JPG vs RAW
Posted: Tue 8 August, 2006 Filed under: Geeky, Getting Organised, Photography 5 Comments »In a post I wrote last week, Richard asked me a question.
Do you shoot JPG or RAW images. I understand that RAW images need more post-processing on your computer, but are there quality gains to be made by doing that?
Way back in November ’05 I wrote a bit about image manipulation, JPG, and RAW and basically said that at that time I was still using JPG rather than RAW.
And to be honest, that situation still hasn’t changed. I still shoot in fine JPG rather than RAW – and I’m probably going to attract howls of derision from other photographers now for saying so. But I just can’t get into RAW. I know it gives me a greater flxibility, a greater range of data and image information, and can allow me to do a lot more, and resurrect data from blown-out areas of a photo. All of which JPG just can’t do – you take the photo, and really that’s it (well, unless you want to spend a lifetime in Photoshop® doing image cloning, airbrushing, resampling, and all that bollocks)
It’s the workflow with RAW that I just can’t be bothered with, I suppose. And maybe that’ll change once I’ve done a set of photos and had them all fucked-up and blown out without the details I want. But so far – and we’re talking about five years of photos here – that hasn’t happened. Yeah, there’re a couple of images where I would like some more data, and where sections have blown out because of light/white conditions. But those sections are small, and it’s only when I’m looking at entering those images for a competition or something that it becomes an annoyance. And even then the annoyance is a minor one.
If I were taking shots of an important event – a wedding, for example – then I’d probably move over to shooting RAW + JPG, to make sure I’d got a backup for a one-off event. For the normal stuff I do, I’m quite happy to just keep using Fine JPG at the moment.
Maybe as time goes on I’ll get to a point where I do need to use RAW. I hope I’ll be able to identify when that time comes, and then I’ll probably also invest in some decent software to handle/edit RAW files, rather than just Photoshop (Sorry, Gordon, I just can’t get into Picasa at the moment either) but for now, JPG suits my needs just fine.
WHOA NELLY!!
I am not, for a minute, suggesting that you use Picasa to edit photos. It’s a library app mainly. Yes it has some good, quick n dirty clean up tools, but I primarily use it for storing photos. It’s given me the same freedom I ‘discovered’ when I switched to using iTunes. I no longer care WHERE the photos, or what the filenames are, because they are all ‘in’ Picasa.
But yes, I’ve taken some RAW photos (with my wee 3MB Canon) and I too can’t be bothered with all the workflow involved. Too much hassle. But then if it was an important enough event I MIGHT be tempted… but I still doubt it.
Don’t even get me started on fucking iTunes…
Piece of shit.
What the hell do you DO to software? I’ve had iTunes running for… what.. 3 years, maybe longer, with… er… NO issues at all.
Hmmm I’m beginning to think.. PEBCAK
I use Picasa to keep track of my photos, same as Gordon, *but* I have to maintain a strict file structure on the hard disk, because otherwise regularly backing up my precious digital pics would be a right pain.
Now if Picasa integrated a true automated backup [onto DVD or FTP into webspace], that’d be just lovely. Anyone know of something that already does this painlessly?
Yeah David, I too tell Picasa where to put the files, but as they are all under ‘yearly’ folders (a legacy issue I may add) I just backup those folders and everything underneath.