I've always shot RAW+jpeg, mostly because I don't do alot of editing, usially I just use the iamges from my camera, but on the occasions I feel creative I always have the RAW to mess with if the mood strikes.
@@sdspeedy1probably the A7RIV file sizes. 61MP jpegs can be around 30-40MB. I have the A7RIV and have to compress the jpegs even more for posting online. The raw files are on another level, around 1GB of data, which is why I've been thinking of shooting compressed raw + jpeg instead of raw + jpeg. 😂 I still need to do more research on compressed raw vs raw though.
I think you missed a video there.. In one of the videos, James explains how you can get the presets and it's this video: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-8y_ICvrKElY.html 😊
Even as a novice photographer I was highly recommended to shoot raw based on, I guess, the desires of the person who was teaching me about cameras; however, after watching his video juxtaposing a raw and jpeg together in the same frame on a good computer monitor, I really couldn't differentiate the image quality advantage in the raw, even after post-fixing, that much. I think it best to adopt the idea of shooting raw and jpeg at the same time. If the jpeg appears pleasing and does not need touch ups, then go with what's going to save you time. I like the idea of shooting in both formats and believe I will do this for a while.
Editing raw is just better for editing. Say you took a picture of some trees. Under the trees are super dark, but the leaves are almost white from reflecting the sun. Raw would let you edit the dark area and make it visible without turning it into a blob. And it would let you bring back some of the color in the leaves. But you are correct if the photo looks nice in jpeg just use the Jpeg and be done with it.
There are cases where raw is more useful. For example, I'm a black and white photographer. If I want to change how colors are represented, I can carry around color filters and fiddle with them, dodge and burn the jpg or adjust sliders on the raw black and white conversion. The raw option is easiest so I shoot raw+jpg for the times I need it
You know when you have come full circle when after spending ages editing your raw file, the original jpeg looks better. The algorithms that camera manufactureres use these days are so good that most of the time I can get what I like by just adjusting the saturation and contrast just a bit and its done. In fact, I have an old Canon G6 and the jpegs are so good in normal light, I hardly change them.
@@kencur9690 99% of the people that use a camera are not real photographers and don't need to shoot raw for one simple reason, they don't know how to edit the photos.
@@ademosthenes4911 and then there's that 0.5% who are real photographers and actually take a good photo to begin with, using old school, traditional principles. You know, the ones who actually understand how light works and how to capture a moment, instead of heavily relying on sliding some bars to achieve something similar.
Honestly, get whatever software your camera brand is and use their raw converter if you need to, then you can have it do all the same voodoo profiles as in camera, but with any extra tweaks. But still shoot for good jpegs so you dont have to edit.
Given how good in-camera processing is nowadays, to me, working with RAW files is just so much like hard work. Photoshop can give me just about all I want, if I need to process a JPEG. On top of that, inevitably, unless I'm going for some weird effect instead of recording reality, my processed RAW file tend to look just like my JPEG.
I unfortunately always found those profiles to be way off for my Nikon cameras. Last year I switched to Fuji and CaptureOne and their profile equivalents are almost identical to the cameras which has saved so much time getting to that starting point.
GREAT VIDEO! I shoot JPEGS 90 percent of the time and edit in Lightroom..RAW files take up too much space on the memory card and my computer! Keep up the great work!
Once again, a fresh perspective that you don't hear all that much! Good job mate! I'm not part of the "in-camera" cult or anything, but I like shooting JPG+RAW as somewhat of a nerdy challenge to myself; I found that by trying to get the shot I want in the JPG as sort of a goal to achieve, I slowed down my shooting and started taking more care in composition, light, etc.
I shoot in Jpeg for exactly the reason you said regarding its like shooting with film. If I shot in RAW I would just take lots and lots of photos knowing that I'd be selecting the best and then editing it. Shooting in Jpeg makes me take my time with each shot. I do counterbalance (or atleast try) the fact i'm shooting in jpeg by using my camera in completely manual mode and manual focus. My photos feel much more personal when I do it this way.
I guess I'm a bit lazy, so I shoot jpeg. When I have edited a RAW image it too often comes out looking a bit ' artificial ' . I know, if I just spent another 8 or 10 months at it I'd get better - like I said I'm a bit lazy. I still do editing of my j-pegs - which can / do improve them & is fairly quick. Finally there are a # of features that my Panasonic Fz 2500 has - like Hand Held Night Shot, where 5 images are rapidly taken at a higher ISO & Shutter Speed, then combined into one image & they turn out very detailed & sharp - which cannot be done in RAW. i zoom - which doubles the zoom reach with no lose of image quality - but can only work in j peg. 4 K photo modes - j peg only. I guess I should do RAW & j peg now so that when I'm old & can't physically get out to take photos, I'l then at least have the RAW duplicates that I can edit while I sip my de-caff tea. Thanks for your video
I have been using digital for 21 years and have yet to take a RAW image...... I don’t own any edit program on my computer. I wouldn’t know the first thing about how to edit something because computers are impossible for us senior citizens to comprehend. 😢. Whatever comes out of the camera is my finished product.
In my opinion jpgs look so good I've been unable to edit the RAW image and make it better. It's not that I can't edit a jpg image, just not as much. But as you said RAW may actually allow too much editing. One of the most common positive comments about RAW is pulling things out of the shadows. But it seems to me that if things are in the shadows, perhaps they should be dark! I've tried editing RAW quite a few times and always revert to jpg. At most I set the camera to jpg+RAW in case there is an image or two out of 500 that I may want to spend more time on. Even then the jpg usually looks pretty darn good.
I only shoot jpeg on the basis that I like use my skill taking the picture. Plus the only editing I do is cropping. If I don't like my results I try to learn from them for next time.
Pretty unpopular but I only shoot jpeg, I already feel that I can do what I want. I've shot raw for some time but the raw from my fuji is good enough and the time lost in files management and in editing and stuff make it not worth it for me. I only do it in low light nowadays
I spend less than 3 minutes at editing any photo. If it takes more time to change colors, tweak here and there, I consider it as a failure and just go take a new one. Anyway, 95% of commercial photos don't look anything even close to reality, so it doesn't really matter unless you severely over processed it.
shooting raw is safer. in case you fuck up the exposure. sometime if i'm working on something that don't require me to rush for deadline, i will do as much correction in raw and edit in jpeg.
im too lazy to edit photos so i just do the work (composition and exposure) before taking the picture and shoot jpegs so its easy to post to insta or whatever (also it means each photo is only like 5 MB)
@Maëlick Claes - That is certainly a good idea, but me, I'd rather have copies of my originals, perhaps on a thumb drive or external hard drive (or the cloud), just in case in the midst of me working on my computer, the hardware commits suicide or the equivalent. Then I'll think, "Well, at least I still have the pictures (and a lot of other stuff) backed up safe!" Storage is becoming cheaper all the time, backing up is always important. 😊
I'm sure Lightroom and other similar software programs are perfect, but what happens if someone steals your computer or your motherboard or internal storage fail, and everything that was on it that was not backed up elsewhere is no longer available to you? It's not a matter of the software -- it's the _security._ That's all I'm advising.
Basically if you don't plan on doing a ton of editing, shoot jpeg. If you plan on doing a ton of editing like bringing back a ton of shadows or highlights, etc., shoot raw.
I shoot RAW and jpeg. I’m not the best at photo editing, especially skin colors. Sometimes I just can’t get a raw file right and the jpeg offers a better starting point. Great advice all around!
I've actually thought about this before! Sometimes I sit for ages trying to perfect my photo in Lightroom, only to come back to it and realising the colors are waaaay to saturated. A technique I've been using goes like this: no matter how cool an effect might look like in Lightroom, turn down the effect at least 20% of what you find yourself satisfied with. If you still think the effect is too weak after a while, you might consider cranking it up again.
I have learned the same thing. I tend to use a lot of effects on my photos and I find if I go too far on any single one, the final image will end up looking pushed too far. Now I dial the effect to where I like it then dial it back slightly before applying it. In the end the subtle changes add up to a much more pleasing final image.
My brain will get used to the extra saturation I made in one picture then the next picture I wil add even more saturation. Now I try to limit how long I edit my photos so my brain won’t adjust to the added saturation.,
Terrific advice James, as always, so generously given and always with a good helping of humour which is always appreciated. Hope 2020 is a fantastic year for you both. Best wishes, David
I think the processing the camera does should be distinguished from the file format JPG. The file format itself does not do the processing but the camera itself, and it depends on the camera (and its firmware) how well the processing is done. Jpeg just takes the processed image and reduces the size by throwing away some data less essential to viewing the image (but is not optimal to edit).
I shoot raw and jpeg simultaneously; mostly for expediency (sports). If the photo is needed urgently and the jpeg is reasonably exposed it's ready to go out the door.
Hi James: until recently I have always shot on a Canon 5d and 6d and would always shoot RAW for the sake of quality. I've just moved over to a Sony A7iii and have to say that the large (24 mp) Xtra Fine jpegs are so good that I will inevitably use these rather than RAW which I would keep as a backup for difficult subjects. It is becoming increasingly difficult to tell the difference between RAW and JPEG files when you have such a good sensor. How is your Lumix?
I think that you don`t have a clue of the difference between raw or jpg. See, raw is just the sensor readout, it may or may not be to your liking but it`s just an impression of what the sensor sees. Adjusting all the knobs in lightroom will show you what REAL info, is registered by the sensor. The jpg is a prefab output according to your liking based on the output of the sensor.
I like to make everything right with exposure out of the camera and dont want to edit my pictures so much afterwards, so for me JPG is better And you can do so much with JPG's in edding, for me that is more than enough
I nearly always shoot JPEG and RAW simultaneously, and also nearly always delete the RAW file directly after I have saved the JPEG on my harddrive and looked at it, because I am nearly always more than happy with the JPEG and am hard pressed to create something that much better on my computer, that the result can justify the time I've invested in that. Only in very, very rare cases I open the RAW file to try to correct an error I made when I shot the photo, because the composition or the theme is good enough to try to safe it. The reason for that is that I startet with photography some 50 years ago, when one only had very limited possibilities to change something in a photo after the trigger was pushed. I learned to be as perfect as possible at the time I press the trigger because of that, and I continued to that ever since. The capabilities of the computers and their software integrated in today's cameras are that good, it is nearly impossible to beat them when the photo itself had no technical deficits which are that far out of range, that a camera computer cannot deal with them properly. Editing RAW is a way to repair results of sloppy photographing. If the photographer is technically excellent, modern camera computers are better then most people to create a photo out of data. The camera computer cannot compose a picture, but it can compile good colors, lights and shadows and correct lens and sensor weaknesses, and only very rarely I can do it noticeably better than the computer. Not mentioning the time I'd need for that.
Rabert's World You are right, Sir! It's like this: The main builder of great photography is not the tech (camera, post-processing software, lens, medium, etc.), those are all just "facilitators": The real driver is the person behind the camera. Take a look at what limited hardware and lack of software Ansel Adams, Henri cartier-Bresson and so many others had to deal with... The photographer makes the photograph.
we all have our opinions about file formats to use - as someone who equally has been shooting for a decent period of time, I look at it this way. The file coming out of your camera is only half done and I want to decide what I want to do to it not some camera algorithm. I kind of appreciate the idea of Ansel Adams: the file is the score, the final Tiff is the performance. And I want my score to have as much information as possible.
Almost what I do. I just connect my camera to my phone (Note 8) and copy the folder to it so I can check really fast every JPEG and start deleting all what is really bad with their raw copy while keeping those really nice JPEGs and deleting their raw copies. And at the end I leave alone those raw from the best of the best photos and or those I know I need to correct because of my bad job as a photographer hahaha.
I've always shot both RAW and Jpeg. I like to change my aspect ratio to suit the subject and if shooting b&w images I like to see the image in b&w as I shoot. I always process my images later when I'm not as excited about a trip or the images and the Jpeg having all the aspect crop and other data helps to remind me what I was thinking when I took the image.
So you have a JPG as a reference file along with the RAW file. What’s the point? Make the RAW image the same as the JPG image. Or maybe a bit different. Your finished RAW image will be rendered as a JPG anyway. So why bother? For most of those who have no clue about how the JPG algorithm works here’s a video that does a deep dive into the JPG. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Kv1Hiv3ox8I.htmlsi=ZphPsm1apCyOYXR7
@@JamesPopsysPhoto Throat-sing instead of talking. If that's been done, then we've reached our full potential and nothing else matters anyways. Happy 2020 and hope your vision is/stays 20-20 :D
Good one. I used to do something quite similar, shooting RAW+JPEG and having the JPEG file as reference as you've shown. But at some point I noticed that on some cameras (Canon in my case) there's an embedded JPEG baked into the RAW file as well, and if you open the RAW file in an image viewer that's what you'll be seeing, so unless you really want the JPEG as a quick backup publishing solution (which is another legit usage sometimes), you might as well shoot in RAW only. Happy new year :)
I started out with Jpeg, and to be honest I did'n know what I was doing back then, although I did'n mind about my photos that much because what I would do back then was to take as many photo as I could, select the images I need, then I would later edit and upload those edited Jpeg files to social media, and I continued that for nearly 2 years until I went completely to RAW. It was rather fun when I started out like that because I truly enjoyed what I had and what I could do.
I always shoot raw and jpeg. I don't use light room though so I keep the jpeg open in another viewer or I use the jpeg to locate a raw file that is good for Luminar 4 and go from there. Good video though. I always learn something from them which is a good thing.
I am shooting with Fuji, a brand that is widely considered to provide very good jpegs. Even though I don‘t see any point in shooting jpegs since good raw converters like Lightroom cc or C1 provide presets (‚film simulations‘) that come very close to Fuji‘s own presets. So when editing the raw ( if necessary) I am starting already with an image that looks almost exactly like the jpeg. So why bothering about jpeg?
Great video, you made a great point and I'm also one of those people that get sucked into the photos too much. I normally have to wait till the next day to finalize my edits
I always ran out of storage that's why I shoot with jpegs. But whenever I can I shoot raw+jpeg and then I keep some of the raw files at least the ones I really like. I use out dated tech raw files is such a pain to work with. Anyway Happy New Year 🇵🇭
i came to realise that my "workflow" is really relaxing when i'm just shooting my pictures, sending a few of them to my phone, quick edit in snapseed and then instagram or flickr or whatever i wanna do with it. and i'm always happy with the results, and then some months later i'm using the raw in capture one, spend two hours on the same pic , stressing me out, and compare it to the old one made with snapseed and i like it better !
This seems like a workaround. I usually tend to spend a lot of time editing my photos to the point they don't look anything like the original (which is the look I'm going for). Instead of shooting jpegs though you can hit the '\' key to see the before and after of the edit. This saves some time in the edit.
I think what he is saying is the jpeg is processed and looks real so keep that as a reference- before and after would show you the unprocessed raw file
nah. just another one of those controversial yt topics to generate clicks tbh. i never shot jpg and never will be. there simply is absolutely zero reason to. raw files are just straight up better and more flexible in every single way, that i can transform into exactly the image i want it to be. ''but duh then i have to edit every single photo'' ... so... what? you know whats the answer to this? its pretty simple. quality over quantity. i simply wont go out, take 1000 photos and edit lke 800 of them. in fact 800 of them probably go straight to the recycle bin instead. if i take 100 photos, i usually edit like 1 oder maybe 2 out of those because i only select the few very best photos of them and delete everything else. if i take a trip somewhere to take some photos and i take like 1000 photos, i ll probably end up editing 10 of those and then even narrow it down further and select the 5 best of those. that way i end up only having photos i actually want to print and hang on my wall instead of hundreds of mediocre photos you dont even care about anymore in a year. when i go out, i dont take 1000 photos. i take 1000 potential photos that afterwards go to some sort of casting show on my laptop where only the very best photos continue to the next round.
I always shoot RAW and JPEG, backup the files onto a hard drive (so I have every file on hard drive and backup hard drive). Sometimes the JPEG file is very good already and I don't have to edit the RAW. Then I only delete the RAW files from the SD cards and keep every card that is full. So I have many SD cards full of JPEGs with date on the card just in case ...
In short, start with an artistic decision: you want snapshots of higher quality than your smartphone. A form of photorealism that is in the range of what the "profiles" in the camera can do. If you do portraits, groups, parties, you may want to do JPEG + raw so as to be able to share the JPEG shots with people immediately. With better cameras, the algorithm used to generate the JPEG summary from the raw shot is usually better than from simpler devices, including smartphones. JPEG quality can be influenced a lot by selecting the least compression or the highest quality. Use an electronic viewfinder set so as to show the ultimate exposure, so you can make corrections based on what you see there. Use camera profiles in order to influence the JPEG conversion and other qualities to your taste. Experiment with setting the camera to manual when you make a series of shots in the same circumstances (not for flash). (Make a couple tests shots in different directions, window in background or not, different light-dark relation frames.) This helps getting shots where people's skin tones are the same in all shots and perceived natural. (Manual includes white balance.) If the camera can do JPEG + raw, you can still save the raw shots and see if you can improve on the camera's JPEGs, or make artistically motivated changes: cropping, perspective, color changes, saturation or desaturation, create HDR-feel images, composites, filters, layers, etc.
RAW+JPEG, that's OK. But the question is what presets have to set to process (in the machine...) JPEG image. Standard, Neutral? Not Vivid. When I see the result on the little LCD-screen, the image is deceptive, can't show the over- or underexposure.
"Happy new year! It's 2020!" It's like watching a slow motion train wreck. Brutal! Great tip to use a JPEG as a reference! Can't believe I haven't done that.
This seems like BS to me. Just use the minimal compression of JPG and there is very little difference between that and RAW, yet the filesize should be around 1/4th the size of RAW. In fact, why not use lossless compression and shrink a typical image file by a factor of 2? For example, a 2 MB RAW image file should be around 1 MB losslessly compressed (on average).
Well, it maybe not 2020 anymore, but still relevant! I shoot jpeg and raw, but it was more of a backup in case I stuff the raw up. Haven't been editing very long.... so now I have it tip on what the jpegs might b good for. Thanks.... 👍
Happy new year 2020! Zero hopes and expectations for the video..oh the irony..what a wonderful year it’s been. (And I bet absolutely no one else has mentioned this in the comments)
I have often thought about shooting RAW plus jpeg then I look at my jpeg camera settings (G9) and think “should I tweak saturation settings etc or just stick to default neutral settings.” I suppose starting with everything set to zero is the best starting point. Good info.
How some really decent concepts can be mixed with equal amounts of garbage is beyond me. 1)If you are shooting digital there is nothing "real" about it. Its all based on a handful of people that judged images while the camera firmware was written. 2)A photographer takes photos, he/she does not necessarily want or have to be the equivalent of a darkroom tech to be a photographer. 3)Get a second monitor. My bet is 98% of people watching and reading have never calibrated their monitor much less selected their monitor for color fidelity (they are expensive). If its an image that will remain a digital image, any hope of actually having any control over what it will look like on anyone else's viewing experience is a joke. Color space, anyone? How many of you even know what color temperature your monitor is configured for? Fact, the only way an image will look the same to multiple people is if it is printed and then viewed under identical lighting conditions. Editing a photo in a darkened room is just not realistic, nor is the viewing experience for anything other than editing at all satisfactory to most everyone. You have to turn the brightness very, very low, carefully adjust gamma, and then balance color utilizing some type of spectrophotometer and inputting color profiles for your OS and software (inputting ICC profiles) to match those of the camera. If 200 of the 35K viewers of this video even know how to do this, I'll be surprised. Oh, and let's not forget you also need to normalize and calibrate your print engine and input the same profile to the RIP. Raise your hands if you still have the CD that came with your monitor with all the ICC and ICM files. What? No takers? Most likely 90+% of people reading still have their monitor brightness maxed out and color temp set to 6500 (out of the box default for most monitors). Last point, when you are viewing a monitor you are viewing in RGB, this is the color space for transmitted light (light shining directly from a source). The rest of the world is CMYK (reflected light) and nary the two shall meet. Physics dictates that CMYK will never, ever be as bright as RGB so just chuck that idea of "real" right out the old window.
Nice idea, shall definitely give that a try. Have shot raw+jpeg for a while already, but more because for some straight forward shots the jpeg version is good enough (or as good as my LR skills could produce), so might as well use them and focus time on those few shots that genuinely need the options available from the raw file.
Why are we still even talking about this in this day and age? JPEG is a *LOSSY* format. always has been and always will be. It's specifically designed to be that. You are losing critical parts of your image data. If your RAW files came out looking worse that your JPEG, then you suck at processing and need to practice. It's just that simple.
Really engrossing video James...I’ve forgotten what I have just eaten, but there is a cushion missing from the settee. Would like to see Emily in Jurassic park, so could you please photoshop a dinosaur in the picture..or is it more difficult with a jpeg? Happy New Year to you both and look forward to finding more great videos from you in 2020.
I shoot Raw on my Olympus E-M1 Mkii and then import the images, cull the obviously rubbish the following day and then use Olympus Workspace to do a batch conversion to jpg. That way I get the benefit of having the jpg as it would have looked SOOC but only of the images that I actually think are worth (considering) keeping. It also means I can set the camera to copy the raw's to both cards just in case one card fails.
I gotta tell ya, digital cameras do just fine converting jpegs these days. Think about how massive these high resolution jpegs are they render for us!!! They contain far more information than their predecessors, and certainly more than enough to give you total editorial control in post. Marry that to your knowledge in setting your shot up to begin with, and, really, if you did everything right before you pushed the shutter button, you shouldn't have too far to go anyway! Given the power modern graphic software has over your image's final appearance, RAW images are clung to needlessly. But, I'm a fine artist, with 18 years in graphics and advertising, what do I know? If Ansel Adams had the control over his images that modern technologies offer us, he'd laugh at the fools clinging to RAW. I know I am.
I wanted to finally test this theory of RAW and JPEG and I used my Sony HX99 to shoot a typical home photo. It takes ONE image but you see TWO files: One is RAW and the other is JPEG 1. RAW file size was 18,645KB 2. JPEG was taking up 8,728KB Clearly the JPEG was slightly more than 2.13X smaller which is always a welcome. Which one was clearer? JPEG was! There some items of text file in a DVD cabinet. I could read the words "Panasonic" in JPEG format but NOT in RAW which was very surprising to me! Also, Alex Monitor was above and I could make out the words displayed on JPEG but NOT in RAW. How good is that! Switching between JPEG and RAW using ACDSEE, I would tell that the JPEG had won as a moved between RAW and JPEG with a wheelhouse one rotation. Now I know someone will write a comment like what about when you process etc. But in one simple terms, JPEG image had less noise, was sharper and smaller in file size. I am now 99% convinced that JPEG is way forward. If anyone wishes to try the SAME technique and has a Digital Camera (mines a Sony HX99) please try the same experiment and let me know which one you prefect.
I'd caveat that black and white photographers should probably always shoot raw+jpeg. I mostly just dodge and burn the jpegs but sometimes emulating a color filter is nice and the raw file makes that extremely easy
