Who needs RAW?

Leighgion said:
I am puzzled by this reasoning.
,,snip>> If every other respectable digital camera maker can put a decent image processing engine into their cameras, Leica of all companies has no excuses.
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This isn't about "decent." It's about what's marginally (and sometimes arguably) better relative to the time expended and other costs. These "costs" diminish as software, memory, and experience improve. There are many reasons not to shoot with Leica or with M8, but this should not be one. I also shoot RAW exclusively with my Canon gear.
 
Sam R said:
You guys are very smart, and I am very confused.. I have been using jpeg and Elements for software. I am about to purchase a new computer and will enter the world of RAW files. Can I get some direction on software I should be considering?

Thanks
Sam
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The discussion of RAW does not negate your use of Elements, but move up to elements 6. There is a RAW capability, and your learning curve will determine whether you move beyond Elements 6. 6 may take you all the way to where you want to go for a lot less expense and work involved in learning the use of the program. You may end up with the full Photoshop, but that may be a few months out, if ever.

I realize that I may step on toes by suggesting the lower priced, but capable alternatives, but if it takes you a year to get to the point of needing the full Photoshop, and you buy the current version, there will be a new version by the time you get there, and you will pay the full price now, and still pay the FULL upgrade price in a year, if you want the most current features.
 
Sam R said:
You guys are very smart, and I am very confused.. I have been using jpeg and Elements for software. I am about to purchase a new computer and will enter the world of RAW files. Can I get some direction on software I should be considering?
Sam
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IMO, it't kind of a personality thing. I'm PhotoShop--keeping up with all the upgrades. Reason? I've bought into the "system" and to some degree have grown with it. It's kind of a lifetime committment. Best I can say is that it's as-good-as, and in some cases better. I'd feel constrained by Elements, but any "full program" editing undoubtedly exceeds my capacity to make full use of its potential. Pay attention to the monitor you purchase---like the camera's lens, it can be more important and longer-lived than the CPU. BTW, I'm only a little bit smart.:)
 
kuzano said:
I meant that the result of their screwing up on the JPEG engine weighted the camera toward the RAW being better.
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OK, that makes a lot more sense!
In either event, they made some bad decisions somewhere in the production of the M8
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There we agree. I read something about letters of apology, but the article hadn't gone into depth about the JPG issues, just something about color cast.
 
Although the analogy isn't perfect, shooting jpgs is sort of like shooting Polaroids back in the 70s. You get good results immediately. If you want the best, most flexible material to work with, though, you need raw. Frankly, "deverloping" raw files is so easy today and so fast, there's really no reason not to shoot raw.
 
Sam R said:
You guys are very smart, and I am very confused.. I have been using jpeg and Elements for software. I am about to purchase a new computer and will enter the world of RAW files. Can I get some direction on software I should be considering?

Thanks
Sam
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Adobe lightroom is by far the best allround raw converter/image library and organisation and photo editing software there is.
 
Some interesting arguments. So given my newfound expedited workflow with jpg's competing with the fact that the M8 jpg compression algorithm is not so good (that was a mouthful for a simple guy like me :)) what are your thoghts on this idea.

I am and always have been a big fan of belt and braces so continuing to save a dng and jpg file makes sense. I like to print all the photos I like but 90% of them never make it past 6x4.

Is there a batch action on opening a dng and saving it as a jpg in Photoshop?

Also, I've always thought of Lightroom as a great high volume PP tool, am I wrng here?
 
If you want a great program that handles many raw formats as well as jpgs try Google's Picasa. It doesn't hurt that it is free! I don't know how it handles dng files compared to Capture One LE, but from a functional standpoint it handles jpgs and raw exactly the same. If you shoot both raw+jpg you just see two copies of each photo in the library one raw, one jpg. Batch processing is as easy as "select all", perform function, export result. From a workflow standpoint raw and jpg become identical.

/T
 
as to the RAW converter cum image DB, I absolutely second Lightroom. It, however, has quite a steep learning curve. If you're willing to take this, you won't be disappointed.

With LR, you just have to save the DNG. You can create as much "virtual copies" of it as you want and treat them with different adjustments. If you anyway save DNGs, get rid of the in-camera JPEGs.

You can even do adjustments on JPEG files without actually "baking them in", so you can change your mind later. I bought LR new a couple of weeks back for approx US$ 250 here in CH.

As far as I can tell, LR is very parameter compatible with Photoshop. That means if you do adjustments in LR and save the adjustment parameters back to disk, Photoshop ACR will read it (and vice vera).

Slightly off topic but maybe interesting: On OSX Leopard, the built-in image reading software currently (OSX 10.5.1) crashes on the LR parameters written back into the file. That means in this case direct viewing of images in the finder need to be disabled.

Regards
Ivo
 
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I've been doing digital for about 6 years now, using a series of Canon cameras before getting the M8.

I regret every picture I've ever taken for which I lack a RAW version. So many times I've wanted to go back and tweak something, produce a gray scale image, play with an infrared, etc. and without the original RAW there is just less there to play with.

So now, I just shoot DNG's. I might feel differently if I was a photojournalist in a hurry or if I exclusively shot Canons. The Canon high quality JPEG's are the absolute best, I think, and the auto white balance rarely gets it wrong.

The JPG's that come out of the M8 can have strange colors, as you know, and sharpening artifacts which make them look like they're covered in mouse droppings.
 
fdigital said:
Adobe lightroom is by far the best allround raw converter/image library and organisation and photo editing software there is.
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Given that the only other choice in that software category is Apple Aperture, which isn't cross-platform, I guess that's true, at least for Windows users.

Another great thing about Lightroom is that it will improve your reading habits. Once you get more than about 10,000 images in a catalog, it becomes so excruciatingly bog-slow that it's good practice to keep a magazine or book handy so you'll have something to do during the endless intervals of "checking the location of files and folders"...
 
jlw said:
Given that the only other choice in that software category is Apple Aperture, which isn't cross-platform, I guess that's true, at least for Windows users.

Another great thing about Lightroom is that it will improve your reading habits. Once you get more than about 10,000 images in a catalog, it becomes so excruciatingly bog-slow that it's good practice to keep a magazine or book handy so you'll have something to do during the endless intervals of "checking the location of files and folders"...
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Thats a good point, however I don't think you've realized the point of catalogs...

For instance - I make a new catalog each month. That way the images don't build up in each. I can search them using a media program like adobe bridge or expressions media in just seconds. Makes it much faster and easier.
 
Plus you guys miss the point of bring able to convert from 14 bit capture to 16, as opposed to being limited to 8 in JPEG. That's 65,536 available tones verse 256.
On top of that I would rather archive lossless files then lossy any day of the week.
 
For instance - I make a new catalog each month. That way the images don't build up in each. I can search them using a media program like adobe bridge or expressions media in just seconds. Makes it much faster and easier.
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You're able to use Expression Media and Bridge to search Lightroom .lcat catalog files?!?! May I ask how you're doing it? I just tried it with Bridge CS3, and it couldn't recognize the .lcat file.

I realize that Lightroom's performance would be snappier if I kept my catalog files smaller -- but I often need to find pictures taken several years apart, so I'm not sure it's practical. Seems like I'd just be spending my time managing catalogs rather than images...
 
Picasa??? It can't be good.... It's free (HAR HAR)

Picasa??? It can't be good.... It's free (HAR HAR)

I've been pounding the drum for Picasa (without compensation I might add) for two or three weeks. Easy to learn and hugely capable in many areas. It opens my RAW files for crying out loud. Superb organizer and locater.

Free often puts off people in disbelief... So let's not say it's free. It's one of the services provided by Google in exchange for you simply knowing that Google exists. It does not require any other usage of Google in any way.

Picasa... It's spelled P...I...C...A...S...A and you can download it from the internet without leaving a credit card number, or any personal information as I recall. I worked on a guys computer and had to make some changes in his folder structure. He threatened to cut my nuts off if I damaged his Picasa in any way.
 
kuzano said:
Superb organizer and locater.
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I do my organizing via Windows Explorer. I do not tag or cross reference. I file all my photo folders under "Home" or "Work," and by year, date, and a couple of abbreviated words/letters for the "event." I am sometimes frustrated by not finding my desired photos on first try, but I nearly always succeed. I am simply not a good front-end or patient organizer. I save (just estimating) about 1.5k photos in 75 folders per year. Picasa is good enough; Lightroom is overkill; and my greatest need is for the most advanced and intuitive editing tools (as mentioned) that are consistent with my history and time investment in PS. That turns out to be PS//CS3.

I worked on a guys computer and had to make some changes in his folder structure. He threatened to cut my nuts off if I damaged his Picasa in any way.
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This is an interesting testimonial, but may not be generalizable to the OP's situation:). Possibly add some more context so we can see if your recommendation is applicable to our needs. This can be useful because many trials and trial versions are attractive, but not well suited for our unique workloads.
 
Martin

You hit the nail on the head. I'm not having issues organizing, I really don't press the shutter button that much. The isue is ensurin that I can take a RAW and convert it to jpg quickly, presumably in batch mode.

if I shoot a 2 gig card then I'll pull 10 shots to work on, maybe one to go to 8x10 or bigger and the remainder at 6x4. I tend ot be fairl lazy at PP as well so I'll only open up Photoshop every 3 months or so just to get caught up.
 
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