Pro's and Con's of RAW

Ashpool · 4th February 2004, 3:15 PM

So a lot of people shoot their images in RAW format. What are the benifits? Pro's? and Cons?

I personally shoot in Jpeg with high quality and minimal compression. What am I gonna miss out on? I have compared the same shoto over both formats....Minimal or No percevable loss of detail even when blowing up to A3 size. 300d by the way.

Anyhow I would love your opinions of why Raw is better or worse.?

hexnet2001 · 4th February 2004, 3:27 PM

unless you are blowing up the pics to go on a billboard i dont see the big deal.

the obvious differance would obviously be filesize,

raw is lossless, jpeg can make artifacts, but like you said, they are hardly noticable at low compression

not sure, but there may be a bit in the hue/color balance (?)

the size:quality ratio for most uses is pretty decent for everyday use though with jpg

FranchiseJuan · 4th February 2004, 3:28 PM

There may not be too much difference in image quality in shooting raw, but it lets me not worry about white balence when shooting. It also lets me do contrast blending (or exposure blending) even on action shots. Some might say that this can be done with bracketing, but for me 3 jpegs bracketed is larger in file size then one raw file. It is also not possible to bracket when shooting things like sports, or wildelife. You can also set things like saturation, sharpening, and contrast after the fact without loosing any information in the file.

I guess for someone like me who is still learning it allows me to rescue a shot after the fact, and do more things in photoshop.

seer_claw · 4th February 2004, 3:40 PM

For the most part I use the low compression available to my camera. When I use RAW it is usually when I want to blow up a picture that would make a nice poster.

I also use it when I want to play in PS or Gimp and play with the pic to its full extent.

I also like to fact that you can take a section of the picture and blow it up with out too many atrifacts appearing.

Slipstream · 4th February 2004, 8:58 PM

Even if the white balance or exposure is slightly wrong on a jpg action shot, can't it be fixed in PS exactly the same way a RAW file is fixed?

tuppaware · 4th February 2004, 9:14 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Slipstream
Even if the white balance or exposure is slightly wrong on a jpg action shot, can't it be fixed in PS exactly the same way a RAW file is fixed?

You can fix it the same way, but every time you edit it you lose quality. The camera has saved the file with the chosen white balance.

With a raw file you have data straight off the sensor . Before the camera has adjusted for the colour of white light.

Murmandamus · 4th February 2004, 10:31 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by tuppaware
every time you edit it you lose quality

Shouldn't that be "every time you save it you lose quality?

I always thought an image editing proggy always operated on a non-compressed version until save time. You could always save as a compressed tiff or png if you feel you might want to make later changes, the same as you would do with a raw, making that argument somewhat redundant no?

From what I have read the only tangible benefits of raw are a greater flexibility with white balance/exposure type adjustments.

Are raw files aliased? Maybe there is an avenue there for sharper images on conversion?

dkure · 4th February 2004, 10:40 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Murmandamus
Shouldn't that be "every time you save it you lose quality?

I always thought an image editing proggy always operated on a non-compressed version until save time. You could always save as a compressed tiff or png if you feel you might want to make later changes, the same as you would do with a raw, making that argument somewhat redundant no?

From what I have read the only tangible benefits of raw are a greater flexibility with white balance/exposure type adjustments.

Are raw files aliased? Maybe there is an avenue there for sharper images on conversion?

no, he's right. everytime you do anything to the picture you loose original information from the picture. the advantage of raw is that you can edit it totally with photoshop or whatnot, then save it as say a psd, and have an almost exact replica of what the photo actually was, rather then having artifacts in a heavily edited compressed image.

for proof, try opening up a photo and saving it and opening it and saving it as a jpg 10 times... then do it with a lossless format such as raw or bitmap... you'll get the picture

FranchiseJuan · 4th February 2004, 11:05 PM

Also the benifits of shooting RAW depends on how your camera operates shooting raw and also the software available to work on the RAW file.

In the case of the 300D which does not have too much performance hit when shooting raw (only from reviews and not from experience), which is also supported by the camera raw plugin in photoshop, then there are great benifits in shooting raw.
If on the other hand the camera locks up for 20 or more seconds everytime, then no matter how good the software is, the benifits are not going to be so great.

Murmandamus · 5th February 2004, 7:31 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by dkure

for proof, try opening up a photo and saving it and opening it and saving it as a jpg 10 times... then do it with a lossless format such as raw or bitmap... you'll get the picture

um...that was my point. You lose data at the point of saving, not everytime you apply a filter etc in GIMP/Photoshop and you can save the jpeg as a lossless format like tiff or png if you feel you will be saving it multiple times meaning you don't lose anything other than the initial, in camera jpeg compression.

Ashpool · 5th February 2004, 9:35 AM

Well I generally keep the original Jpegs. Working off them I use a lossless format .psd etc. Then my finals are back to jpegs. With minimal/low compression.

f@rmboy · 5th February 2004, 2:17 PM

I shoot entirely in RAW now for couple reasons.

Firstly, as pointed out elsewhere RAW is a lossless format.
Shooting Jpegs means that any manipulation done to the image means degredation occuring twice due to the lossy format. The first time when the camera saves the image to the CF card and again after you have edited the pic.

Storage is not a problem as I have 4x1GB CF cards and a 20GB xs-drive II. Nearly all of my RAW files are archived to DVD-R using Archive Creator

RAW files are 16bit (or 8 bit if you choose) as opposed to Jpegs 8bit files which means you only have half the information avaliable when editing.

Lastly, and for me most importantly, PS CS now has extended support for 16bit files. Not to mention its own RAW converter.

My philosophy is that if there is a possibility to make a buck out of the picture then I feel I should offer the best possible result I can using the tools avaliable to me.

4th February 2004, 3:15 PM	#1
Ashpool Member Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: Ye Olde Melbourne Town Posts: 3,254	Pro's and Con's of RAW So a lot of people shoot their images in RAW format. What are the benifits? Pro's? and Cons? I personally shoot in Jpeg with high quality and minimal compression. What am I gonna miss out on? I have compared the same shoto over both formats....Minimal or No percevable loss of detail even when blowing up to A3 size. 300d by the way. Anyhow I would love your opinions of why Raw is better or worse.?

4th February 2004, 3:28 PM	#3
FranchiseJuan Member Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: Somewhere Exotic Posts: 2,623	There may not be too much difference in image quality in shooting raw, but it lets me not worry about white balence when shooting. It also lets me do contrast blending (or exposure blending) even on action shots. Some might say that this can be done with bracketing, but for me 3 jpegs bracketed is larger in file size then one raw file. It is also not possible to bracket when shooting things like sports, or wildelife. You can also set things like saturation, sharpening, and contrast after the fact without loosing any information in the file. I guess for someone like me who is still learning it allows me to rescue a shot after the fact, and do more things in photoshop. __________________ Quad Core Intel i5/20 inch LCD ----- HP 2760P i5 2.3 GHz ----- Phenom II X4/24 inch/20+tb of storage combined. My Photographic Equipment zhenphotography.co Last edited by FranchiseJuan; 4th February 2004 at 3:29 PM.

4th February 2004, 3:40 PM	#4
seer_claw Member Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: The Mountains of Canada Posts: 459	For the most part I use the low compression available to my camera. When I use RAW it is usually when I want to blow up a picture that would make a nice poster. I also use it when I want to play in PS or Gimp and play with the pic to its full extent. I also like to fact that you can take a section of the picture and blow it up with out too many atrifacts appearing. __________________ D300, Nikon 18-70, Nikon 50 1.8, Sigma 10-20, Nikon 70-200 VR

4th February 2004, 8:58 PM	#5
Slipstream Member Join Date: Jun 2001 Location: Sydney Posts: 1,150	Even if the white balance or exposure is slightly wrong on a jpg action shot, can't it be fixed in PS exactly the same way a RAW file is fixed? Last edited by Slipstream; 4th February 2004 at 8:59 PM.

4th February 2004, 11:05 PM	#9
FranchiseJuan Member Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: Somewhere Exotic Posts: 2,623	Also the benifits of shooting RAW depends on how your camera operates shooting raw and also the software available to work on the RAW file. In the case of the 300D which does not have too much performance hit when shooting raw (only from reviews and not from experience), which is also supported by the camera raw plugin in photoshop, then there are great benifits in shooting raw. If on the other hand the camera locks up for 20 or more seconds everytime, then no matter how good the software is, the benifits are not going to be so great. __________________ Quad Core Intel i5/20 inch LCD ----- HP 2760P i5 2.3 GHz ----- Phenom II X4/24 inch/20+tb of storage combined. My Photographic Equipment zhenphotography.co

4th February 2004, 3:27 PM	#2
hexnet2001 Member Join Date: Jun 2002 Posts: 721	unless you are blowing up the pics to go on a billboard i dont see the big deal. the obvious differance would obviously be filesize, raw is lossless, jpeg can make artifacts, but like you said, they are hardly noticable at low compression not sure, but there may be a bit in the hue/color balance (?) the size:quality ratio for most uses is pretty decent for everyday use though with jpg

5th February 2004, 9:35 AM	#11
Ashpool Member Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: Ye Olde Melbourne Town Posts: 3,254	Well I generally keep the original Jpegs. Working off them I use a lossless format .psd etc. Then my finals are back to jpegs. With minimal/low compression.

5th February 2004, 2:17 PM	#12
f@rmboy Terrorist Photographer Join Date: Jun 2001 Location: Yo mommas bedroom Posts: 2,116	I shoot entirely in RAW now for couple reasons. Firstly, as pointed out elsewhere RAW is a lossless format. Shooting Jpegs means that any manipulation done to the image means degredation occuring twice due to the lossy format. The first time when the camera saves the image to the CF card and again after you have edited the pic. Storage is not a problem as I have 4x1GB CF cards and a 20GB xs-drive II. Nearly all of my RAW files are archived to DVD-R using Archive Creator RAW files are 16bit (or 8 bit if you choose) as opposed to Jpegs 8bit files which means you only have half the information avaliable when editing. Lastly, and for me most importantly, PS CS now has extended support for 16bit files. Not to mention its own RAW converter. My philosophy is that if there is a possibility to make a buck out of the picture then I feel I should offer the best possible result I can using the tools avaliable to me. __________________ Flickr