Hmm.
If you have your exposure and calibration right, working with raw captures involves very very little "stare at a screen and pull sliders around" ... at least no more so than doing the same thing with JPEG captures. And you have so much more editing room to get the best results with a raw capture it's not even funny.
You do realize that when you sent your color print film off to a photofinisher for processing, it took about $30,000 worth of processing machinery plus an good printer person, to get top notch results out of the film? It's only automated to the point that you, the consumer, don't have to do anything but pay for the services of the people in the shop.
JPEG captures are similar to shooting slide film, or instant print film, in that you have limited latitude, limited editability, and narrow/contrasty dynamic range to work with.
To me, capturing raw exposure data and rendering with image processing software is almost exactly like what I do with negative film and a darkroom ... I can work the full dynamic range of the capture medium and then tailor the rendering to suit what I have in mind, except that there's far more latitude and far more editability than the darkroom provides.
G
But of course. We are all, as always, constrained by the medium.
And, define "best results." I'm interested in the act of photographing and in what something looks like in the two-dimensional realm after it's been subjected to the constraints of the medium and my intent.
I don't disagree with anything you say except to suggest that my editing process is far more streamlined than you might think. It's a yes/no proposition. The odd "maybe." Just like Kodachrome. Once you have shot a lot of any particular stock, you begin to subconsciously understand its interaction with subject matter. One shapes one's approach. This awareness also applies to the ink set in one's printers and the fact that the gamuts in all of this from sensor to printer don't precisley cover each other.
I shot and processed my first B&W work in 1967, barely into grade school. By the time I was just into double digits I was my father's lab man - he was a war correspondent who did his own photo-j. We used the family darkroom and by that time I could dodge and burn, was pretty good with filtering for contrast, and the odd work print would get used as a final. I switched to Kodachrome in the seventies. We fooled around with in-house colour processing, but...
Shooting RAW and post-processing is
exactly like working with monochrome.
"JPEG captures are similar to shooting slide film, or instant print film, in that you have limited latitude, limited editability, and narrow/contrasty dynamic range to work with."
I don't mind -- in fact I embrace -- the constraint of JPGs
once I've got the camera set the way I like it. This is key, obviously. I rarely shoot B&W intentionally these days and, yes, I have sat in the waiting rooms of various labs biting my nails wondering how well the temperatures were managed by the night man. I do fully appreciate the equipment and personnel in a good colour lab.
After a long relationship with two major printing houses, I print at home with a colour-managed workflow and large format printers. I'm happier, mostly because of the reduced cost, initial capital cost notwithstanding. I also appreciate the JPG engines that Nikon and Canon have developed and the graceful way they respond to user preferences at the camera and underexposure in good light. I'm very impressed with how well Fuji holds on to highlights. Another advantage of digital is that I bracket
a lot less. In difficult light on Kodachrome (or any transparency stock) I'd bracket the hell out of things, especially if they weren't likely to linger. No longer.
Lastly, the "don't do it" post was somewhat tongue-in-cheek. I think boojum got that. I hope. It was never meant to be a RAW vs. JPEG screed. My sincerest apologies if it read like that. This is a fun thread.
