Don’t worry I’m not asking the same age old question of “which is best”. I understand and appreciate that raw at 14 or 16bit is way more data than a jpeg at only 8bit. But when you’ve finished editing a raw file and you convert to jpeg surely you “lose” all the same data that you would have if you’d started with a jpeg. So given that if you want to share or print an image you have to use jpeg (or similar) you seem to lose all the benefits of starting with raw. Am I missing something or what?
Would you rather edit with 8 bits of data, or edit with 14 bits of data?
Bill Jurasz
Austin Texas
Clearly the science says 14bit but once you’ve spent hours? carefully editing the image you then squish it all up again in a jpeg - just seems that you end up at the same result as if starting from a jpeg. I understand that this logic really only applies to images that are basically correctly exposed and so edits like straightening and cropping don’t have as much impact as WB or exposure edits. Just seems futile in some part.
Editing from a RAW file gives you the complete sensor data to select from.
Highlights, shadow detail , full color space. If you start from a jpeg you are restricted to a pre determined compression that may or may not fit your interpretation of your image and you have no way to recover the sensor data after the jpeg compression.
If you start with a RAW file you can always go back in subseqent edit sessions and work with the original full data from the master file. Once you export, as you note, the full data set is lost in that version alone.
John Waugh, Photographic Images • Apple Certified Trainer• Sport Action Lifestyle Photography
Understand your comments. Maybe I’m just having a hard time accepting the loss of all that hard work each conversion to jpeg.
I don’t understand your feeling you have lost anything.
The version retained within aperture still has all of the data available from the RAW master.
Only your exported file is a converted jpeg and I assume you have set other export parameters ( size, resolution, file name, etc.) that are specific to that export.
You haven’t lost any hard work. Thats the beauty of non destructive editing and maintaining a managed library in Aperture
John Waugh, Photographic Images • Apple Certified Trainer• Sport Action Lifestyle Photography
I appreciate that every time go back to aperture I see it all again it’s just the concept of the jpeg file being the lowest common denominator. So in Aperture you can see all the detail in clouds say but surely all that detail is “lost” when you output the jpeg. So anyone looking at your image outside of aperture will only see the squished jpeg.
Have you made a print to see how much is “lost” in the detail of those clouds? Do you think your monitor is capable of expressing that much more detail and contrast and color spectrum than a printed page? When you look at that picture on a window of your computer screen you are probably seeing only about a million pixels, at best, on a monitor that is probaby very close to the sRGB color space to begin with. Do not be fooled, what you see on the screen is also just a “compression” of what is in the file.
You are getting all up in arms over a problem that does not exist.
Bill Jurasz
Austin Texas
WYSIWYG!
What you see is what you get!
Your edits will be compressed into the JPEG and it will look like your screen
You won’t compromise your image just compress your file size.
Quit trying to make this a problem.
It really does work.
John Waugh, Photographic Images • Apple Certified Trainer• Sport Action Lifestyle Photography
I might have misled people - I am totally happy with my images etc I was just trying to get my head around the fact that everyone goes on about RAW is best and then they save it in 8bit jpeg.
I’m just trying to understand how can people see the benefit of raw when it’s converted to a jpeg
Robin, what is so hard about this? The benefit to RAW is all the extra data you have DURING EDITING. I mean, why doesn’t Coldplay just record their studio masters in 256mbs MP3 format and do all the mixing and production work that way? They’re just going to sell it on iTunes anyway right?
If you are not editing, or only doing simple edits, shoot JPG and get very similar results. Doing heavy editing, then start with the most data you can get your hands on. The benefit to RAW is what it allows you to do ON THE WAY TO GETTING TO THE JPG.
Bill Jurasz
Austin Texas
Robin, I’m under the impression that you do not understand very well what RAW files are. Check out Wikipedia or www.cambridgeincolour.com, which is excellent.
RAW files are not image files. They contain the full information set from which images (eg JPEG files) are constructed. So yes, shooting RAW then converting into JPEG in a computer may not give you a better image in terms of details or quality, but this process allows you to have much greater flexibility in deciding how the information, and which information (within the full set), is used to construct the image. Shooting JPEG is actually the same, except that these decisions are mostly made by the camera.
For final output, a 8-bit JPEG would suffice for 99% of the people 99% of the time – today. More data/details may not be relevant depending on the output medium. The issue is how you get there, as another poster has pointed out.
Hi Kodora With respect I do appreciate that RAW are not image files ala jpeg. However your summary of what it gives you is the first time I’ve read acceptance that the eventual output of a jpeg file from a RAW is not necessarily any better than a jpeg direct out of the camera.
I am off to Croatia for a week and I will shoot both RAW+Jpeg and take the time and effort to process them both and see for myself the “benefit” of RAW from my camera. I think you are also correct in that my eyes, my screen, my camera will produce different images to yours and it must be what “you” are happy with.
I guess that the jpeg conversions within cameras differ from brand to brand plus they reflect any image preferences e.g. vivid.
Thanks to you all for your comments
The way I look at it is, I decide what goes into the final JPEG, not the computer in the camera. I choose what to highlight or to subdue. That is why if you and I take the same picture the final result will probably be different. Even though I post on the internet as a 8 bit JPG sRGB, it will still look different than a JPG straight out of the camera. What I save on my computer are 16 bit TIFF files with ProPhoto color space.
Milt