Can you beat the camera jpg-engine?

[kbg32]

Yes, absolutely, cameras will only improve in regards to their process engines. I'm glad you found your workflow kuzano.

 

[froyd]

Kbg32, I think your post helped understand why we are speaking across each other. I consider an image finished when it's printed on paper, therefore the a JPG file, and a RAW file are just "digital negatives" which I can tweak (one more than the other) to burn in some shadows, increase contrast or make whatever adjustments would give me the print I'm after.

If the final result is an electronic image, I can see why you might not consider JPGs a digital negative (though, once again, they can be tweaked to a remarkable extent).

In addition, as a film shooter I see my negs closer to JPGS, in that the color profile, white balance, etc is already "baked" into the negative and when printing, the range of improvement that can be made to the image is quite inferior to what can be done to a RAW file.

 

[RichC]

That is a complete misunderstanding of the process engine in the camera. It is not a fixed profile of processes applied to jpeg images. In fact, you have more control with the process engine than you might imagine.

Yes you do have some control. But not as much as when post-processing a Raw file.

I [...] fill the typically 4 custom profiles that change the way the process engine works. You can't do that with RAW, nor why would you want to?.

Actually, you can do this with Raw files, if you choose to! I do. But you have to use the camera manufacturer's Raw software (I use Nikon Capture NX2). And you'd want to so this to get closer to the end result you desire.

You should have all the control you want. RAW only gives you more work.

It depends entirely on a photographer's needs. For you, JPGs apparently give you all the control you require. For me, they don't. Some Raw files I just convert to TIFFs with no additional work - but Raw gives me the option to make changes that a JPG simply couldn't tolerate.

]Certainly I know that RAW gives me more detail, and this will rankle the RAW fanboys no end, but I am not hampered by the extra software, and work of having RAW in my computer/workflow.

If you don't need the sharpness or the flexibility of Raw, then there's nothing wrong with JPGs straight out of the camera.

In my interpretation and usage, the camera manufacturers' are continuing to give us the control we want over Jpeg, while RAW simply captures more data than we need and puts the onus on the user to use software and post processing to make the RAW file valuable at all.

For many photographers - including myself - taking the photograph is only half the job. I then spend up to several hours processing a single image to get an image ready print. I can't stand Ansel Adam's photographs, but look at the amount of work he put into creating prints - which barely resemble his negatives. Same goes for Rankin with his portraits - an incredible amount of darkroom work goes into his prints.

Looked at that way, a Raw file can't give too much information. But a JPG has too little data - it's far too rigid and inflexible in comparison.

(Incidentally, I shoot film as well as digital, and can also spend several hours tweaking one scan. If I'd been taking photographs 20+ years ago, I'd have been in the darkroom for hours developing a single print instead!)

As has been said, Raw vs JPG is like the difference between using negative film or Polaroid (or slide film).

Whether or not you think JPGs are sufficient obviously depends on the kind of photographer you are...

 

[Roger Hicks]

. . . Whether or not you think JPGs are sufficient obviously depends on the kind of photographer you are...

Exactly. But I'd be willing to bet that some will twist your indisputably true statement by taking it to mean "how good a photographer you are", which we both know isn't true.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Godfrey]

Dear Godfrey,

First, the M9 won't shoot TIFFs.

Second...
Right now, too, I'm shooting some rather odd B+W conversions that require playing around with filters and histograms, sometimes involving repeated opening and closing of files. These are the compression losses I am talking about, not anything that happens in camera. Again, TIFF suits these pics very well. I can just stuff TIFFs straight into Photoshop without processing in Lightroom first.

But quite often, I don't use the M9 on situations where I have plenty of time. ...

first- I'm well aware of that.

second- This is a perfect opportunity to "stuff your JPEGs or TIFFs into" Lightroom and work in an editing environment which is lossless. LR converts what you're working on into a working copy in memory at 16bit per component with ProPhoto RGB color space. If you need to dip into Photoshop, it automates making a lossless 16bit TIFF file to work on for that excursion, and manages it for you rather than you having to do it yourself.

The only question is why would you do this with a TIFF (or JPEG) file rather than a raw file where you have more editing headroom to start with?

There's also nothing to stop you from immediately upgrading your 8bit JPEG or TIFF into 16bit TIFF inside of Photoshop—I just like the automation of doing it with Lightroom. And most of the time in the past three-four years, I haven't needed to touch Photoshop at all.

(third-) I just use whichever of my cameras I think might get the job done in the way that I want it to be done. I now customarily set all of them to JPEG+raw and import everything into Lightroom, giving me the option to say "Hey, this JPEG is just right, just a little tweak here or there and I'm done with it!" or "Hmm, I need to beat the bejeezus out of this one to get what I had in mind out of it, better stick to the raw file." (And I can use the JPEGs directly on the iPad mini if I need something in a hurry; raw files too but they take too long to process.)

Not debating you, just expressing a difference of opinion in how to get the most out of our equipment and exposures.

G

 

[Roger Hicks]

. . . The only question is why would you do this with a TIFF (or JPEG) file rather than a raw file where you have more editing headroom to start with?

There's also nothing to stop you from immediately upgrading your 8bit JPEG or TIFF into 16bit TIFF inside of Photoshop. . .

Dear Godfrey,

I don't think either of us is "right". Habit and convenience incline me to Photoshop. Anyone who finds Lightroom more convenient would use that. It's pretty marginal.

I'm grateful for the explanations, but even if I were persuaded that your way is better, instead of merely different, I'm not sure I'd change. I dislike learning new software, just as I would dislike learning a new alphabet every few years when I want to write something, and just as I have no burning desire to "upgrade" my cameras as long as they do what I want, as well as any (reasonable) alternative.

Increasingly, I'm goal-oriented. I want to use as few cameras as possible, as few programs as possible, as few new computers and printers as possible. I want to write as well as I can, and take pictures as well as I can: the text and the pictures are the goal, and I'll only "upgrade" (or even play with other cameras, which I used to do a lot) when they offer me a better way (quicker, easier, giving better results) of doing what I want to do.

Cheers,

R.

 

[tomtofa]

Dave -

I think I read elsewhere that you do in-camera development and then refine further as 8-bit in Gimp? Exactly opposite to how I do things, but I love to see your work here too, so...

There are probably two main reasons why I do it as I do - I love to do post-processing, it's usually the first chance I have to see what I've shot, since I don't review much in the field. I'm after making a picture out of the photo (I know many aren't, and disapprove of that philosophy), so to me it's the most satisfying part of the process, and I'd feel cheated out of it if I just shot and took what the camera gave. RAW gives more opportunity for this approach.

Of course, I could shoot RAW/JPEG and keep the RAW archivally, as you mention, but I'm also pretty lazy in some ways, and that kind of separating and organizing just doesn't appeal to me ;-)

@tomtofa
Your first paragraph is opposite of how I feel, but I respect that it doesn't work for you. (And I love the images you post here!).

Your last sentence also touches on what some others have implied .... that if you use the camera JPG's, you have somehow lost or overwritten your RAW file. That is only true if you never saved the RAW file to begin with.

. . . . . . .

not@tomtofa 🙂
And . . . anyone who is editing and rediting a JPG file shouldn't complain about "losses" - go back to RAW file and start again!

Also the previous comments by jsrockit and photomoof make a lot of sense to me. You can get very controllable and accurate results using automation, if you understand how your camera works. It is NOT a forgone conclusion that manual operation leads to better exposures.

Finally . . . huff and puff . . . . buying software and learning how to process RAW files and calibrating your computer-monitor-printer system simply to compensate for the occasional badly exposed original, to me doesn't make sense. I can respect other reasons for getting into the RAW process, but fixing exposure glitches doesn't seem like a good enough reason...... but, as always, "to each his own".

 

[kbg32]

froyd, I am lucky. When I finish processing an image digitally, it's done. When I need to print it, I do nothing more then resize it, change the bit depth to 8 from my processed, archived PSD file, and print it. No more adjustments from me are necessary. Files and prints come out just the way I want them too. If it is for the web, I convert it to a jpeg from that PSD file. This is just what works for me.

I know there are a lot of people in the jpeg only camp. I don't fault or criticize for what they do. That is just their way. On the other hand, I, and others, find working from RAW preferable. No need to criticize here either.

Cheers!

 

[Kwesi]

This has been a thoroughly enjoyable thread! It appears all participants are impassioned digital alchemists. Some wave a JPEG wand while others wave a RAW wand.
Glad to be in such good company.

 

[gnuyork]

Count me in the RAW camp. For me it's truly a pleasure to work in Lightroom, and I totally get much better results than in camera jpgs, but then I am often pushing the envelope in my processing. I'm not afraid to let the shadows go completely black. I feel like the jpgs give you acceptable average results, but I need more than that.

Here is an example:

 

[Kwesi]

That is just gorgeous! Really reminds me of The work of Harry Callahan ( his images of Elinor and also the streets of Chicago series with the strong shadows).

 

[bobbyrab]

Much as I have a lot of experience using Lightroom, I never like to assume that I fully understand more than the workflow I use, and I'm sure within that workflow there are areas I should understand better than I do, so feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

Is it not the case that when you import your RAW files into LR, you can specify your particular cameras JPG presets, so in my Canon camera it's neutral, landscape, portrait etc. Therefore is it not that my starting point is already an ooc JPG? What software are you using that you have to adjust the RAW file to catch up with the ooc JPG?

The other point which has been touched upon, but for me is 90% of the reason I favour RAW, is the colour correction latitude over that of a JPG, I know some have mentioned setting the WB as you shoot, but I can find wildly fluctuating pockets of colour shift within one room and I don't really see the advantage of having to readjust my WB from area to area. JPGs, or rather the software for adjusting JPGs has improved, but if you make more than minor adjustments to the WB in post the colour becomes so unstable, particularly if you have mixed lighting where the colour balance is often a compromise.

It may be a Canon thing, I haven't really tried my Fuji's JPGs, maybe they would have more stability?

 

[kbg32]

bobbyrap, I happen to like the Fuji jpegs more then the Canon's.

 

[gavinlg]

Damn right I can beat the JPEG engine. Most of the time just having the abililty to adjust white balance is 100% worth the time it takes to move the little slider in lightroom. Oh, and anybody who thinks using raw is more time consuming has some serious workflow deficits going on. It's exactly the same using raw or JPG with a program like capture 1 or lightroom - just the raw files are infinitely more malleable.

 

[tbhv55]

anybody who thinks using raw is more time consuming has some serious workflow deficits going on. It's exactly the same using raw or JPG with a program like capture 1 or lightroom - just the raw files are infinitely more malleable.

Yes, I agree entirely. I can fully understand that some people prefer to use Jpegs for other reasons (e.g. storage space), but the oft-quoted notion that Raw processing takes more time, I find difficult to fathom. Processing, of course, does take time, but I don't see how Raw processing is perceived as taking more time than Jpeg processing. Of course, if one doesn't indulge in processing and simply accepts the OOC image, then Jpegs are the obvious way to go.

For me, at least, the extra malleability and latitude of a Raw file is far, far preferable.

 

[Doug]

As I recall, black & white jpegs out of my M8 were pretty good. I remember others saying they had a hard time making raw conversions that looked as good. But there seems almost always something needing a bit of a tweak, whether a tilted horizon, dust bunnies on the sensor, or a crop. And then you're faced with a second-generation jpeg.

I used to edit jpegs a lot, film scans from the lab. It was frustrating how little room there was to adjust color and density, all too easy to hit the limits. I was just getting them to output TIFF files instead when they closed down the local branch of the lab. But IMO editing is equally time-consuming regardless of the file type, whether TIFF, JPEG, or raw.

I rather enjoy processing. I think most with darkroom experience will agree that there's a lot of creativity there. With digital post-processing the details are of course different but the creative aspect is still present. Now it's in color, whereas for most of us the darkroom was a B&W experience.

Before digital, serious color shooters shot transparencies. It isn't all that hard to process Ektachrome in the home darkroom, but I think it was unusual to go beyond that to print color at home. Transparencies have more limitations than negatives on how much one can adjust in printing. So it was important, and a matter of some pride, to "get it right" in the camera so the slide was presentable as-is.

Due to jpeg limitations, that aspect carries through to OOC files. And by comparison, raw files allow a lot more leeway for adjustment in post. So there is a similarity in this respect between slides and jpegs vs. negatives and DNGs.
Just as many serious amateur photographers have strived to produce the perfect slide for projection out of camera, with no further processing, it seems entirely reasonable to pursue perfect jpegs out of camera and be free of further effort.