not really looking to pick a fight over this....I just know from my own experience that I'm editing my RAW images in literally a fraction of the time it took me to edit my JPEGs. I would NEVER go back to JPEGs just because it takes way to long to edit them. With the programs available out there right now, and from what I've seen at least, RAW images are just faster to edit since you can edit them in the thumbnail form and make batch changes effecting hundreds of files in seconds.

If you're happy with JPEG stick with it! I'm just giving my own experience....

The editing with thumbnails is what interested me when looking at Aperature. That is a great point.

Isn't your shooting speed slow because of the write time involved? I have a Fuji S3 and since I like to shoot fairly fast this would be a draw back for me.

How many images can you get on a one gig card shooting RAW? Just curious.

Well...the shooting speed is slower than shooting JPEG no doubt. I hear the S3 particularly is a slow camera when it comes to RAW. I'm shooting the Mark II N with which I can get off about 22 RAW images before my buffer slows me down (compared to about 48 JPEG). That's pretty good though, I'm loving that transition from the 20D (which had a RAW buffer of about 6-9 shots before you would fill your buffer). I definetly shoot in bursts, and while you can't just go nuts when shooting RAW (because you'll fill your buffer pretty quick), it's not a problem if you have a camera that can handle it and you know in the back of your mind how many images you have in your buffer. It's really not too bad.

I can get about 100 per gig on a card. When I made the transition to RAW I bought about 24 gigs of 2 gig cards. It's been a wonderful investment and I've never regretted it. (that's with an 8.2 megapixel camera by the way)

Let me know if you have any other questions. I'll answer 'em in the morning.

Off to bed....

With JPG, I just run auto levels via image processor. So I don't open ANY files up. Works pretty good, I only have to go back and change less than 10% of what auto levels does. And sometimes even if auto levels is wierd I just turn it b/w.

Or if you don't like that you can run a cutom curves via jpg and do the same thing you are talking about w/ RAW.

That is what is holding me back from RAW, workflow. I can get an entire wedding done w/ 1500 images done in one day using bridge. Hard to give that up w/ a 11 mo old baby.


~Alisha

That is what I pretty much do as well and the 10% is about right. I also do some other things like sharpen a bit and if they are taken at high ISO, I include a Noise Ninja step. But it is all automated via an action.

But I have taken a vow to try RAW and see how I like it. Just need to work up the guts to do it!

Yup, me and you are in the same boat jim! lol!
~Alisha

The JPEG -vs- RAW subject is interesting but the facts are...

RAW is unquestionable higher quality than JPEG - 12bit -vs- 8bit Your throwing away 1/3 of your image quality when shooting in JPEG ( and this is before compression which throws more away).

The below flowchart I think is worth a thousand words. From this article http://www.photo.net/learn/raw/



Now. With that said.... In reality if the exposure is dead-on most people want be able to see the difference with the final print. Also, if shooting in JPEG is working for the photographer and his customers then I understand the argument of sticking with JPEG.

I will throw out this tidbit however...

Since the RAW conversion process is based on "current" software processing capabilities.... It's safe to assume that in 5-10 years technology may allow us to tweak even more quality out of the RAW data.

In the end I'm all about options. The more I have the better. Nothing gives you more options than RAW.

Options do however sometimes come at a price.

Just my 2 cents. For what it's worth.

This is a really good article - thanks for posting!

I shoot RAW because my professor told me to! But I've really come to love it and since I never shot just jpg the workflow is what I'm used to. The way he described it to us was that you are basically throwing away information when you record only jpg.

Probably it's pretty easy to get comparable results if you tweak and enlarge a jpg and raw file of the same image. But if it's possible to be able to do more with the raw data, or do it better, I'm hedging my bets and sticking with that. I also just love working with raw images in the bridge.

I also liked your point that you never know what s/w is coming down the line, and maybe in the future having that raw data will enable you to do even more.

-Dawn

wow thanks! I had no idea I was waking up to all this info this morning!

David, I think we were GF classmates....

This delmina on weather or not to change to RAW is harder for me than it was to go from film to digital!

Love that chart! How can a JPEG shooter argue with that when you're talking about options and difference in quality (if you want to be technical about it)!

I have to clarify one thing... Chris, you mentioned that Colon shoots RAW, and actually, he doesn't. I saw some of the images from the wedding that he shot with Dane (in unedited form) and was absolutely blown away!!! His ability to nail white balance and exposure was incredible!!! So, like you and others have said, if you can nail it right to start with, then don't worry about switching!

The Fuji S3 is known for being a slow camera (I played with one the other day and was amazed at how slow it was!), and I'm sure that if you were to pick up a new Nikon or Canon camera, you wouldn't want to go back for the sake of speed!!! So it's understandable why you don't want to shoot RAW with the S3. If I understand right, Fuji's RAW processing software isn't real efficient either.

On the flip side, shooting RAW with a Nikon or Canon and being able to batch process them in the Bridge can be a pretty incredible experience! You can go with an automated system like DJ does and spend very little time, or if you want extra control over images, you can do pretty much anything to an image and then apply those same settings to as many images as you want... in seconds!!! As Chris said, you can't do anything like that with JPEG images!!!

I'd be curious to hear how long it takes you to edit a thousand JPEGs!

You can do the same thing to JPG images. I must not understand you correctly.
You can pretty much do anything to an image then apply those same settings to as many images you want for JPG, via image processor. You just color flag the ones you want and run the image processor (or create a custom curves action/batch) and bam in seconds you got the same effects. I don't understand why you say you can't do anything like that w/ JPEG images. You do not have to open every JPG image.

With this method it only takes me maybe a few hours to edit a thousand JPEGs.
That was my whole debate, I would swtich but I"m scared to let go of my JPG workflow that I have nailed down.
~Alisha

Thanks!!!

For me my workflow is pretty basic.... drop the images into the wedding folder (we do this during dinner so the only ones I have left are 3-5 cards from the reception).... combine in an edit folder (30 minutes), edit the event down to the best 600-1000 (about 1-2 hours depending on how much I want to edit it down), then load them into bullzeye (less than 2 hours for 1000 images) With bullzeye I go image by image and adjust the color for white and for skin tone.

Then I ftp to pictage...... So roughly 5 hours to get it ready to go online.... most weeks its FTPing Monday morning after the wedding.

Yes Alisha, but the question is, "is the boat sinking?"

Hey Chris, that was an excellent description of why you shoot RAW...you've got me thinking. I would probably shoot RAW more often if there weren't some logistical problems that hamper the RAW process for me. The main issue is that I shoot with a Fuji S2. Its slow with RAW files. Also the RAW files are about 13megs each! Canon and Nikon seem to somehow compress their RAW files a bit better from what I understand. I would have to invest in a whole slew of new CF cards to be able to store that amount of data. I haven't yet upgraded to CS2 so I haven't experienced Bridge yet. Nathan has shown me a little bit of it and it certainly looks very cool.

If it weren't for other priorities in my budget right now, RAW would probably be the way to go. It sucks that so many things come down to that.

I do switch to RAW occasionaly if I feel like a shot is coming up that I can't nail as far as exposure. I also occasionaly shoot smaller sessions...especially outdoor bridal sessions...completely in RAW if its a day that I am struggling nailing exposures....ever have those days?

My JPEG workflow is similar to Alisha. I use ACDsee to batch edit JPEGs through the thumbnail view. Your RAW workflow sounds very similar to my JPEG workflow actually. The only thing about adjusting exposure with JPEG is the loss of tonal information...especially with extreme adjustments. RAW would make that almost a non issue.

I don't have any problem understanding why some of the top photographers shoot RAW. Its certainly the safest and most archival way to shoot. For my particular situation however, JPEG just makes better sense.

How do I miss awesome discussion like these? I am so late on this! Actually, I was just talking to Garrett about this just last week and I asked him what he thought about RAW. I got curious after Aperture came out. We are JPEG'ers.
Hmm...have you got me convinced to switch?? But then I'm not the one doing the editing...I'll just have to let him read this...maybe he'll even post...or even convert!


Great points!

He does NOW! DJ just e-mailed me a few weeks ago and told me he convinced Colon to start shooting RAW! How funny is THAT?!

So....I'll just put it this way....according to DJ Colon is shooting RAW now.

How cool that we have choices. Good choices. I do like the comment that in the future the RAW may give you more flexability as formats change. Good point. I think the bottom line here is that if you find a workflow that works for you go for it but always be on the look out for things to make it better.

I did learn my settings and work flow from Gary Fong and it works. He spended a lot of time figuring things out and everything I tried worked and sped my work flow up.

I am going to buy Apple's Aperature when it comes out because I think it will sheed up my work flow even more. It may also tempt me to dive into the world of RAW but I will start out using it for JPGS.