Editing - Do In RAW or JPEG?

[TABan]

Hi,

 

I recently read a fellow photographer's advice that we should do any pre-submission editing in RAW. After we are happy with the photo then convert to JPEG and submit to Alamy for QC. It had never occurred to me to do that. I try VERY hard to get my photos the way I want in camera but occasionally I want to do a little editing and have always done so in JPEG.

 

What do you all think? Asking for advice/opinions. 

 

Thanks

 

Oh...PS. Just don't want to dive into the Abobe PS and LR mess so am looking for a free photo editor that I don't need a PhD. to learn. Tried GIMP about a year ago and trying to learn it made my head hurt. Can you edit RAW in PhotoScape? I have looked for an answer to this myself. Everywhere I've read about PhotoScape features it says that it will convert RAW to JPEG but I've yet to see where it says specifically, yes, you can use all of PhotoScape's features to edit in RAW.

 

Holy crap! I can't believe you got down rated for this. There are plenty of pros who mainly shoot jpeg. If what you get from raw isn't much different from the out of camera jpeg, what's the point? In fact, a very good pro in my area says raw is for amateurs, he gets it right in camera. And you can actually do more to jpegs in Lightroom than most people think and if you go to far, it's easy enough to back off. Then there is this accomplished fine art shooter: http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2012/03/ken-tanaka-shooting-jpeg-instead-of-raw.html

 

You find ideologues everywhere and a lot of them are in photography. I have mainly given up shooting raw and I rarely have a failure. Even when I shoot raw plus jpeg, I usually end up using the jpeg. I'll add that I shoot Canon and Canon's jpegs are very good. Some camera brands have sub-optimal jpegs and in that case, you do need to shoot raw files.

[spacecadet]

OP wasn't "downrated" for his choice but for his reaction.

I can't agree- odd for your very good pro to say he gets it right in camera because the camera is deciding what to output, not him! Sure, many images don't benefit much from RAW but I find quite a few do and it's not worth picking and choosing. The only downside is a bit more copying time. JPEGs can be quite plasticky in some conditions and my RAWs are always a bit sharper when I get some way away from sunny 16. I have no blown skies anymore.

That article is 5 1/2 years old- no doubt jpegs have come on but so no doubt has RAW processing.

[MDM]

There is always one. We had the same conversation a few months back so not really worth going back over the same ground once again.

 

EDIT here is a link to previous discussion

http://discussion.alamy.com/index.php?/topic/5285-raw-verses-jpeg/

 

There is another very good pro in Chicago by the name of Jeff Schewe who would undoubtedly disagree very strongly with TABan's friend. Actually I know or know of quite a few studio portrait photographers who shoot JPEG mainly and it works for them. But it is seriously cutting one's options to do so.

[TABan]

OP wasn't "downrated" for his choice but for his reaction.

I can't agree- odd for your very good pro to say he gets it right in camera because the camera is deciding what to output, not him! Sure, many images don't benefit much from RAW but I find quite a few do and it's not worth picking and choosing. The only downside is a bit more copying time. JPEGs can be quite plasticky in some conditions and my RAWs are always a bit sharper when I get some way away from sunny 16. I have no blown skies anymore.

That article is 5 1/2 years old- no doubt jpegs have come on but so no doubt has RAW processing.

 

Silly argument. There are those of us who shot transparency film for stock who had no trouble getting it right in the camera. I treat jpegs the same way. If there's a situation where a raw might be better, I switch to raw + jpeg. More than half the time, I take the jpeg. Metering systems have become so good, it's not often I deal with blown highlights. And if you know how to shoot transparency film, you know how to deal with highlights. Not only that, you can bracket and not worry about wasted film. Whatever you folks want to do is cool. For most of my stock work, raw is a complete waste of time.

[Betty LaRue]

Betty, as a happy user of Lightroom I must say my head is spinning a bit from hearing all the various ins and outs in this thread. I have a friend who found someone good (in Boulder) who comes to her house and works with her on learning Lightroom. I bet there is someone in Oklahoma City doing the same and the cost would be more than made up for in the time you will save later on. It took me a bit of time figuring out my own system of using stars, label colors and collections but it makes everything very quick and smooth. Smart Collections will automatically put images with certain criteria together. I won't go further in fear of confusing you once again.

 

Paulette

Thanks, sweetie. I think I could figure it out if I were willing to spend the time. Time is a problem at the moment since I'm taking hubby for radiation now. One week down, 8 to go. I'm having trouble carving out a minute or two to develop a few images. I will tackle it eventually. Which hurts my goal of 5000 images by end of Dec.

I appreciate your and MDM's encouragement.

[MDM]

 

 

Silly argument. There are those of us who shot transparency film for stock who had no trouble getting it right in the camera. I treat jpegs the same way. If there's a situation where a raw might be better, I switch to raw + jpeg. More than half the time, I take the jpeg. Metering systems have become so good, it's not often I deal with blown highlights. And if you know how to shoot transparency film, you know how to deal with highlights. Not only that, you can bracket and not worry about wasted film. Whatever you folks want to do is cool. For most of my stock work, raw is a complete waste of time.

 

 

If you know how to process raws efficiently, then they don't take any longer than JPEGs to review and prepare for viewing. A quick default or preset import of raws into LR is only marginally slower than importing the same jpegs - so they are certainly not faster unless you are transmitting unedited from the camera.

 

It's all about options now and down the line as raw converters become better and better. And it's not just about blown highlights or shadow recovery - it's also very much about white balance which is locked in forever in the jpeg, CA correction etc.

 

Bracketing for me is a thing of the past and is very time consuming sorting between different exposures. I usually get pretty close to what I want but 1 stop out with a good full frame Nikon NEF is nothing and recovery is possible from an unbelievable -4 stops if really necessary - not desirable but things happen and no chance or recovery with a JPEG. I had the chip inside a lens fail a few days ago and got some serious underexposure - no worries with my nefs but jpegs would have been a disaster.

 

And so on and on ad infinitum almost.

[MDM]

 

Betty, as a happy user of Lightroom I must say my head is spinning a bit from hearing all the various ins and outs in this thread. I have a friend who found someone good (in Boulder) who comes to her house and works with her on learning Lightroom. I bet there is someone in Oklahoma City doing the same and the cost would be more than made up for in the time you will save later on. It took me a bit of time figuring out my own system of using stars, label colors and collections but it makes everything very quick and smooth. Smart Collections will automatically put images with certain criteria together. I won't go further in fear of confusing you once again.

 

Paulette

Thanks, sweetie. I think I could figure it out if I were willing to spend the time. Time is a problem at the moment since I'm taking hubby for radiation now. One week down, 8 to go. I'm having trouble carving out a minute or two to develop a few images. I will tackle it eventually. Which hurts my goal of 5000 images by end of Dec.

I appreciate your and MDM's encouragement.

 

 

Betty - the only reason I've encouraged you is that I know you could easily do it - it's just a mental barrier. But I won't mention it again as I don't wish to pester.

[TABan]

 

 

 

Silly argument. There are those of us who shot transparency film for stock who had no trouble getting it right in the camera. I treat jpegs the same way. If there's a situation where a raw might be better, I switch to raw + jpeg. More than half the time, I take the jpeg. Metering systems have become so good, it's not often I deal with blown highlights. And if you know how to shoot transparency film, you know how to deal with highlights. Not only that, you can bracket and not worry about wasted film. Whatever you folks want to do is cool. For most of my stock work, raw is a complete waste of time.

 

 

If you know how to process raws efficiently, then they don't take any longer than JPEGs to review and prepare for viewing. A quick default or preset import of raws into LR is only marginally slower than importing the same jpegs - so they are certainly not faster unless you are transmitting unedited from the camera.

 

It's all about options now and down the line as raw converters become better and better. And it's not just about blown highlights or shadow recovery - it's also very much about white balance which is locked in forever in the jpeg, CA correction etc.

 

Bracketing for me is a thing of the past and is very time consuming sorting between different exposures. I usually get pretty close to what I want but 1 stop out with a good full frame Nikon NEF is nothing and recovery is possible from an unbelievable -4 stops if really necessary - not desirable but things happen and no chance or recovery with a JPEG. I had the chip inside a lens fail a few days ago and got some serious underexposure - no worries with my nefs but jpegs would have been a disaster.

 

And so on and on ad infinitum almost.

 

 

How often do you change your white balance from what it was when you're shooting outside? It's not often for me. And, if it's close you can still adjust it. I never realized you can't correct CA in jpegs, mainly because I've never had a problem doing it, plus I only have one non-Canon lens and so the camera corrects CA in jpegs with all my lenses but one. My new 80D also corrects distortion. This alone saves a ton of time. And the one third party lens I have has minimal CA and distortion, so that's not a huge issue. I find bracketing much faster than spending time on a raw. It's easy enough to edit in camera using the histogram on a break.

 

Like I said a few months back, stock photography isn't high art. The client isn't going to care about the white balance unless it's obviously way off. If you get close in camera, you can still adjust it a bit in jpeg. If the light is obviously weird, it's easy enough to switch to raw or raw + jpeg.

 

I submit jpegs to another agency that does edit for content and they adjust the saturation, vibrance and clarity on the jpegs they receive. Clients don't care as long as the image works.

 

BTW, if you've read reviews that say the Canon 80D has inaccurate auto white balance, note the review doesn't mention the two AWB settings, one is ambience priority and one is white priority. The white priority setting is uncannily accurate with artificial lighting.

[Betty LaRue]

 

 

Betty, as a happy user of Lightroom I must say my head is spinning a bit from hearing all the various ins and outs in this thread. I have a friend who found someone good (in Boulder) who comes to her house and works with her on learning Lightroom. I bet there is someone in Oklahoma City doing the same and the cost would be more than made up for in the time you will save later on. It took me a bit of time figuring out my own system of using stars, label colors and collections but it makes everything very quick and smooth. Smart Collections will automatically put images with certain criteria together. I won't go further in fear of confusing you once again.

 

Paulette

 

Thanks, sweetie. I think I could figure it out if I were willing to spend the time. Time is a problem at the moment since I'm taking hubby for radiation now. One week down, 8 to go. I'm having trouble carving out a minute or two to develop a few images. I will tackle it eventually. Which hurts my goal of 5000 images by end of Dec.

I appreciate your and MDM's encouragement.

 

Betty - the only reason I've encouraged you is that I know you could easily do it - it's just a mental barrier. But I won't mention it again as I don't wish to pester.

You never pester. I always appreciate your informative posts. Catch me again in a couple of months when I have more free time.

Then you can hound me into compliance, lol.

[domf]

I recently converted to using RAW and I have found the biggest advantage so far is as one of the bullet points in Arterra's post on the first page, "Cropping to make an even better composition". In JPEG I often found that when I wanted to crop an image the image size was then too small to be accepted by Alamy, with Raw I can crop a little or a lot to create a far superior composition. This is especially so when I have only one photo of a particular subject and I need to crop to create a photo that I am happy with.

[spacecadet]

I recently converted to using RAW and I have found the biggest advantage so far is as one of the bullet points in Arterra's post on the first page, "Cropping to make an even better composition". In JPEG I often found that when I wanted to crop an image the image size was then too small to be accepted by Alamy, with Raw I can crop a little or a lot to create a far superior composition. This is especially so when I have only one photo of a particular subject and I need to crop to create a photo that I am happy with.

Eh? Image size is the same in RAW and JPEG.

[M.Chapman]

 

I recently converted to using RAW and I have found the biggest advantage so far is as one of the bullet points in Arterra's post on the first page, "Cropping to make an even better composition". In JPEG I often found that when I wanted to crop an image the image size was then too small to be accepted by Alamy, with Raw I can crop a little or a lot to create a far superior composition. This is especially so when I have only one photo of a particular subject and I need to crop to create a photo that I am happy with.

Eh? Image size is the same in RAW and JPEG.

 

I think it depends on the camera settings on some models, but it's always possible to set the jpg size to full-size (which is then the same as the RAW) on every model I've used.

[domf]

I was not aware of that, I have 2 cameras, Nikon D90 and Olympus OMD E-M1, and with both RAW files are 2 to 3 times bigger than JPEG files.

[M.Chapman]

I was not aware of that, I have 2 cameras, Nikon D90 and Olympus OMD E-M1, and with both RAW files are 2 to 3 times bigger than JPEG files.

 

By "size" I was referring to the number of pixels stored in the file, in response to the earlier comment about RAW files allowing more cropping options.

 

JPGs are simply compressed files which reduce the amount of disk storage required to store a given number of pixels.

[spacecadet]

I was not aware of that, I have 2 cameras, Nikon D90 and Olympus OMD E-M1, and with both RAW files are 2 to 3 times bigger than JPEG files.

The image size in pixels is the same whether jpg or RAW. Whatever problem you have with cropping, it's nothing to do with the differences between them.

[domf]

If the files are the same size how and why is it an advantage to crop in RAW rather than JPEG?

[M.Chapman]

If the files are the same size how and why is it an advantage to crop in RAW rather than JPEG?

 

As I said, some cameras allow you to store JPEGs that contain less pixels than the RAW files.

 

For example my Canon G15 allows the camera to be set to store JPEGs of the following sizes.

 

Full size = 4000 x 3000 pixels

Medium 1 = 2816 x 2812 pixels

Medium 2 = 1600 x 1200 pixels

Small = 640 x 480

 

However the RAW file is always 4000 x 3000 pixels.

 

If the camera is set to store lower resolution JPEGs then my cropping options are reduced (assuming I want to achieve a final image containing above a certain number of pixels).

 

If the camera is set to store full size JPGs at 4000 x 3000 then there's no advantage to using RAW, from a cropping viewpoint. There are however, plenty of other benefits of working with RAW images, as described earlier in this thread.

 

I also suspect that some cameras may store fewer pixels in the JPEG when using the digital zoom function since they have simply "zoomed" by cropping the image.

[naughtygoat]

Hi there,

 

While you're at this topic, which I have read, I'd like to ask; with the Nex 6, which I received this morning (sitting lovingly stroking), should I use RAW or jpeg.  I  thought I should use jpeg, being that I am an absolute beginner, and the camera seems to have a lot of options for photoing.  But it seems RAW is generally better.  I'm not a computer whizz either....  I want to start as I mean to go on, unless the less complicated option is better at first.  

 

And, how soon would people advise me to buy Light Room?  (All this not necessarily for stock photography but wanting to learn professional photography).

 

Thanks for your help.

 

Vickie.

[domf]

Thank you To M. Chapman and Spacecadet for your input, I have learnt something today.

[Jill Morgan]

Hi there,

 

While you're at this topic, which I have read, I'd like to ask; with the Nex 6, which I received this morning (sitting lovingly stroking), should I use RAW or jpeg.  I  thought I should use jpeg, being that I am an absolute beginner, and the camera seems to have a lot of options for photoing.  But it seems RAW is generally better.  I'm not a computer whizz either....  I want to start as I mean to go on, unless the less complicated option is better at first.  

 

And, how soon would people advise me to buy Light Room?  (All this not necessarily for stock photography but wanting to learn professional photography).

 

Thanks for your help.

 

Vickie.

:

 

Glad you love your NEX.  

 

If you don't have any post processing software such as Lightroom, Photoshop or ACR or any other, then you have to shoot jpeg.  Or at least RAW and jpeg as you can only submit jpegs to Alamy.  You must convert your RAW file to a jpeg in some form of good software before submitting.

 

I would recommend a good course in digital photography.  It will help you immensely to understand your camera and all the things you can do.  

 

To me post processing is the key part of success and failure of an image.  What software will you be using to check your images at 100%?  I would not recommend simply uploading images without checking or you will find yourself on the fail end of QC quite often.

 

Jill

[naughtygoat]

 

Hi there,

 

While you're at this topic, which I have read, I'd like to ask; with the Nex 6, which I received this morning (sitting lovingly stroking), should I use RAW or jpeg.  I  thought I should use jpeg, being that I am an absolute beginner, and the camera seems to have a lot of options for photoing.  But it seems RAW is generally better.  I'm not a computer whizz either....  I want to start as I mean to go on, unless the less complicated option is better at first.  

 

And, how soon would people advise me to buy Light Room?  (All this not necessarily for stock photography but wanting to learn professional photography).

 

Thanks for your help.

 

Vickie.

:

 

Glad you love your NEX.  

 

If you don't have any post processing software such as Lightroom, Photoshop or ACR or any other, then you have to shoot jpeg.  Or at least RAW and jpeg as you can only submit jpegs to Alamy.  You must convert your RAW file to a jpeg in some form of good software before submitting.

 

I would recommend a good course in digital photography.  It will help you immensely to understand your camera and all the things you can do.  

 

To me post processing is the key part of success and failure of an image.  What software will you be using to check your images at 100%?  I would not recommend simply uploading images without checking or you will find yourself on the fail end of QC quite often.

 

Jill

 

 

Hi again,

 

I am in no rush to submit to Alamy or other.  I know I have so much to learn...    I don't know what software I should be using to check images.  I might be a bit ahead of myself right now.  Stock photography is my goal for the future, so I want to learn accordingly.  Have already bungled my brain with videos and information!

 

Alamy says it welcomes people to try.  I understand good pictures only should be submitted so you have a good rating, but does Alamy penalise lots of QC Fails?  (For future reference).

 

Thanks.  I'll start with jpeg.

 

Vickie.

[John Morrison]

 

 

 

 

does Alamy penalise lots of QC Fails?

 

 

If contributors carry on failing QC, Alamy will eventually cancel the contract...

[naughtygoat]

 

 

does Alamy penalise lots of QC Fails?

 

 

If contributors carry on failing QC, Alamy will eventually cancel the contract...

 

 

o.k.  ta 

[NYCat]

I would suggest RAW plus JPEG even if you start by only using the JPEGs. Some day in the future you may want to do more with an image you like. The RAW will give you more options. Never too soon to start with Lightroom, in my opinion. Catching up with it later can be hard. For now, you might only use it for organization. There are a lot of tutorials online that can help you begin and Scott Kelby's books are good guides. I still find him easier than Martin Evening though I recognize that the Martin Evening books have a lot more information.

 

Paulette

[naughtygoat]

I would suggest RAW plus JPEG even if you start by only using the JPEGs. Some day in the future you may want to do more with an image you like. The RAW will give you more options. Never too soon to start with Lightroom, in my opinion. Catching up with it later can be hard. For now, you might only use it for organization. There are a lot of tutorials online that can help you begin and Scott Kelby's books are good guides. I still find him easier than Martin Evening though I recognize that the Martin Evening books have a lot more information.

 

Paulette

 

Hi,

 

That sounds like good advice.  I think I will want to play around with photos.  I like to photo trees/wildlife and especially flowers, which change not only from season to season but month to month and week to week, so won't be able to repeat the images.

 

I will look into Lighroom and the books suggested.

 

Thanks, my question is answered.

 

Vickie.