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Shooting in raw vs jpg

by Simone

Raw vs jpg; that is the question. While there are certainly advantages and disadvantages to both I would always go for raw. Why? I’ll tell you below.

What do you choose; raw vs jpg?

My very first SLR was a Canon AE-1, a fairly advanced camera for its time. And yes, it was still one that used film rolls. When you think about it, the negative/film left over from the roll was actually a RAW file. The developed photo you got back from the print station was today’s JPG.

Why shoot raw?

My very first digital SLR, the Canon Eos 10D, could shoot RAW, but I honestly didn’t see the point. There were so many stories on the internet about the pros and especially the cons of RAW photography (large files, all photos need to be edited). And since JPG worked well for me, I decided to stick with it.

It took me a few years to make the switch to RAW. Now I shoot everything RAW and couldn’t live without it!

raw vs jpg
Canon Eos 5D Mark III. 1/20s at f5.6 at iso 160 (on tripod)

To get the best out of a photo like the pavlova above, a RAW setting is preferable to a JPG setting.

All the information

A RAW file is the raw, uncompressed, most complete file that still contains all the information about your photo. Nothing has happened to it other than the image being captured by the sensor.

A JPG has been ‘processed’ by your camera. Every camera has internal software that can process a RAW file into a JPG. Colours are adjusted, sharpening is applied and the file is compressed to a smaller size. A RAW photo from my camera is easily just under 25MB, a JPG is only 3-4MB (the end number is highly dependent on iso and the scene photographed)

When you talk about image processing, this includes processing a RAW into a JPG. This is because you cannot use a RAW file on its own. Something has to be done to it, to export it as a JPG or TIFF file to use the photo on a website or in a magazine.

When you first start shooting in RAW, you will notice that your photos are suddenly much less clear, sharp and colourful than your JPG files. That’s because you still have to do the editing – previously done by your camera software – yourself.

Camera software

You need software to process a RAW file. All SLRs come with the camera manufacturer’s standard software, but it is not always user-friendly.

I started out using Lightroom for everything but recently switched to Capture One. Both programs have a trial period, so if you’re not sure which one to use, you can test them out. Originally designed for processing RAW files, it is also ideal for managing your photo library or creating collages for your blog, for example. I would say that Lightroom is probably more suitable if you’re just starting out and have no plans to become a professional photographer.

Digital negative

Think of your RAW file as a digital negative and the JPG as the final photo. The biggest advantage is that the possibilities of a RAW file are infinitely greater than those of a JPG. You can process a single photo several times and get a completely different result each time; you can make it a black and white photo, a high contrast photo, a 300 dpi TIFF or a 72 dpi JPG for web use. The RAW data is never lost (unless you overwrite it!).

A JPG file, on the other hand, will deteriorate rapidly every time you edit it. Also, the corrections you can make to a JPG file are limited. You can correct a photo with an overexposed patch in RAW, while the same file is probably hopelessly lost in JPG (see below for an extreme example).

Of course, the disadvantage of a RAW file is that you have to edit each photo before you can use it. The photos themselves are huge, and that costs you storage space, not to mention the extra time it takes to process the RAW files. But the big advantage is that you can do more to make the end result what you want it to be. So for me, shooting in JPG is no longer an option. I am happy to put up with the extra work and storage space. To shoot in RAW, you need an SLR, system camera or compact camera with that capability.

As I mentioned earlier, your raw file is your digital negative, but how does correcting a severely overexposed photo look when you have a raw file compared to the same file as a jpg? For this exercise I shot a ridiculously overexposed photo but in raw and in jpg. Using exactly the same settings.

Correcting the raw file raw vs jpg
Correcting the raw file
Correcting the jpg
Correcting the jpg

Correcting the jpg file

As you can see above, correcting the raw file has many advantages in an extreme situation. Now, the overexposed photo is normally one that would go straight into the bin, but imagine a situation where there are large differences between dark and light areas. Then raw processing is often the only way to get an acceptable photo.

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