Canon Raw files and Photoshop 8.0

On Jul 2, 8:55 pm, Pat wrote:
[snip]
Archivally, I have some reservations about the proprietary RAW
formats. Just due to volume, JPG is here to stay. But some of the
RAW formats will go the way of the PIC format and such. Eventually,
there will probaby be a standard RAW format so that issue will go away
in time.

I've used DNG for years. That is well supported and here to stay.

As for the person who asked "why shoot jpg". Well if they can't
figure it out, they should go and do so. RAW is not the answer to all
questions all of the time -- and neither is JPG.

I can figure it out. (As I said elsewhere, I shot 115 JPEGs in
February because there was a good reason to).

I posed the question to challenge the typical way many people discuss
this in forums, which is "why shoot raw?" In an era when specialist
tools were used, and there were all sorts of discussions about the
nature of white balance and other technical stuff, it did appear that
the default should be to shoot JPEG unless there was a good reason not
to, and the photographer had the relevant tools and skills.

But we are now seeing tools like Aperture and Lightroom and others
which pretty well hide the differences between processing raw and
JPEGs, (except for the extra flexibility and quality available from
raw). And raw is easier in-camera, because there are fewer settings to
get wrong. (I'm assuming that the extra size can be handled - for some
photographers, this would be another good reason to shoot JPEG).

I think it would be good for this alternative way of thinking about
the raw versus JPEG question to become more common. And as tools
improve, I think this will happen. After all - in fact we ALL shoot
raw! What we are talking about is whether the raw converter is in the
camera or on a separate computer.

--
Barry Pearson
http://www.barrypearson.co.uk/photography/

On Jul 3, 6:05 pm, Barry Pearson
wrote:

I've used DNG for years without problems, so have others. Even if I
didn't use CS3 and Lightroom, that would not be a problem for me. I
don't know why you are having problems.

That's great, except you threw the question out there for others to
answer. The fact you are happy with your point of view is taken as a
given. Expanding on why you are happy with it is somewhat redundant.
You asked why others might choose to shoot jpeg, and I simply gave you
a situation that has lead to me choosing that path.

I don't give it out as a one size fits all answer, or the ultimate
truth or anything like that. It is simply an answer to the question
you asked. Whether I ever do find a solution or not is also kinda
beside the point, because the process of getting RAW to work has been
more complex than it needs to be...

The perception has grown that shooting raw is hard, or needs special
tools, or is perhaps only useful for special occasions, etc. But with
modern workflow tools, like Aperture and Lightroom and probably
others, the difference between shooting raw and shooting JPEG becomes
minimal - except for the easier taking of raw photographs, and for
post-processing the extra flexibility, and often quality, available
with raw.

Well I'd argue that Lightroom and/or aperture /are/ special tools, but
I admit that's just niggling details

I believe this trend towards making raw at least as easy as JPEG will
continue.

I agree. DNG is a big step towards this, and I would love to see that
day when one uniform standard for RAW means widespread acceptance.
Until then though, working with RAW can sometimes provide the odd
speedbump

Ray

And lo, Pat emerged from the ether
and spake thus:
On Jul 2, 3:45 pm, John McWilliams wrote:
Pat wrote:
On Jul 2, 2:37 pm, Barry Pearson
wrote:
On Jul 2, 2:35 pm, Pat wrote

I use Lightroom because it is a tool designed to handle 100s of images
at a time. Whether they are raw or JPEG (or TIFFs from a scanner).

The major tools that some of use are not dictated by whether we shoot
raw. They are based on the nature of modern, in particular digital
photography, especially the ease of taking LOTS of images, and trying
out lots of things. But, once we have the tools, they make shooting
raw EASIER than shooting JPEG.

For people with the tools that take advantage of the nature of digital
photography, (whether raw or JPEG), the question is "why shoot JPEG?"

Sorry. There are plenty of good questions out there, but that is not
one of them.

Other than the expense of it all, Pat, what axe do you have to grind vs.
the RAW format?

--
john mcwilliams

I have no ax to grind. I think it's a useful format for some things
and not very useful for others. It is a tool. Just like no lens is
perfect for all circumstances, neither RAW nor JPEG are right under
all circumstances. There are very few times in photography when
"always" or "never" are the right answer. There are too many
misinformed zealots in both (RAW and JPEGP) camps.

I do find it funny, though, when people discuss shooting RAW through a
P&S. Whatever floats your boat, but that's sort of like putting a
racecar motor on a skateboard. Hey, but if it works for you....

Archivally, I have some reservations about the proprietary RAW
formats. Just due to volume, JPG is here to stay. But some of the
RAW formats will go the way of the PIC format and such. Eventually,
there will probaby be a standard RAW format so that issue will go away
in time.

As for the person who asked "why shoot jpg". Well if they can't
figure it out, they should go and do so. RAW is not the answer to all
questions all of the time -- and neither is JPG.

"Always" and "never" are strong words.

That said, I recently received a purchase request from an old and dear
friend of the family who happened to have seen some of my photos from
Chicago and took a liking to one. Back in those days (a few years
ago), I had shot entirely in JPEG with my 10D. I thought it deserved
to be re-edited to meet the more exacting standards I have today.

Having imported all the photos into Lightroom when I bought it, I went
back to the original JPEG and tossed it into the Develop module. Using
the techniques I've been learning with my Yosemite and Santa Cruz, CA
photos, I attempted to convert to grayscale and make some channel
adjustments to darken the sky.

The sky almost immediately posterized in a very ugly way. I wasn't
able to get much latitude out of it at all and eventually gave up and
decided that my previous edit (the one made right after that trip) was
the best it could be.

At that moment, whatever misgivings I might have had about RAW, about
disk storage costs, about processing speed, and so on, were completely
dissolved. With my RAW images I have been able to get enormous amounts
of channel latitude when converting to grayscale and that just isn't
the case with JPEG. I'm completely sold.

--
Aaron
http://www.fisheyegallery.com
http://www.singleservingphoto.com

(Not sure who wrote this originally, but quoting from Aaron)

Archivally, I have some reservations about the proprietary RAW
formats. Just due to volume, JPG is here to stay. But some of the
RAW formats will go the way of the PIC format and such. Eventually,
there will probaby be a standard RAW format so that issue will go away
in time.

I'm not really qualified to comment on other aspects of the JPEG/RAW
debate, but I just thought I'd chime in regarding archiving:

Although I use Aperture to actually do my day-to-day workflow and
processing, whenever I archive RAW files, I always toss a copy of the
source code to the "dcraw" program onto the CD
(http://www.cybercom.net/~dcoffin/dcraw/). It's very small, less than
1000 lines, written entirely in ANSI C, and is platform- and
architecture-agnostic. It decodes the majority of camera RAW file
formats in use today (not scanner RAW though, cameras only).

It's what I call "bomb shelter software." Assuming you can read the
media you've stored your pictures on, and can still find a C compiler,
you don't have to worry too much about whether Apple or Adobe decide to
maintain backwards-compatibility to long-dead file formats.

Anyway, I think there's a place for both RAW and JPEG, but I feel a lot
better archiving my RAW files knowing that I'm not dependent on the
future success of the camera manufacturer or a software company to read
them again.

-Kadin

On Jul 2, 3:45 pm, John McWilliams wrote:
Pat wrote:
On Jul 2, 2:37 pm, Barry Pearson
wrote:
On Jul 2, 2:35 pm, Pat wrote

I use Lightroom because it is a tool designed to handle 100s of images
at a time. Whether they are raw or JPEG (or TIFFs from a scanner).

The major tools that some of use are not dictated by whether we shoot
raw. They are based on the nature of modern, in particular digital
photography, especially the ease of taking LOTS of images, and trying
out lots of things. But, once we have the tools, they make shooting
raw EASIER than shooting JPEG.

For people with the tools that take advantage of the nature of digital
photography, (whether raw or JPEG), the question is "why shoot JPEG?"

Sorry. There are plenty of good questions out there, but that is not
one of them.

Other than the expense of it all, Pat, what axe do you have to grind vs.
the RAW format?

--
john mcwilliams

John, actually I want to modify my answer a bit, if you don't mind.

I want to add that I don't have an ax to grind re RAW or JPG, but I am
sort of sick of having it an weekly topic. Everyone has their
position, few are going to change, and it seems that NOBODY checks the
archives before they ask a question. In reality, if the person had
just checked the archives, he would have gotten 50,000 answers to his
question -- and have gotten the answers instantly.

People who have a problem or want someone to critique (or just show
off) a website; that's what keep the NG interesting. But asking the
same question as someone asked yesterday, well.......

Okay, I am officially done ranting.

Aaron wrote:
And lo, Pat emerged from the ether
and spake thus:
On Jul 2, 3:45 pm, John McWilliams wrote:
Pat wrote:
On Jul 2, 2:37 pm, Barry Pearson
wrote:
On Jul 2, 2:35 pm, Pat wrote

That said, I recently received a purchase request from an old and dear
friend of the family who happened to have seen some of my photos from
Chicago and took a liking to one. Back in those days (a few years
ago), I had shot entirely in JPEG with my 10D. I thought it deserved
to be re-edited to meet the more exacting standards I have today.

Having imported all the photos into Lightroom when I bought it, I went
back to the original JPEG and tossed it into the Develop module. Using
the techniques I've been learning with my Yosemite and Santa Cruz, CA
photos, I attempted to convert to grayscale and make some channel
adjustments to darken the sky.

The sky almost immediately posterized in a very ugly way. I wasn't
able to get much latitude out of it at all and eventually gave up and
decided that my previous edit (the one made right after that trip) was
the best it could be.

At that moment, whatever misgivings I might have had about RAW, about
disk storage costs, about processing speed, and so on, were completely
dissolved. With my RAW images I have been able to get enormous amounts
of channel latitude when converting to grayscale and that just isn't
the case with JPEG. I'm completely sold.

An important question is what degree of compression there was in the
original jpeg. The effect you mention can also be seen when comparing
the difference between a large low-compression jpeg and a smaller more
compressed jpeg of the same image, even when you can't see any
difference between them at the highest resolution of examination.
There's just a lot more latitude flexibility left in the bigger jpeg
when you start editing.

I note that in cameras which produce jpeg output there's often setings
which change the degree of processing and compression, and different
cameras differ quite a bit in the least amount of jpeg compression and
processing you can get out of them. In other words, you might need to
go to RAW for something in one camera, which you wouldn't need to in
another camera which let you turn off more processing and compression.

--
Chris Malcolm DoD #205
IPAB, Informatics, JCMB, King's Buildings, Edinburgh, EH9 3JZ, UK
[http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/homes/cam/]

And lo, Chris Malcolm emerged from the ether
and spake thus:
Aaron wrote:
And lo, Pat emerged from the ether
and spake thus:
On Jul 2, 3:45 pm, John McWilliams wrote:
Pat wrote:
On Jul 2, 2:37 pm, Barry Pearson
wrote:
On Jul 2, 2:35 pm, Pat wrote

That said, I recently received a purchase request from an old and dear
friend of the family who happened to have seen some of my photos from
Chicago and took a liking to one. Back in those days (a few years
ago), I had shot entirely in JPEG with my 10D. I thought it deserved
to be re-edited to meet the more exacting standards I have today.

Having imported all the photos into Lightroom when I bought it, I went
back to the original JPEG and tossed it into the Develop module. Using
the techniques I've been learning with my Yosemite and Santa Cruz, CA
photos, I attempted to convert to grayscale and make some channel
adjustments to darken the sky.

The sky almost immediately posterized in a very ugly way. I wasn't
able to get much latitude out of it at all and eventually gave up and
decided that my previous edit (the one made right after that trip) was
the best it could be.

At that moment, whatever misgivings I might have had about RAW, about
disk storage costs, about processing speed, and so on, were completely
dissolved. With my RAW images I have been able to get enormous amounts
of channel latitude when converting to grayscale and that just isn't
the case with JPEG. I'm completely sold.

An important question is what degree of compression there was in the
original jpeg. The effect you mention can also be seen when comparing
the difference between a large low-compression jpeg and a smaller more
compressed jpeg of the same image, even when you can't see any
difference between them at the highest resolution of examination.
There's just a lot more latitude flexibility left in the bigger jpeg
when you start editing.

I note that in cameras which produce jpeg output there's often setings
which change the degree of processing and compression, and different
cameras differ quite a bit in the least amount of jpeg compression and
processing you can get out of them. In other words, you might need to
go to RAW for something in one camera, which you wouldn't need to in
another camera which let you turn off more processing and compression.

That's definitely true. I always had my 10D set to "large" JPEG, which
has the least compression and best quality. Still, its limitations
when compared to RAW, in this particular instance, became staggeringly
clear.

I am willing to deal with my 5-year-old computer's sluggish RAW
processing to be able to do the kinds of tone adjustments RAW permits
without much banding at all.

--
Aaron
http://www.fisheyegallery.com
http://www.singleservingphoto.com