Shooting RAW + Jpeg slow down ?

[Nikon Kid]

Shooting RAW + Jpeg does it slow down anything in the Camera ?
should I just be shooting RAW or Jpeg is there any difference in Quality
output ?

Also when I am shooting in av on af centre focus I get the red dot
but no beep it beeps OK in Auto ? BTW Canon 450d


Thanks for any help for this poor novice I will be poor if I buy a 400mm lens

[tdodd]

When you shoot to jpeg there are several settings that are locked into the image file when it is created. Effectively it is the same as setting up your post processing to be performed in the camera. If you want to make adjustments to the jpeg file afterwards then you will lose some IQ.

When you shoot to raw the image data is the data exactly from the sensor, just as the camera saw it. It has not been processed at all within the camera. You can thus freely change the following settings after you've taken the shot, with no loss of quality at all....

- White Balance
- Picture Style
- Sharpening
- Contrast
- Saturation
- If you shoot to monochrome (or change to monochrome PS) you can even change the colour filters applied after you take the shot.

You also have the option to crop, as you like, with no loss of IQ and you can save your final output jpeg at any size and compression/quality you like, again with no loss in IQ.

If you got your exposure wrong you may have more leeway to adjust the tone curve, either to recover blown highlights or enhance shadow detail.

Remember your raw file has 12/14 bits of data describing each sub-pixel of colour data, whereas a jpeg only has 8 bits per channel, so has already dumped a bunch of detail you can never recover, and then lost a bit more through compression on saving. If you edit a jpeg and save it again you lose a little more quality through re-compression. In other words, if you shoot to jpeg and perform any kind of edit at all, even just resizing the image, your quality will be lower than the exact same image prepared from a raw file.

So basically, raw can give you a tremendous advantage if you want to squeeze every last drop of performance from your images, or if you are a bit off your game and need to fix them up afterwards.

If you are able to nail the perfect shot, in camera, and don't like to (or need to) mess with the images afterwards then you'll do OK with jpegs in camera. Personally I always shoot raw.

[Nikon Kid]

When you shoot to jpeg there are several settings that are locked into the image file when it is created. Effectively it is the same as setting up your post processing to be performed in the camera. If you want to make adjustments to the jpeg file afterwards then you will lose some IQ.

When you shoot to raw the image data is the data exactly from the sensor, just as the camera saw it. It has not been processed at all within the camera. You can thus freely change the following settings after you've taken the shot, with no loss of quality at all....

- White Balance
- Picture Style
- Sharpening
- Contrast
- Saturation
- If you shoot to monochrome (or change to monochrome PS) you can even change the colour filters applied after you take the shot.

You also have the option to crop, as you like, with no loss of IQ and you can save your final output jpeg at any size and compression/quality you like, again with no loss in IQ.

If you got your exposure wrong you may have more leeway to adjust the tone curve, either to recover blown highlights or enhance shadow detail.

Remember your raw file has 12/14 bits of data describing each sub-pixel of colour data, whereas a jpeg only has 8 bits per channel, so has already dumped a bunch of detail you can never recover, and then lost a bit more through compression on saving. If you edit a jpeg and save it again you lose a little more quality through re-compression. In other words, if you shoot to jpeg and perform any kind of edit at all, even just resizing the image, your quality will be lower than the exact same image prepared from a raw file.

So basically, raw can give you a tremendous advantage if you want to squeeze every last drop of performance from your images, or if you are a bit off your game and need to fix them up afterwards.

If you are able to nail the perfect shot, in camera, and don't like to (or need to) mess with the images afterwards then you'll do OK with jpegs in camera. Personally I always shoot raw.

Thanks tdodd very well explained its RAW only then for me...

Anyone got idea on the no beep problem ?

[tdodd]

The beep can be disabled through a custom function. A lot of (all?) custom functions are disabled in the basic zone, so the beep will always be there (not in sports mode, I think), whether you want it or not. In Av/Tv/P/M/A-Dep modes the CFn setting will define whether or not the beep is audible. You won't get a beep in AI Servo mode, which is why there is no beep in sports mode.

Since, apart from anything else, you can't shoot to raw in the basic zone, I never use that zone. It's mostly Av or M for me.

[ColD]

When you shoot to jpeg there are several settings that are locked into the image file when it is created. Effectively it is the same as setting up your post processing to be performed in the camera. If you want to make adjustments to the jpeg file afterwards then you will lose some IQ.

When you shoot to raw the image data is the data exactly from the sensor, just as the camera saw it. It has not been processed at all within the camera. You can thus freely change the following settings after you've taken the shot, with no loss of quality at all....

- White Balance
- Picture Style
- Sharpening
- Contrast
- Saturation
- If you shoot to monochrome (or change to monochrome PS) you can even change the colour filters applied after you take the shot.

You also have the option to crop, as you like, with no loss of IQ and you can save your final output jpeg at any size and compression/quality you like, again with no loss in IQ.

If you got your exposure wrong you may have more leeway to adjust the tone curve, either to recover blown highlights or enhance shadow detail.

Remember your raw file has 12/14 bits of data describing each sub-pixel of colour data, whereas a jpeg only has 8 bits per channel, so has already dumped a bunch of detail you can never recover, and then lost a bit more through compression on saving. If you edit a jpeg and save it again you lose a little more quality through re-compression. In other words, if you shoot to jpeg and perform any kind of edit at all, even just resizing the image, your quality will be lower than the exact same image prepared from a raw file.

So basically, raw can give you a tremendous advantage if you want to squeeze every last drop of performance from your images, or if you are a bit off your game and need to fix them up afterwards.

If you are able to nail the perfect shot, in camera, and don't like to (or need to) mess with the images afterwards then you'll do OK with jpegs in camera. Personally I always shoot raw.

NICELY PUT (: :t:
Thanks
Cheers ColD

[Tannin]

Yep, nicely put. Pity it's wrong.

Blanket statement: "If you want to make adjustments to the jpeg file afterwards then you will lose some IQ."

Correct statement: "If you want to make adjustments to the jpeg file afterwards then, depending one which particular adjustments you plan to make, you may or may not lose some IQ."

Blanket statement: Shooting raw you can "freely change the following settings after you've taken the shot, with no loss of quality at all: White Balance, Picture Style, Sharpening, Contrast, Saturation.

Correct statement: "Regardless of whether you shoot raw or JPG, you can freely change the following settings after you've taken the shot, with no loss of quality at all: Picture Style, Sharpening, Contrast, Saturation. Only in the case of white balance is there a major difference: shooting JPG you have to get the white balance right."

Misleading statement: (shooting raw) "you also have the option to crop, as you like, with no loss of IQ and you can save your final output jpeg at any size and compression/quality you like, again with no loss in IQ."

Correct statement: "shooting JPG or raw makes no difference to your ability to crop, select a final output format, size, or compression ratio."

[tdodd]

Yep, nicely put. Pity it's wrong.

Blanket statement: "If you want to make adjustments to the jpeg file afterwards then you will lose some IQ."

Correct statement: "If you want to make adjustments to the jpeg file afterwards then, depending one which particular adjustments you plan to make, you may or may not lose some IQ."

Blanket statement: Shooting raw you can "freely change the following settings after you've taken the shot, with no loss of quality at all: White Balance, Picture Style, Sharpening, Contrast, Saturation.

Correct statement: "Regardless of whether you shoot raw or JPG, you can freely change the following settings after you've taken the shot, with no loss of quality at all: Picture Style, Sharpening, Contrast, Saturation. Only in the case of white balance is there a major difference: shooting JPG you have to get the white balance right."

Misleading statement: (shooting raw) "you also have the option to crop, as you like, with no loss of IQ and you can save your final output jpeg at any size and compression/quality you like, again with no loss in IQ."

Correct statement: "shooting JPG or raw makes no difference to your ability to crop, select a final output format, size, or compression ratio."
Jpeg is a lossy format, through compression, never mind the fact that you've thrown away 6 in every 14 bits of subtle tonal detail on that first save. If you save to jpeg once in the camera you've thrown a ton of information away. If you then edit and save again, unless you save with no compression at all, which is unusual (is it actually possible?), you will throw some more data away. It may not be noticeable but there will be a loss.

Please explain how, if you've saved to jpeg, with in camera sharpening, you can later on edit the jpeg file to undo the sharpening and sharpen by a different amount or in a different way.

Please explain how you change picture style after shooting, if you've already saved to jpeg only. If I supply you a monochrome jpeg could you please edit it to reveal the original colours, perhaps using standard picture style. I'd be ever so grateful. Let me know if you can do that and I'll post such a file here for you.

In camera processing can cause highlight data to become clipped, even if the raw data is not clipped, when you save to jpeg. Once that data has been destroyed by the camera in the jpeg file it is lost forever. Any data thrown away or otherwise destroyed during that first save in the camera can never be accessed again in subsequent edits, so any subsequent edits will be operating on an approximation of what the sensor captured. How can any of those edits that adjust colour or tonal values at the individual pixel level not be inferior in quality? Granted, a simple crop does not alter tonal values, but it still results in a double jpeg save, and hence a double jpeg compression. All other edits muck about with pixel values.

http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/formatsjpeg/a/jpegmythsfacts.htm

[Tannin]

Sorry my friend, still mostly wrong. There is a heap of misinformation about file formats floating around the web. Let's worlk it through, statement by statement and see what's left at the end.

STATEMENT: "JPEG is a lossy format, through compression"

Technically correct but misleading. Yes there is loss. The degree of loss, however, is entirely under user control, as is the number of times one must repeat that loss. All photographers accept it once - yes, even you, as you (presumably) produce a JPG for display purposes. (And if you don't ever look at your images on-screen but print them instead, the printing process loses detail anyway, in a very similar fashion.)

A competent photographer, if using JPG, will use the large/fine setting which retains all of the pixels, and imposes some very small approximations on the colour information - so small that they are impossible to detect without a trained eye and careful A/B comparison. Show two otherwise identical high-res pictures side by side and the vast majority of people cannot tell which was shot raw, which JPG. Show two different high-res pictures to a trained photographer (you, me, whoever you like) and they too generally can't tell the difference.

Loss? Yes. Significant loss? Nearly always not.


STATEMENT: never mind the fact that you've thrown away 6 in every 14 bits of subtle tonal detail on that first save

Incorrect. You have indeed lost some subtle tonal detail, but far less than claimed. The practical bit depth of a correctly exposed raw photograph from a current-generation DSLR is around 10 bits. Refer to http://theory.uchicago.edu/~ejm/pix/20d/tests/noise/noise-p3.html#bitdepth
for some excellent information on why this is so. Net result, you lose two bits out of ten, not 6 out of 14. As noted in my previous point, most people can't actually see that level of change - the human eye is remarkably sensitive to brightness levels and remarkably insensitive to colour variation. This, of course, is why the Joint Photographic Experts Group designed the JPG format as they did.


STATEMENT: If you save to jpeg once in the camera you've thrown a ton of information away.

Gross exaggeration. Assuming an approximately correctly exposed JPG with acceptable white balance, you have thrown away only a tiny bit of useful information, together with a ton of useless data. (See above.)


STATEMENT: If you then edit and save again ... you will throw some more data away.

Flat wrong. We are talking about shooting in JPG. If you want to start a different discussion about in-computer formats for intermediate storage while post-processing, it would be better to do that in a different thread.

The choice of raw or JPG as a shooting format makes no difference at all to your ability to save intermediate results: regardless of which way you shot, you are still free to save intermediates any way you wish. If by the above statement you mean to claim that it is possible to employ a really dumb PP workflow which throws away quality, well, of course it is, and it is equally possible to do this with any input format - be that raw, JPG, or kalafudgian.

QUESTION: Please explain how, if you've saved to jpeg, with in camera sharpening, you can later on edit the jpeg file to undo the sharpening and sharpen by a different amount or in a different way.

If you are silly enough to try to sharpen in-camera, you are up that famous creek without a paddle. It is essential, if you are going to retain control over how your picture will look, that you do not commit yourself to any given sharpening amount or method. Best practice is to avoid sharpening in-camera and always leave it to be done in PP. If you shoot raw, your image is naturally unsharpened ("sharpening" settings on the camera do not alter the image, they simply make a note of sharpening suggestions which the raw converter follows unless you override in PP), but it is a good idea to turn the sharpening down or off because your eye will always be a more reliable judge of the correct amount to add in PP. If you shoot JPG, you should do the same - reduce or eliminate in-camera sharpening - so that you are free to sharpen as much or as little as desired in PP. (Unless, of course, you just want some quick happy snaps for out-of-the-camera use without any PP - not a situation that either of us are talking about, I think.)

QUESTION: Please explain how you change picture style after shooting, if you've already saved to jpeg only.

"Picture styles" are simply combinations of the normal in-camera settings for things like saturation and sharpening. Provided you shoot with sensible initial settings - minimal sharpening, moderate saturation, and so on, picture styles don't provide you with anything you can't do later on in PP - change saturation, adjust levels, sharpen.

QUESTION: If I supply you a monochrome jpeg could you please edit it to reveal the original colours, perhaps using standard picture style. I'd be ever so grateful. Let me know if you can do that and I'll post such a file here for you.

Nice hyperbole. I have actually never been able to see any point in shooting in monochrome on a Bayer sensor digital camera. The sensor itself does not detect monochromatic light, it detects R G and B light in individual dedicated photon wells. So, whichever way you slice it, monochrome output from a Bayer sensor camera (i.e., every digital camera sold today apart from a handful of little-used Sigma Foveon sensor units) is something you add later - after the picture has already been split up into RGB components. If you are going to add stuff later (or take away - same thing in this context) why do it in-camera? Much more sensible to do that stuff in PP where it belongs.

Returning to your original question, it is a simple matter to alter most of the settings collectively known as "picture styles" in PP, provided only that the original settings were reasonable in the first place. The big exception is white balance (which isn't actually part of the picture style collection). You can alter white balance in a JPG using PP, but it is difficult and unless the alteration needed is fairly small, does not usually produce a pleasing result.

STATEMENT: In camera processing can cause highlight data to become clipped, even if the raw data is not clipped.

Correct. Shooting JPG, you have to get the exposure right or close to right. With raw, you can be a bit out and correct it later. Note, however, that this is a difference only of degree, and is not all that large a difference - it is still entirely possible to clip highlight data shooting raw (if you mess things up), and entirely possible to not clip highlights shooting JPG (provided that you get things right).

(Omitted: some tendentious reasoning that I can't be bothered dealing with at the moment. The fundamentals are, in any case, dealt with at some length above.)

STATEMENT: Granted, a simple crop does not alter tonal values, but it still results in a double jpeg save, and hence a double jpeg compression.

Complete nonsense. Again, if you want to talk about choice of appropriate in-computer formats for intermediate storage while post-processing, use a different thread. Dragging that red herring across the trail only confuses people with stuff that is entirely irrelevant to this subject.

[tdodd]

Is raw better (for IQ and editing latitude) than jpeg?

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/understanding-series/u-raw-files.shtml

http://www.bythom.com/qadraw.htm

http://cpn.canon-europe.com/content/technical/raw.do

Is 14 bit raw better (for IQ and editing latitude) than 12 bit raw?

http://www.earthboundlight.com/phototips/nikon-d300-d3-14-bit-versus-12-bit.html

http://www.earthboundlight.com/phototips/14-bit-raw-12-bit-part-two.html

[Tannin]

Errr .... fair go. You expect me to trawl through five whole websites trying to guess which parts of them contain the point you want to make? Which part of which one of them refers specifically to your point? I'm not going to read the whole lot - or re-read, perhaps, several of them are pretty well-known and well-trodden.

There are indeed some good reasons to shoot in raw format. I never object when people point out good, valid reasons for using one or the other, particularly when they are smart enough to recognise that different photographers have different needs and the same answer is seldom right for different questions. I just get anoyed when I see stuff repeated that is out of context, misleading, or simply not true.

By the way, personally I shoot with a foot in both camps: raw + JPG is my standard setting, though I switch to JPG only when I'm doing action stuff and need the extra speed. In practice, I almost never need to resort to the raw file - if I have done things right the JPG produces an excellent result, and if I have stuffed things up the raw, though more rescueable than the JPG, is nevertheless seldom good enough to want to use. Just the same, provided time allows, I shoot raw + JPG anyway, because once in a blue moon I get a nice shot that is spoiled by one of the two or three things that actually can be rescued after the fact if you have the raw file.

By far the least uncommon of these is white balance. Back when I had a 400D, with it's poor control layout (poor in comparison to the midrange and high-spec Canons, I mean) it was very easy to alter the WB by accident and not notice. On the two-wheel bodies (20D, 5D, 1 Series, etc.) it's quite hard to mess the WB up by accident, but you can still do it by brain-fade. (Show me a photographic mistake you can't make by brain-fade!) Once you learn a good manual white balance technique - and it's very simple once you master it - there is no reason why you should get the WB wrong when shooting outdoors. (I can't speak for indoors stuff - have zero interest in it.)

Incorrect exposure is the only other one that, very occassionally, sets me to digging out the raw file - but the error needs to fall within a fairly narrow band: less than a certain amount and there is no need to dig out the raw file as the JPG will come up just fine in PP; more than a not-all-that-much larger amount and it doesn't matter how you PP it is still isn't ever going to be first class.(This, by the way, is why attempting to demonstrate an "advantage" by deliberately shooting massively underexposed test charts is such a waste of time and effort - who cares if a given shot is 91% ruined or 89% ruined? - if it's a bad shot, it's a bad shot, end of story. The correct answer is to get back out there and try to take a decent one.)

Then there are some things that no half-competent photographer should ever do - your example of using inappropriate sharpening settings is a good one - and (touch wood) I have never done them, though I came close the other week when, due to brain-fade, I forgot to complete the first-time setup on one of my 40Ds after getting it back from Canon service with (of course) everything back to the factory defaults. I took my first dozen shots or so with factory pre-set WB, sharpening, and so on before I twigged. No drama: they were only a little bit out, so I was able to use the JPGs anyway, with just a little tweak to the colour balance in Photoshop.

By the way, it is written JPG or JPEG. JPG/JPEG is an acronym and is thus always written using ALL CAPS. As you already know - and congratulations here, lots of people get this wrong - "raw" is not an acronym and is always written in lower case. It's an ordinary English word and there is no more reason to capitalise raw than there is FISH or BANANA. People get that wrong all the time, I have never figured out why. But then, I have never figured out why so many otherwise intelligent people walk around with their heads stuffed full of distortions, exaggerations, and downright untruths about capture file formats either.

[Nikon Kid]

Come on guys, cool it a little no need for a War.
I have plenty of room on my 2 4gb memory so I will shoot on raw.

[JohnZ]

I shoot Jpeg, joke...Tannin !, because I have little, or no, skill at the art of pp`ing. So I cannot imagine what any attempts at resolving the raw issue would yield, to me at least.
I cannot be a***d with workflows and all that it involves although some, on here, will tell me it is simple. Not for me it isn`t !
I am quite happy as I am thank you very much.

[tdodd]

A nice example of one of the benefits of raw here....

http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=70676

[Chris Galvin]

Tannin,

A great thread.

There is a lot of nonsense spouted about the benefits of shooting exclusively raw and disdain dished out for those folks who shoot in JPEG. The inference is that 'serious' photographers use raw and JPEG is for the uneducated. For me it is simple, I shoot using both formats but never raw + JPEG. I use raw when I want a very large file of what might be an important shot and JPEG for everything else. Every single one of my published shots have been submitted as a JPEG including one that was blown up to 8 feet wide for an advertising campaign.

The PP involved when shooting in raw can be a nightmare. I had a trip to India in November last year and shot 12500 images only in raw, I will never make that mistake again. I like to be behind the camera, not permanently behind a keyboard.

raw: for those of us that make a lot of mistakes
JPEG: for theose of us that don't. 8-P

[hollis_f]

The PP involved when shooting in raw can be a nightmare. I had a trip to India in November last year and shot 12500 images only in raw, I will never make that mistake again. I like to be behind the camera, not permanently behind a keyboard.

Most raw procesors can run in batch mode, converting your pics to jpeg using the in-camera settings. You could set your PC up to do all 12500 images overnight. That'll give you the exact equivalent of having shot them all in jpeg mode.

However, you'll still have the raw files for those that will benefit from all the extra processing that is possible.

I really can't see the point of shooting jpeg (alone, or in combination with raw) unless you're a journo who needs to email pics back to base shortly after having shot them.

[Chris Galvin]

[QUOTE=hollis_f;1239084]Most raw procesors can run in batch mode, converting your pics to jpeg using the in-camera settings. You could set your PC up to do all 12500 images overnight. That'll give you the exact equivalent of having shot them all in jpeg mode.

QUOTE]

Never...

I know how to batch process. I can't see the point of converting all raw into JPEG. The supposed point of shooting in raw is to be able eek out that extra performance when required.

[hollis_f]

I know how to batch process. I can't see the point of converting all raw into JPEG. The supposed point of shooting in raw is to be able eek out that extra performance when required.

In your earlier post you'd said that you wouldn't make the mistake of shooting a load of shots in raw again, implying that you would use jpeg only. I was just pointing out that my suggestion gives you the best of both worlds - no need to spend hours at the keyboard but still able to eek out the extra performance when required.

[Jaff]

Shooting RAW + Jpeg does it slow down anything in the Camera ?
should I just be shooting RAW or Jpeg is there any difference in Quality
output ?

Also when I am shooting in av on af centre focus I get the red dot
but no beep it beeps OK in Auto ? BTW Canon 450d


Thanks for any help for this poor novice I will be poor if I buy a 400mm lens

Simple questions require simple answers I say.

Shooting RAW + JPEG simultaneously will slow down your bursts as the buffer will fill up a lot more quickly, you may only get a handful (4 or 5?) before the buffer fills up and you then have to wait until the buffer clears before firing off another burst.

Yes there is a small difference in quality between shooting RAW and Large JPEGS set at FINE, RAW obviously being the winner.

Oh and you're better off without the beep thing, it can really get annoying. Me thinks you need a name change though. ;)

[Clive Watson]

By the way, it is written JPG or JPEG. JPG/JPEG is an acronym and is thus always written using ALL CAPS. As you already know - and congratulations here, lots of people get this wrong - "raw" is not an acronym and is always written in lower case. It's an ordinary English word and there is no more reason to capitalise raw than there is FISH or BANANA. People get that wrong all the time, I have never figured out why.

I didn't know this. In defence of my ignorance, however, it might be worth pointing out that it is written as RAW in the 40D operating manual and in the camera menus.

[Nikon Kid]

I didn't know this. In defence of my ignorance, however, it might be worth pointing out that it is written as RAW in the 40D operating manual and in the camera menus.

It just does not matter how its written if you understand what it means
then its a winner..... I did hate english lessons 50 years ago so Mr or Mrs Tannin
please back off.....

[Tannin]

its a winner..... I did hate english lessons 50 years ago

Yes, not too difficult to see that, Mr or Mrs Terry. Perhaps you could try tact lessons instead.

[Nikon Kid]

Yes, not too difficult to see that, Mr or Mrs Terry. Perhaps you could try tact lessons instead.

I think you should look through your posts and then look at the meaning
of the word TACT you might find that you need some.

Should I say "touché'" or in my bad English "Toshay"

Dear Mr Moderator please feel free to end this post.....