Are You Shooting RAW or JPEG?

Are You Shooting RAW or JPEG?

Professional photographer Tony Northrup will show you the difference between a RAW file and a JPEG one.

There is an enormous amount of data in a RAW file but do you need all of that for your photography? There is no right or wrong answer –  we would love to know which one you are using and why. Please share in the comments below!

 

16 comments

Everyone raves about RAW, but when you open it up in your editor, it’s twice as grainy/noisy as JPEG. Then you spend hours tweaking it to get it to the quality of JPEG.

There has to be a better way.

I’m not sure what you mean when you say your pictures turn out grainy from raw files. The raw format shouldn’t have anything to do with picture noise. What is your ISO set at?

Um….hardly lol guessing you don’t exactly have a good camera cuz iv never had that issue….besides raw is the data for the image, not the actual image itself like jpeg. Raw files have much more range in processing than jpeg since jpeg is only 8bit

I use lightroom always…dont care for photoshop much. jpeg is like half the data of a raw file…which is why the files are bigger and you cant take as many photos as compared to shooting in jpeg

Without opening the article I’ll say that jpeg limits range and harder to fix OE on there than it is on RAW. RAW holds more detail, thus making it a little heavier on size. Size tends to be larger on an NEF than it is on a CR2, both being camera RAW, but from 2 different cameras. I use jpeg +RAW to view then edit my images, as well as be able to skip what I don’t like without having to open it.

There isn’t a great deal of difference in image quality between jpeg and RAW on Nikon cameras. Nikon uses little compression to create JPEG files with.

Most people are greatly mistaken into thinking all jpeg files are the same, this just isn’t the case. From these jpeg files you can process the images really well. I find the color in the images doesn’t have a much vibrancy and takes longer to process than the raw file, But in the end I can get images from Raw or Jpeg to look just as good in the end result.

There isn’t a huge file size difference between the Nikon JPEG Fine and RAW so because of this don’t feel a need to shoot JPEG.

You do need to be more concerned with file corruption on a RAW file than a jpeg, especially if you need to recover files. I find jpegs easier to recover.

My Sony camera uses more compression of JPEG files so they are much smaller than the raw images. This introduces artifacts easily into the image and can create problems with retouching.

I still shoot raw for professional jobs, but have considered shooting JPEG only since most images I take don’t need any adjustments at all since I get it right in camera. I just am concerned that if I shoot in JPEG and need to create a large print I will have more to work with.

I recommend any shooter having problems with exposure and white balance to shoot both raw and jpeg. set the camera to shoot 12 bit lossy compressed raw files as they are much smaller than 14 bit uncompressed yet retain almost as much of the quality. There is noting wrong with shooting JPEG though. If you’re a good photographer you will get the best out of a jpeg file.

Ive had dozens of photos published nationally and internationally in major magazines including Playboy, Maxim, FHM, Muscle and Fitness and many others over the 10 years Ive been shooting, and they’ve all been JPEG. Of course Ive experimented with RAW but from my experience, its meant for photographers who don’t know what they are doing in regards to lighting and they need to fix it in post. I prefer to get my photos right when Im shooting, not in post. I typical spend only abut 5 minutes editing a shot. RAW slows down workflow tremendously.

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