RAW or Jpeg?

[Amateur]

For me, shooting JPEG only would be sort of a "One Size Fits All" approach to processing. For example; the camera doesn't know or care what size(s) you will be printing (which should affect your sharpening settings). Ever tried to de-sharpen and image? Ever resampled a heavily sharpened image?

Oly does great WB, the best! but raw is still better yet. the WB issue alone would sell me on RAW.

If you like to work with curves and levels, you can't do much on an 8 bit JPEG before you get banding, RAW gives much more latitude.

We all use the term "POST-processing" but for me it's all one process with different parts based on the objective. I will process an image one way if the purpose is documentation and very differently if the purpose is to invoke a certain mood or feeling.

JPEG is certainly more convenient, if you are just into the shooting part, after the shutter is pressed, that's it. So it seems to me

David

[hartcons]

Originally Posted by Amateur

If you like to work with curves and levels, you can't do much on an 8 bit JPEG before you get banding, RAW gives much more latitude.

I agree about the fact that you get banding but can you see it in the end result? To me it's all theoretical until you let your eyeballs be the judge. If I can see the difference in a finished piece then I'll believe that it matters. Mr. Askey in his reviews talks about things like soft roll-off of highlights (or not) but what does that mean to the final print? Will the average viewer of the piece even notice or care? Likewise with all these folks who shoot endless test charts; what I want to know is what does that mean for my day-to-day shooting since I don't normally find test charts laying around in the wild? Personally I like to spend as little time as possible looking at my images at 100% magnification (I think they look horrible on screen at 100% for whatever reason; much better downsized or printed). Of course it could be that the only way to properly demonstrate some of these things is by sitting around comparing big prints.

It also could be true that some of these technical issues pale in comparison to things like whether you actually shot something that people might find of interest. A popular photo magazine gave an award recently to a blurry photo of seagulls presumably because they liked the moment that had been captured and the overall feel of the piece (but they got blasted by readers who wanted something in focus). At some point I think photography crosses a line over into art where anything goes and it's just whether someone likes it enough to buy it (or give it a prize or whatever).

[J Holmes]

Pretty much RAW only for most of the reasons posted above. I have considered going with JPEG more and may venture into that realm to save some post processing time.

[laingjd]

SHQ JPEG.
Personal Preference.
I see no need for all the tweaking for what I do.
Pros like the RAW.

[J Holmes]

Pretty much RAW only for most of the reasons posted above. *I have considered going with JPEG more and may venture into that realm to save some post processing time.

[hartcons]

Originally Posted by laingjd

Pros like the RAW.

I bet that for folks who make a living at photography (like wedding photographers) a quick workflow is everything. They probably don't have time to agonize over shots or they'll lose money (especially with today's downward pricing pressure). So I'd almost guess that amateurs would have more time for RAW fiddling than some pros. I think if I were a wedding photographer I'd really appreciate a camera that produced great shots most of the time right out of the box (and I know that a lot of wedding photogs do use an e-1) especially if I had to provide some shots to the bride&groom at the end of the ceremony.

We work on a racing web site where the team photographer shoots jpeg because he has to quickly get through a lot of pics and then provide them asap to use for use on the web site. I've read about folks who get into a rhythm with RAW but for me playing with all those different sliders just starts to chew up a lot of time and sometimes it's hard to know when to stop (and sometimes it's hard to see the difference for certain things as well). In some ways I'd almost rather shoot jpeg with WB and/or exposure bracketing (or both) and then just choose one and maybe apply a bit of shadow/highlight filter and USM and be done with it. That said I did spend an entire weekend playing with raw converters recently (I decided that for my e-300 .orfs I liked Master for the colors and Adobe Camera Raw for speed and highlight recovery).

[hartcons]

Originally Posted by th0t

I originally adopted a raw workflow out of necessity. I regularly shoot in a very challenging environment: low light with no flash and multiple dissimilar light sources. There are a lot of shadows in my photos and you can't beat 12-bit raw images for pulling more shadow detail out of your shots. Here's a sample of the kind of shots I take at a typical shoot:

Personally I love images with deep blacks. I also like images with a bit of motion blur. Thus (double thus?) I really like this one!

[Mark Thomas]

The RAW workflow doesn't take that much longer. I don't tweek every button and slider. The thing is, it's there if I need it. Also RAW can be quicker in some circumstances - if your setup has stayed the same you work on one image and apply the settings to all. It is a learning curve but once you've got used to it it comes naturally

Cheers

[J Holmes]

Originally Posted by hartcons

Personally I love images with deep blacks. I also like images with a bit of motion blur. Thus (double thus?) I really like this one!

Hartcons,
What are the in camera settings you use for your JPEG shots?

[Heika Werner]

Originally Posted by th0t

I almost always shoot raw+jpeg with my E-1. With a 4GB CF card, my E-1 can shoot around 344 raw+jpeg shots (I use raw+HQ). The jpegs save me time when I don't have problems to fix and don't need to squeeze every ounce out of a shot. As "hartcons" said, Olympus does a very good job of in-camera processing its jpeg and tiff files. Even if I don't use the raw files right away, I archive them for the future.

Nice picture, thOt.