Reasons to Shoot in JPEG instead of RAW 

I agree with you Steve, that could be a good vlog topic in the future, asking the question, Is Photoshop killing photography?

@@DavidPattonPhotography Of course PS it's doing that

@@DavidPattonPhotography The Brownie camera certainly didn't kill photography, so no. Having said that, PS will certainly redefine "Fine Art Photography" downwards (again) and that's a shame, because there are gifted people ut there who're trying really hard to do good work.

Totally agree! Todays cameras are little computers and we can set a myriad of settings to help the photo!! LEARN how to use your 3500 dollar camera!!

Irishkilt67 thanks for stopping by the channel, I think people taking sides in JPEG vs RAW is just silly with so many not willing to accept there could be a place for both.

The I shoot raw cult

Most people that shoot raw tinker with basic adjustments so they may as well shoot jpeg anyway.

I wouldn’t suggest anyone change what is working for them, what I would say is there is a place for both raw and jpeg, I’ve used both through the years, it just depended on what was needed at the time, I don’t think there is a one size fits all but when doing 4 to 6 assignments a day and on deadline as a press photographer, jpeg is how I roll 😆

Lol, yes there are trade offs for most things in photography, as you know, if you know what you are doing, a lot can be done with a jpeg file, no matter what fuzz top says 😂 When I first started looking at photography content on RU-vid after leaving journalism, I was shocked that there was even a debate about RAW vs jpeg, I always shot RAW for my personal nature photography work but that wasn’t even an option in my professional field of photography back then, we didn’t have the time to use RAW, nor did we have the space to archive all those images in RAW, sure we gave up some image quality but to a photojournalist, speed is as important if not more important when working on very tight deadlines. Something else I notice when coming to RU-vid was there didn’t seem to be many real working pros making photography content, I guess the pros where too busy working on photography assignments to make RU-vid videos 😂 Thanks for sharing your experience Brent!

My first digital camera ( a Canon point and shoot) didn't even have the option! Your choice was either TIFF or JPG! My 1st DSLR (a Pentax) had RAW, but I didn't use it because I wasn't sure what it was. By the time I switched to Canon, I had learned about it, as the "Grand Poobah" George Lepp had suggested it! (so then it was officially OK!) I think I had LR 1.2 by that time and started playing around with RAW. I could tell it was better, but not by much. All was fine until I got a new camera and couldn't use RAW because of the proprietary aspect. "You mean I have to update my software every time I get a new camera?!?!?!!!" That's when I really fell out of love with RAW. Short romance! RAW and I are still friends and still collaborate on projects, but JPG is my true friend. Always there - always reliable - always readable. Today I view the formats as what they are - tools to get the job done. When I know the shooting conditions are going to warrant it, I shoot RAW or both. (Eagles in flight come to mind - dark bodies, white heads - moving in front of dark trees and washed-out winter skies and then swooping down in front of water surfaces. - That's the perfect case for RAW!). But like you, I found the arguments and heated debates about it surprising. Can you imagine people in the film days arguing over print film vs slide film?! It's really all about application, work flow, and as I mentioned above, compatibility. The photo lab I worked at was not a custom lab. It was a lab that produced one thing only - youth sports photography. Our clients (mostly our franchises or privately owned photographers shooting the same) were instructed to send only JPG. That's what we worked with, that's what we stored. It was fully compatible. Occasionally we'd get some RAW images because someone forgot to set their camera back to jpg after using it for personal stuff. And we would certainly encourage photographers to shoot both if they could, in case of really bad exposure. As for my own work, I shoot both. My LR is not up to date, and I'm not really in a place where I feel I need (or can afford) an update. It's a hassle. So when I shoot RAW with my R5, I have to send it through Canon's RAW converter and then on to LR (usually as a TIFF). I watched those RU-vid videos with "fuzz top" vs "yuppy-boy", and the back and forth. To their credit, I think both of them made and defended their points well. I think both of them are right in their own way, but unfortunately, the on-screen personalities get in the way of the facts. I think it's important for professionals who want to give advice to leave it at just that - advice. I always thought Martha Stewart is pretty good in that she always says, "What I like to do is..." and this leaves it open to you as to if you want to do it that way. It's not "Do it THIS WAY or you're a complete LOSER amateur!"

Fuzz top vs yuppy-boy! Best line in a comment post ever! 😂

Interesting, I shot exclusively jpegs for probably 20 years as a staff photographer for a daily newspaper and never really had that problem. I'm not sure what camera you use so it might be different for you, all of my experience shooting jpeg is with Nikon cameras. My approach is to expose for the highlights and bring up the dark areas in post. A quick way I would do that in Photoshop while working at the paper was to take a snapshot of the image before I lightened it, then lighten the image which of course would blow out the highlights, then use a brush to put the highlights back to where I wanted them. That's just a quick and dirty way because I needed to work fast, there are a lot of ways to get the same result. I always set my camera up to a neutral or flat setting in jpeg, low to no sharping and a wide-gamut RGB color space like Adobe RGB. Jpeg files will hold up to some editing if exposed correctly and if the scene isn't too extreme when it comes to dynamic range, but Raw will always give you more room to edit an image. Even then you still have to be careful not to push it too far or you will still have issues with noise. Raw will always have more information to work with, so if you have the time its probably to the best way to go for many people, but if time is short and you are on a tight deadline, the jpeg file is what many news and sports photographers are working with. It really doesn't matter if you shoot Raw or jpeg, what matters most is you are getting what you want out of your images. Have a great day!

Yes Del, I believe there a significant difference, JPG fine uses the least amount of compression and will give you the best quality jpg file.

@@DavidPattonPhotography Okay, I'll start experimenting with fine then. Thanks for the info!

Interesting that sRGB is mandatory, now days I mostly shoot RAW and jpg to second card for backup, so I guess it doesn't really matter much which I use, I still keep my camera color profile set to Adobe RGB because I might want a wider color gamut, old habit, I should probably just set my camera to sRGB.

Yep Michael, I agree, there is no reason why we can't shoot both, just do what works for you.

Luckily, the D810 isn't considered a great choice for news photography but at the size, your prints are printed in the paper and online, the difference will not be noticed by anyone unless you were to do a side by side comparison. Shooting raw wasn't an option in my photojournalism career, the files are just too big to archive and slow to load on old computers, which is the point of the video, there are times where shooting jpeg makes sense. Now that I have left that kind of work I shoot RAW with jpeg as backups. I don't think Nikon has ever been known for great jpegs :)

Joel Tunnah Their liberal colors come out. It's called being triggered.

I shoot what I what format I chose , I have 30 years experience in photography and my old school ways don't matter to these new so called pro's

All that matters is you are happy with the images you are making, whether it be RAW or JPEG, there is no one right way, only what works best for you and your needs!

It sounds like you have a good grasp of what you want out of your photography, enjoy your time out with your camera Leland, otherwise, as you say what’s the point. :)

For sure Robert, it seems any job photography related has changed a lot over the years, I imagine even just leaving photojournalism 4 years ago there has been a lot change, unfortunately its not always for the best.