I hate editing. (jpegs vs RAW)

sevencrossing

bland I often shoot 500+ shots a day
the solution was a new computer i7 12 gb of ram and a 2 TB hard drive
( I will keep less than 100 the rest go in the trash can )

Ade

I shoot RAW only but I have spoken to photojournalists who shoot JPEG exclusively as speed is often paramount to them especially in these days of 27/4 news.

They don't do much editing if any at all. JPEGs are downloaded from the camera, captioned, then sent wirelessly to the newspaper's photo editor. The photo editor will select the images, maybe do some minor cropping & tone adjustment (contrast, vignette) and off it gets published on the internet. As journalists they all refrain from heavily editing any picture.

For live events they often publish those JPEGs in near real-time (as the event is still happening.) Meanwhile I have RAW files from last month which I still need to edit...

Golf007sd

Off topic: Looking forward to when Apple bring to market a new MBP 17". The one I have does the job, but when I play with some of the newer MBP 15" I see the power difference. The only things is i want the big screen...15" just doesn't do it for me. And yes I have done all that I can do to improve my current MBP: Max RAM and SSD (accutually I have two HD in mine...I pulled out the DVD and put in the OWC Data Doubler.

proudgeek

Golf, I use the newer 15" MBP with the Retina display. It's quite powerful (2.6GM processor, 16GB of RAM). You may also want to consider an external monitor for desktop use.

bland

bland I often shoot 500+ shots a day
the solution was a new computer i7 12 gb of ram and a 2 TB hard drive
( I will keep less than 100 the rest go in the trash can )

Thanks for that info and I'll check into it because I really miss the quality of that 14 bit RAW. I'm currently running 3GB with 1TB hard drive but it's a cheapo EMachine.

Vipmediastar_JZ

@golf I use the 2012 non retina 15 mbp. I maxed ram at 16mb installed a Samsung ssd 830 and kept the 1tb hard drive for storage. Now I knew this was going to be my 5 year computer so I got the high end i7 processor.

It's pretty fast the only issue is the slow rpm of the 1tb hard drive.
If you want i can test edit by loading some files on the ssd.

I feel it does a great job even when exporting to Nik or Photoshop from Lightroom.

In a perfect world I would have built my 2013 pc with the latest and built at raid but I wanted a mac ever since 2000

It works great. Almost zero downtime with updates and fixing this and that.

It simply works.

FlowtographyBerlin

Ha, lots of Retina MBP users here! Here's another one :-)

@Golf007sd: To my knowledge, they won't release another 17" MBP anymore, Get a Retina MBP and a large external display (maybe wait until they release a Retina version of that, too). It's a huge leap from a memory-boosted old/slow MBP to a memory-boosted fast new one. And everything looks just so much nicer on a high-dpi display :-)

TaoTeJared

DaveyJ has much wisdom in his words. It is only ignorant to attack someone's preferences. And that's all the Raw vs. Jpeg is - preference.

1-2 stops of dynamic range, a bit more color info, and white balance is really all the Raw gives you. Many images are under 10 stops of dynamic range which jpeg will record easily. Few scenes need 16k (or whatever 1000) gradients of each color of RGB. If you use a WB disc to set the color temperature to neutral you get almost all the leeway of changing WB in Raw. If you can see the scene, and know what the white balance is, dynamic range and amount of color you need to record for the output needed, with newest camera's like the D800 the ability to shoot in Jpeg is very viable. Each of Nikon's color settings can be changed by hue, contrast, active D-lighting saturation, etc. and if you are willing, you can pre set all of those to pump out the "look" or very close to it that you want. Personally I like the output and color of Nikon's Jpegs and by pre setting stuff all I really have to do is maybe pull the shadows out, add some vibrancy, maybe tweak the highlights a bit, sharpen and noise reduction and I'm done. None of my settings go over -/+ 20 on the LR sliders. With raw, I HAVE to work every image.

Like FlowtographyBerlin, when I shoot events it is only in Jpeg - I think it is absolutely stupid to shoot 1000-5000 images in a few days that are only for printing 2x3" in internal newsletters and websites. There is no way to edit that many files where almost all of them are desired. 30sec on each of 5000 photos is almost 42 hours alone. I delete the bad ones, edit the set headshots/requested photos and include the rest for viewing. The lens corrections (distortion/vignetting) that shooting Jpegs offer saves basic edits and if you set the camera up, you can achieve the look the work requires. I have taken an enormous amount of time to set my D800/X100/D300 up so I get the "look" that I want out of the Jpegs.

On outdoor paid portrait sessions I shoot Raw but that is really just for the "just in case" as my style tends to clip highlights. Indoor portrait I can easily shoot Jpeg and do on many occasions. Product photos, Raw as the color is a primary "must have". Weddings - Raw. Friends & family jpeg. Walking around, street type stuff, Jpeg.

For the casual photographer I fear the Raw only bandwagon leads some down the "where's the color", average looking photos with noise everywhere, dull (neutral) colors, distortion and dark corners. Jpegs correct these issues to a great degree and is a much better choice for most people who own a camera. I run into non-photographers who read everywhere they must shoot Raw but always complain about noisy images and crappy colors. They should be shooting in Jpeg. Not everyone who owns a DSLR wants to spend hours editing.

Jpeg & Raw are options just like all the others on the camera.

MikeGunter

Hi all,

I don't hate editing. I think it makes me a better shooter.
@Ade

"but I have spoken to photojournalists who shoot JPEG exclusively as speed is often paramount to them especially in these days of 27/4 news.

They don't do much editing if any at all. JPEGs are downloaded from the camera, captioned, then sent wirelessly to the newspaper's photo editor. The photo editor will select the images, maybe do some minor cropping & tone adjustment (contrast, vignette) and off it gets published on the internet. As journalists they all refrain from heavily editing any picture.
- See more at: http://www.forum.nikonrumors.com/discussion/1444/i-hate-editing-jpegs-vs-raw#Item_26"

Presumably, (emphasis added is mine) they can't do anything to their images for the sake of journalism - I'm a retired professor of said subject and gone the 15 rounds in more than one conference and lost on decision more than once on this subject. I say that since any change (pushing ISO (ASA in my day), souping the paper for contrast, even discrete cropping is 'editing'. So is levels, curves and on it goes. Finding 'acceptable' editing is to be on a slippery slope. Every photographer who has shot a photo has made a decision to make their shot; is that shot was from an impartial POV is not always obvious. The great fear is that digital hanky panky would occur.

To all, to each his or her own.There are a lot of software applications, both expensive and not so expensive that do wonders.

There are switches on the cameras to give us an abundance of choices. Personally, my choice is both RAW and JPG. With the Picture Control, one can get JPGs that are ready on the media card. RAW images can be gang processed in Adobe Bridge, Adobe Camera Raw, Photoshop, Elements, PaintShopPro,, or Cyberlink PhotoDirector (or some other applications - even Nikon's).

Still at the end of it all, I think you'll just be better as a photographer if you edit more than edit less. You'll just 'know' more and be more capable. That might not be what anyone wants to hear but...

My best,

Mike

TaoTeJared

...Presumably, (emphasis added is mine) they can't do anything to their images for the sake of journalism - ...

Never worked in any journalistic way but had an editor ask me to send some work as they were looking for "stringers" (is that what they are called - contract only?) and I got dumped because what I sent was "edited."
Evidently AP and Corbis has it strictly defined now. (I'm trying to recall correctly) You can only crop, straighten, WB, vignetting, distortion, adjust exposure, brightness, contrast, saturation (to only a "x" amount) and reduce noise. I think that was it. Most of my stuff was "too much movement on brightness, contrast and saturation", sharpening and blemish removal. She said she prefered that I only straighten and crop. Sent Jpeg only was also the criteria. (Editorials were different though.) I'm have no knowledge if they were fully correct or not, but that doesn't matter as that was their standard.
With that criteria, and the in camera processing done on Jpegs, you would be 90%-99% there.

Paperman

DaveyJ has much wisdom in his words. It is only ignorant to attack someone's preferences. And that's all the Raw vs. Jpeg is - preference.

1-2 stops of dynamic range, a bit more color info, and white balance is really all the Raw gives you. Many images are under 10 stops of dynamic range which jpeg will record easily. Few scenes need 16k (or whatever 1000) gradients of each color of RGB. If you use a WB disc to set the color temperature to neutral you get almost all the leeway of changing WB in Raw. If you can see the scene, and know what the white balance is, dynamic range and amount of color you need to record for the output needed, with newest camera's like the D800 the ability to shoot in Jpeg is very viable. Each of Nikon's color settings can be changed by hue, contrast, active D-lighting saturation, etc. and if you are willing, you can pre set all of those to pump out the "look" or very close to it that you want. Personally I like the output and color of Nikon's Jpegs and by pre setting stuff all I really have to do is maybe pull the shadows out, add some vibrancy, maybe tweak the highlights a bit, sharpen and noise reduction and I'm done. None of my settings go over -/+ 20 on the LR sliders. With raw, I HAVE to work every image.
..........
For the casual photographer I fear the Raw only bandwagon leads some down the "where's the color", average looking photos with noise everywhere, dull (neutral) colors, distortion and dark corners. Jpegs correct these issues to a great degree and is a much better choice for most people who own a camera. I run into non-photographers who read everywhere they must shoot Raw but always complain about noisy images and crappy colors. They should be shooting in Jpeg. Not everyone who owns a DSLR wants to spend hours editing.
.....

Well summarized... So tired of the "oh, you're missing so much " crowd for whom RAW is the Bible ( but that can't get their exposures right ) . I can probably get 95% in JPEG of what one can get from RAW - more than enough for me and that is in less than a minute ...

For the pro who's after perfection, it sure is a different story.

Vipmediastar_JZ

I just edited a studio shoot. In "perfect" locations it would be at my house but I was on location with the backdrop and lights.
I shot raw and it's a good thing I did. Probably the only thing that may need adjusted is the blacks. There was extra lights there that I left on and of course the roof had a window. I forgot to do a custom white balance but auto white balance did a good job. Otherwise if I had shot in jpg it would have been a bit harder to fix and bnw would be the choice of most photographs.

haroldp

I do Nikon raw processing in capture NX2 (it's lens corrections for nikon lenses are much better than adobe).

I shoot only raw, if I need fast jpg's, I set a batch in NX2 to an entire shoot and go do something else, the default will be the camera set parameters, and the results will be exactly those parameters used for in-camera jpg, except NX2's algos are slightly better, which shows in skin tones and highlights.

This takes no more of my time than if I had shot jpg, and I still have the raws if I need to fix something.

Regards . H

CEBlueclouds

Do digital pictures degrade overtime?..and is it true that jpegs do and raw don't as I was told by a serious hobbyist when I acquired my first dslr in 2006?

Ade

Digital pictures do not degrade over time. Digital media (such as hard drives, CD-ROMs, DVDs, digital prints, etc.) will degrade over time; however, they degrade irrespective of the image data type (so both RAW and JPEGs are affected equally.)

RAW processors (software) do get better over time. So one advantage of RAW is being able to re-process old images using new algorithms as technology improves.

CEBlueclouds

Thank you Ade.....

haroldp

Digital pictures do not degrade over time. Digital media (such as hard drives, CD-ROMs, DVDs, digital prints, etc.) will degrade over time; however, they degrade irrespective of the image data type (so both RAW and JPEGs are affected equally.)

RAW processors (software) do get better over time. So one advantage of RAW is being able to re-process old images using new algorithms as technology improves.

I completely agree about new raw software. I had done some city scapes in Vienna (circa 2006) using the Nikon
18-200 VR (on a D200), and was shocked by the geometric distortion, which was not noticeable in natural shapes but very much so on the roofline of the opera house. It is a wavy distortion that was impossible to fix in photoshop at the time, rendering the entire shoot unusable.

The current version of NX2 perfectly corrects this lens and I was able to revisit these raw files and fix them.

Highlight recovery is also much better in recent raw processors.

The confusion over degradation, is that a jpg degrades every time it is opened in an editor and saved, because it is re-compressed using lossy algorithms even if no changes are made. If you are only viewing, close the image without saving.

When digital media degrades, it usually becomes completely unreadable because it'e error corrections and crc's will stop it. I would be astounded to see image degradation die to physical media, it most likely becomes totally unreadable.

Regards ... H

NSXTypeR

Going back to RAW vs. jpg, even though I shoot jpgs it doesn't mean I edit them either. I'm not shooting professionally so I have no need for RAW and I just hate editing in general.

Also, I am somewhat intimidated by Photoshop, hence I don't use it much outside of resizing or changing white balance or other simple stuff.

Golf007sd

@NSXTypeR: Forget using Photoshop for such edits...you should look at Lightroom.

haroldp

Even those simple edits will re-compress and degrade a jpg when you save it.

... H

spraynpray

Going back to RAW vs. jpg, even though I shoot jpgs it doesn't mean I edit them either. I'm not shooting professionally so I have no need for RAW and I just hate editing in general.

Also, I am somewhat intimidated by Photoshop, hence I don't use it much outside of resizing or changing white balance or other simple stuff.

Speaking for myself, my drive to get the image right beats my dislike of editing, and the non-destructive nature of my editing (shoot raw edit in LR with copy used for PS if necessary) means the image can be re-edited from the captured shot anytime.

As for being intimidated by PS, I totally agree because I do not use it enough. The answer is to use it and visit YouTube every time you need to learn something new because it is worth it. I have PS'd a shot from throw away to good just recently:

I got this:



From this:



That would have been impossible with a jpg. and the amount of people walking by meant this was my best chance to get the shot with minimal reflections.

My advice to you NSX would be to shoot raw and jpg until you finally find a good shot that you can't get perfect as a jpg then edit that one in LR or similar and see the difference in 'editability'. That may convince you that raw + jpg is better than jpg alone.

Ironheart

+1
I almost always shoot RAW+jpeg, cards are cheap, as is storage. This gives maximum flexibility down the road.

Paperman

@sprayanpray

That would have been impossible with a jpg

Why ? You can get rid of those reflections in JPEG as well.

Agree with RAW + JPEG though. Does not hurt having a copy which one can improve , just in case .

spraynpray

There was more done than the reflections @Paperman, the ground was pitch black in the original - even darker than this before shot. I grabbed the wrong one to post - the original had a lampost in the area of the back window and black ground. IME it would have looked a mess if dragged up that much as a jpeg.

Golf007sd

@spraynpray: Great job on the edit. Looks like I just might have to visit some of Adobe's Youtube channel more often than I have.