From the article: What is a digital camera raw file?
When shooting digital photos, do you prefer the ease of use that shooting JPEG brings, or the flexibility of shooting raw and preserving the digital negative? Or do you use both for different situations? Why do you choose to shoot JPEG or Raw? Here's what readers have to say about the digital photo format they prefer. Share Your Reasons
JPEG for me
- I like to shoot everything in JPEG. Even in post processing I mostly do everything I want to an image and then close it. I've done some beautiful images up to 12 by 16 so far and I have had no trouble whatsoever plus most professional labs will only print Jpeg or Tiff anyway. I have not noticed any degradation of quality. If you're going to have to make it a JPEG wouldn't you originally want to know what it's going to look like when it gets printed? I also think that post processing in raw takes forever! No wonder people take so many breaks when post processing one shot!
- —Guest jack mckechnie
New in the Raw
- I have to admit I was reluctant to work with raw, and it was a bit hard to get used to, but it is like being in a dark room again, it gives you so much more control over the image.
- —StarrpointHost01
I like using JPEGs
- I have used both but like using JPEG. My first camera was a rebel and my new one is a 50D so I'm still learning how to use it. But I would like to know how to select RAW or JPEG.
- —Guest Severe
RAW vs JPEG
- This concerns anyone holding a camera and says that shooting RAW is a waste of time and storage. First of all, storage is cheap. Second, you have no clue about pixels and how to get the very best out of them. Clearly you are not a professional photographer and need to be saving your money on a P&S. Enroll is some type photography class and learn the technical side of photography because you sure as hell don't know it now.
- —Guest Gordon
Newbie learns RAW = freedom
- Been doing photography as a hobby for almost 2 years now. Switched from PNS to Canon 50D. With almost 5000 photos I shoot I always use JPEG. It's easier to share and transfer images and upload through social network sites. It took me a while before realizing my mistake. Facebook images are fine and due to compression images can be soft, however when I moved to Flickr and uploaded few pics I noticed my images are bit soft. I can say its bit difficult to enhance a JPEG file since it's already post-processed from the camera, so it gives me madness on adding sharpness or vibrance for some reason. I read this forum yesterday and tried to use the hidden treasure, RAW. Took some shots using SRAW1 and transferred to my PC. Use the Photoshop CS5 and automatically my raw files were identified and can be launched. I was surprised and glad that RAW is more flexible out-of-the box whereas I can add more details, vibrance and correct any mistakes I've done when shooting such as exposure. RAW = freedom
- —Guest ruelcortez
RAW is homeopathic photography.
- 80% of the benefits of raw are between ones ears. The other 20% can sometimes be utilized to correct horrendous badly judged lighting conditions. 100% of the time raw results in lost time better spent elsewhere. You can turn any well taking JPEG into anything just the same as with RAW. If you shoot and need RAW, you need to turn on Full-auto.
- —Guest Vosnul
One way street
- You can go from RAW to JPEG. But if you shoot in JPEG and later wish you hadn't, you can't go the other way.
- —Guest Alex
RAW IS more detailed
- I have recently done a shoot with photos intended to be blown up poster sized. I turned in JPEG and the raw edited files. Blown up the JPEG file at 100% quality and composed correctly looked okay. But once printed next to a 26mb RAW print in a poster it was night and day different. The JPEG doesn't offer hardly any post processing flexibility where RAW does. Setting up your shot does wonders and JPEG can turn out good for day to day shooting. But when detail and tack sharp images are used, I only go RAW. JPEG really just frustrates me with its lack of detail, improper color balance from the camera and lack of detail in a larger image. Not to mention all HD TVs will display pictures as a back ground. JPEGs blown up to 50" don't look that great on a 1080p TV.
- —Guest JoestoTN
RAW Forever
- RAW starts with more information than JPEG. Therefore there is no question about it. The different possibilities - day - cloudy etc are fantastic. Works for me - my photographs do get better. Naturally it is better to start from a large number of information and then reduce than the other way round. Every time you edit in JPEG you'll reduce the size of the picture so do yourself a favor and start with RAW. Result: Much more details in the finished photograph - and that what is is all about isn't it. I have used RAW for ½ Year and I wish I had used it more. I would very much like if Adobe would put more info out about editing JPEG in RAW, because many customers could improve many thousands of Photographs if more information about this issue was published. PLEASE
- —Guest Megalithic Man
WHAT!
- I can’t believe you are feeding people information like Jpeg is better or equal to RAW. I agree if you own a DSLR you should learn how to use it. If you don’t know the capability of your camera then you might as well buy a point and shoot automatic. But there is no way in hell you should set your camera to jpeg if it is capable to shoot in RAW. The image file is much better quality; I always say a jpeg is a small preview to the real thing. Especially seen as a real jpeg should be 73dpi, hence why only jpegs are used to upload to the net so no one is able to have the quality if they decide to steal your work.
- —Guest a1m33
Why choose less over more?
- Why would you choose to let your camera throw away your pixels? This is essentially what you're doing when you shoot JPEG. I absolutely agree that there is no substitution for good composition when taking a photograph. That being said, if you take 100 JPEG images and 100 RAW images of the same subject, you will end up with a higher percentage of keepers by shooting RAW simply because there are situations where you absolutely can't create the perfect image within the camera, you must post process. And since you must process, you should have more pixels to work with. It was the same in the pre-digital days. We dodged and burned, cropped and straightened, used a particular film or paper for different results. Anyone who poo-poos RAW in the name of better composition isn't the photographer they imagine themselves to be or the professional they pretend to be.
- —55spud
Learn the settings on the camera
- For all of you out there with a decent DSLR, I have to say that if you can't get stunning photos using JPEG, then you don't know how to take a photo. I see it all the time, the weekend warrior with the new camera snapping everything in sight with no clue about the settings in the camera. When asked what format they are shooting, almost always they say Raw. In my opinion, the only reason they shoot raw is because they haven't got a clue how to take a photo in the first place, and they would rather take bad photos in raw and fix all of their mistakes on the computer, than take the time to learn the settings on their camera. If you can't take stunning photos using JPEG, then maybe you should take up knitting.
- —Guest George
JPEGs are Compressed
- Jpgs are terribly compressed files. Raw files have the highest possible resolution, whereas jpgs compress color (PIXEL) information. And you can 'add' information in Photoshop, through a process called interpolation, Photoshop can increase image quality by estimating the surrounding colors around a given pixel.
- —Guest Peter
RAW
- Raw gives much more scope for modification, and is well worth the extra disc space used. My camera automatically saves RAW and Jpeg so I get the best of both worlds.
- —Walter.C
Raw or forget it....
- Making original photos in jpeg is pretty much like showing up for an auto race with one tire missing. Early on I experimented with my first digital camera and discovered that I could not even get a decent blue sky color in a camera produced jpeg. That cinched it for me. I guess I am thinking that if jpeg is "good enough" you have no standards approaching what a professional photographer should have.
- —Guest mike
1-15 of 32Next
